The world’s largest supplier of office supplies, Staples, promises to make buying office supplies easy and only deliver complete orders. The LeanwareWMS helps deliver customer promises both in brick and mortar and online stores.
LeanwareWMS guides and improves operations at the Staples Finland logistics center in Tuusula. The central warehouse serves 7 stores, in addition to which it delivers office supplies directly to work places, either through the webshop or through a refill service.
“After changing to LeanwareWMS, our picking efficiency has doubled and our warehouse staff has halved without having to compromise our customer promise,” says Staples’ Head Of Logistics Jorma Hållfast.
At receivals, the employee tells the system the contents of the warehouse unit and signs it off for automatic handling. Shelving in dynamic warehouse locations is done by the system and an automatic crane, while the employee is free to move on to the next task.
Picking is done using the goods-to-man principle. Automation brings the items to be picked from the shelf to the picking point, where an employee does the actual picking. Orders are delivered during the next day.
“Using several picking strategies minimizes picking costs.” An efficient combination process shortens the amount of time used for packing and ensures that costs stay down.
Previously, different orders of the same customer all left as separate deliveries. Now the system combines orders automatically, which means smaller logistical costs and better service for the end customer.
“A highly automated supply chain requires a sophisticated system for improving and guiding operations. Leanware has proven to be a good partner as our operations continually develop,” Hållfast says.
Staples Finland Oy is part of the world’s largest supplier of office supplies, Staples. The company has 7 stores in Finland in addition to which office supplies are delivered through the webshop and through a refill service.
