Warehouse Drone Count

A French headquartered home improvement and gardening retailer serving several countries in Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa. Generally established on the outskirts of major towns and cities, the stores are large centres providing self-service and sales assisted services. 

REQUIREMENT

The DIY retailer chose RGIS to help provide them with the wall-to-wall warehouse count support they needed in order to complete to project within a tight timeframe. The customer’s specific requirements were:

  • Each of the 89,600 pallets had a SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) barcode printed on the pallet
  • All pallets needed to be scanned individually
  • Picking area on the ground had a mix of 18,000 SKUs
  • 16 rooms with seven gondolas, with 800 pallets on each
  • Each location needed to be scanned from a printable location barcode, even if the location was empty

SOLUTION

RGIS worked with the DIY retailer to complete the following:

  • RGIS developed a solution to count all 89,600 pallets within the required timeframe, by utilising drone technology
  • The productivity of the count increased dramatically with the quantity of pieces counted per hour, more than doubled
  • The customer did not need to hire forklifts which they had previously needed for stock counting events
  • The number of RGIS staff required was vastly reduced

RESULTS

By partnering with RGIS, the DIY retailer found the following:

  • The stock count was completed within the required timeframe of five days
  • Cost savings due to no forklift hire required
  • Cost savings due to reduction is staffing numbers required to carry out the count
  • Increased health and safety benefits due to no requirement for staff to work at height, due to the use of drone technology
  • Guaranteed accuracy through independent third party count