Stock items
45,000
SKU's
2,000
Lines changed
300
West Midlands Metro is a light-rail/tram operator in the county of West Midlands, England. With over 20 trams and more than 23km of track to look after and repair, the warehouse in Birmingham is a very busy depot.
THE CHALLENGE
West Midlands Metro did not have enough internal resources to complete its annual inventory counts. Previous inventories had also been completed using a manual pen-and-paper process, which was time-consuming and inefficient. They approached RGIS for support using RGIS Vision, our technology designed to capture product codes and other identifiers directly from physical stock. RGIS was required to:
- Complete an inventory count of all warehouse items and capture product codes
- Identify variances against expected stock levels
- Provide accurate variance reports
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Why RGIS?
As the customer had previously just used a paper-based inventory process, RGIS introduced them to our revolutionary new scanning tool, RGIS Vision.
Our Solutions
West Midlands Metro partnered with RGIS to complete the warehouse product code inventory project using RGIS Vision, and provided the following:
Scheduled an experienced team of five RGIS Auditors and an Area Manager for the duration of the project
RGIS teams set up tests to scan the part codes with the powerful camera, and worked with their stock file to create a simple checking process for any variance
As the customer’s bin locations had challenging names, the RGIS solution was to use a variance report based on the RGIS ranges used. Ranges were matched to the bin locations, so the customer could still reference any products in the incorrect location
Results
West Midlands Metro found by outsourcing the warehouse product code inventory project to RGIS, the following results were achieved:
Accurately counted over 45,000 stock items and just under 2,000 SKUs
RGIS Vision reports provided the customer with results that showed an accurate variance, which was a huge time saver for them
Our accurate part code recognition software, RGIS Vision, allowed us to verify as we progressed, and then return a file with every line that showed no variance back to the customer
From the final output the customer only had 300 lines that required a manual change on the system, which was another massive time saver for them
The customer found the whole process of moving away from internal staff to a professional company, improved accuracy on the first counts, and efficiency to complete the count within the agreed time frame
The benefits of using RGIS Vision were very evident to the customer as we could track variances as we progressed, which in turn vastly reduced their data input time post count
Based on the positive outcome of the RGIS Vision warehouse inventory project, the customer has awarded RGIS the contract for the following year
Conclusion
CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL
“We had previously used a manual pen and paper process, and this involved using internal staffing such as drivers, and engineers. We wanted to move away from this and contacted RGIS. They showed us their cloud-based program that used a camera on their handsets to capture the part codes and created a excel stock file. This was a massive time saver when we had finished to enter the count data back into our system as they were able to check variances as they progressed and when we finished, we had very little left to adjust on our system. Overall, this has been a huge improvement on our previous process and we will be using RGIS next year.”
Kyle, West Midlands Metro
