Freedom Stationery is a well-respected leader in the stationery manufacturing industry in South Africa, offering a diverse range of stationery items across the schooling, office, and household environments. Established in 1987 in Isithebe, KZN, the company has grown to 6 full-fledged branches with a country-wide distribution.
Freedom Stationery chose to implement DATASCOPE WMS earlier this year, with the go-live in mid-August 2016. The implementation was to be handled in two phases, with phase one covering the 18,000 square meter distribution center in Mount Edgecombe (KZN), as well as the 10,000 square meter distribution center in Midrand, just around the corner from the DATASCOPE Midrand branch. Freedom Stationery’s phase one was DATASCOPE’s first simultaneous go-live across two different DC’s in two different provinces.
PREPARING FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION
As with any DATASCOPE implementation project, many hours were spent in preparing and planning for the implementation, which resulted in a successful go-live at both DC’s in the week of 15 August. Dedicated teams from both Freedom Stationery and DATASCOPE ensured that the implementation in both DC’s was as smooth and non-disruptive as possible. Freedom Stationery’s implementation has resulted in the use of some important software developments for DATASCOPE WMS, which include:
- The ability to scan any barcode linked to a stock code during scanner-based picking and checkout. This alternate stock code matrix is maintained within DATASCOPE’s Alternate Stock Code module and allows customers who have the pre-labeled product to be able to scan these labels instead of re-labeling.
- Pickers and checkers can now also pick and checkout in different units of measure for the same stock code, based on this Alternate Stock Code setup. This adds great flexibility to the operational efficiencies within both the warehouse and the dispatch areas for our customers.
- The WMS Auto Reservation Rule 13 logic has also been enhanced to now reserve in factors of the SYSPRO sales order unit of measure. This change ensures that the sales order UOM is not compromised during picking, resulting in broken packs/boxes in bulk locations.
A new scanner-based checkout screen now allows the checkout operators to scan any barcode which is linked to the stock codes in any order, effectively making the scanner operate similarly to a supermarket checkout till. This will speed up the checkout process dramatically, thus ensuring Freedom Stationery’s customers receive their invoices without any checkout delays.
We look forward to a long-lasting relationship with Freedom Stationery into the future, and we wish them all the best as they enter their silly season with Back To School orders!