From 50% to 90% Inventory Accuracy: Mann Lake

6 Locations  |  1,300 Daily Peak Orders  |  12,000 SKUs

Mann Lake, the world's largest supplier of beekeeping and hobby farming equipment, operates manufacturing and distribution centers across six US locations. To manage explosive growth and extreme seasonality, Mann Lake partnered with RF-SMART to digitize inventory, automate shipping, and integrate 24/7 manufacturing with NetSuite.

NS Case Studies - Info Picture - Mann Lake-1

INDUSTRY: Consumer Products

ERP: NetSuite

CHALLENGE

Mann Lake's warehouse operations relied entirely on manual, pen-and-paper processes, leaving them with inventory accuracy below 50%, no real-time bin-level visibility, and annual warehouse shutdowns lasting 3-4 days just to complete a physical count.

RESULTS

After implementing RF-SMART as their WMS and Shipping solution, Mann Lake increased their inventory accuracy by 40%+, eliminated multi-day warehouse shutdowns, and shipped 12% more orders while cutting labor by 10%.

RF-SMART PRODUCTS USED

RF-SMART Shipping
RF-SMART WMS
Material Handling Automation Connector by
RF-SMART

 

40%
Increase Inventory Accuracy

12%
Increase Shipping Transactions

10%
Decrease in Labor

 

"I don't think we were even hitting 50% accuracy pre-RF-SMART.
Now, we are sitting closer to 90%. That is a huge improvement."

Carol Pelkey
Director of Warehouseing @ Mann Lake

The Challenge

Before RF-SMART, Mann Lake’s manual processes created operational bottlenecks that threatened scalability and caused inventory inaccuracies.

Key Issues Included:

  • No Bin-Level Visibility: With hundreds of units of a single item split across multiple bin locations, warehouse staff spent excessive time navigating the warehouse floor to locate product.
  • Inefficient Picking: Paper-based picking led to excessive back-and-forth travel, taking up to two hours to pick just 30 identical orders and even pulling administrative staff onto the warehouse floor during peak seasons.
  • Disruptive Physical Counts: Full inventory count required a complete 3-4 day warehouse shutdown for each year.
  • Fragmented Systems and Manual Data Entry: Separate shipping platforms, no labor metrics, and manual entry of weights and dimensions for 12,000+ SKUs created compounding inefficiencies across operations.

The Solution

To address these challenges, Mann Lake required a solution that was fully native to NetSuite and could scale with their multi-location, high-volume operations. By partnering with RF-SMART for NetSuite, Mann Lake:

  • Replaced paper-based receiving and picking with real-time scanning, feeding live inventory data directly into NetSuite at the bin level.
  • Implemented RF-SMART Pick Planner to automate pick planning, group orders by bin, and direct warehouse employees through the optimal picking path.
  • Adopted RF-SMART Shipping for a single-platform fulfillment experience with a more intuitive interface and responsive support.
  • Automated item weight, dimension, and image capture and upload with RF-SMART's Mobile Dimensioning feature.
  • Enabled real-time manufacturing reporting, giving production managers accurate, real-time visibility.

quote"We got to where we are by providing a good customer experience and having
the best quality product, much like RF-SMART.”
 

The Results

By partnering with RF-SMART, Mann Lake was able to transform their warehouse from a manual, paper-driven operation into a real-time, data-powered fulfillment engine.

With RF-SMART, Mann Lake:

  • Improved inventory accuracy from less than 50% to approximately 90%
  • Increased shipping transactions by 12% while decreasing labor by 10%
  • Captured and processed weight and dimensions for 95% of 12,000 SKUs in just one week.
  • Eliminated annual warehouse shutdowns for physical inventory counts

By unifying their WMS, shipping, and automation tools under one platform, RF-SMART has positioned Mann Lake to continue scaling their operations as they expand to new locations and grow their product catalog.

Read the Full Case Study

 

“We got to where we are by providing a good customer experience and having the best quality product, much like RF-SMART. It’s been a good partnership, and we are looking forward to the continued partnership in the future.”

Read how RF-SMART was able to increase labor productivity, improve accuracy, and scale manufacturing for Mann Lake.

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Download the From 50% to 90% Inventory Accuracy: Mann Lake Case Study

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