Cosmetics & Fine Fragrance
African Sales Company (ASCO) is the leading distributor in Southern Africa of fine fragrances and related cosmetics in selective distribution. The Head Office and DC are located in Midrand, Johannesburg South Africa with Regional Sales offices in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Windhoek, Namibia, and Gaborone.
ASCO’s core competency requirement for DATASCOPE’s WMS was an efficient receipt, storage and delivery of goods to their retail partners which include Edgars, Truworths, Stuttafords, Perfumeries, Red Squares, Foschini / Markham, Woolworths, and leading Pharmacies.
In 2010 ASCO had been struggling with an unstable bar-coding implementation. Due to DATASCOPE’s long term relationship with ASCO in other areas, we were called in and given a tight 12 week period to implement our solution WMS. The action kicked off with the approval of the final Functional Specification document in the middle of February 2010 and the first pick was completed on 28 April 2010. We had achieved success in 42 working days!
The ASCO implementation was rigidly project managed. Risks, delays, and problems were highlighted and resolved as soon as they were known to ensure minimal disruption to the overall project timeline. The lengthy action list included warehouse relabeling, stock labeling, and configuration of system and warehouse settings, two full stock counts on numerous warehouses (both on-site and off-site warehouses).
Among many other modules, ASCO made use of WMS’s Landed Cost Tracking, Pickface and Offsite stock replenishment, Cycle Counting and Checkout Audit modules. The fit for their business was soon realized, and DATASCOPE received very high accolades from ASCO’s CEO.
The staff at African Sales Company embraced the new software and remarked on its user-friendly interfaces and logical process driven transactions. This was indeed a tremendous success story which the 2010 catchphrase could aptly describe as “Ayoba”
By early 2011 ASCO was given a top supplier award by their biggest customer. What a turn around!
In 2014 ASCO again came to DATASCOPE to look for direction. Their distribution center had become too small and some inefficiencies were creeping back in. Anton Jurgens of DATASCOPE worked with Robert, the business owner to find a suitable solution. Finally, it was agreed that the business would purchase land and build a new greenfield site in Midrand. Anton worked extensively with ASCO in the design of this new facility. Not only was the warehouse going to be large but we agreed to implement a full voice picking and conveyor driven facility. A world-class facility.
This new implementation took place in early 2015 and was a roaring success. Picking efficiency improved dramatically as did most of the warehousing operations. Volumes again went up and ASCO was able to win new brands because of the impressive warehouse. Even in European standards, this warehouse shines out as an example of a highly efficient and automated facility.
