With the Datalogic Memor, Wunderwear always knows the exact number of varieties, sizes and colors of its lingerie, allowing the company to offer its customers the products they want in the correct quantities.
Wunderwear is a chain with 10 stores that offers a wide selection of lingerie and stockings, nightwear, and swimwear . Their wide selection together with good professional counselling is the foundation of the company. Back in 2000, the owners Wunderwear realized that they should use a tool to take inventory in the stores. It should save time and ensure a more exact registration of inventory in their systems.
At that time, the store invested in a solution with the Formula Wizard (Delfi Cap 72) mobile computer and Delfi Basic software. Every product was scanned to ensure that the correct varieties, sizes and colors all got registered. It took no longer than a simple inventory when using this mobile computer.
Wunderwear was very satisfied with the Cap 72 (Formula Wizard) solution. However, the one disadvantage has been that the terminals memories had to be emptied during inventory because the number of scans exceeded the memory limits in the mobile computer.
Solution Upgrade
At the beginning of 2008, eight years after the introduction of the first system, Wunderwear chose to upgrade to a newer technology. In fact, technology in the new handheld devices has improved considerably since the year 2000. This is shown with both a better reading function and a larger capacity in the handheld terminal.
Practically speaking, this means that an even greater number of barcodes can be read in one batch, even if the barcode is damaged, and that the employees at Wunderwear no longer need to empty the terminals memory during inventory.
For the new solution, Wunderwear chose the Datalogic Memor mobile computer together with the newest software for handheld terminals from Delfi Technologies A/S; Delfi COM Basic and Delfi COM Server, their communication software.
Taking Annual Inventory
Annual inventory has been improved centrally . A timetable is worked out for every store and the handheld terminals are made ready. Then, it is time for the staff at every store to ensure that all goods are unpacked and price marked. Wunderwear takes inventory one store at a time.
On the actual inventory day, the staff starts at 8 oclock in the morning with a ten minute introduction to the process. By 10 am, everything has been counted and the store is ready to open. During the day, data is uploaded and checklists are prepared for the following day at 8 pm when the auditor turns up to go through a spot check control. In this way, sales are not affected or obstructed by our completing the annual inventory, says IT-responsible and part owner Peter Hyer.
Result of the Upgrade
Now, it takes one store approximately four hours to complete the inventory process, including preparation time. Compared with the previous solution, this represents a time savings of at least 25%. With ten stores and seven people working at each, this provides a total of 70 hours saved.
New Challenges
At Wunderwear, both the staff and leadership agree that mobile computers are a great tool. In addition, the company has decided to extend its use of these devices to daily goods relocation between stores and inventories on seasonal goods, such as swimming items.
A mobile computing solution is an absolute necessity to run a specialty store in Denmark today, says Peter Hyer. He continues, We have to know the exact number of variants, sizes and colors to give the customers the service a specialty store lives on.
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