Known for their eclectic array of home goods and décor, Scout Design Studio turned to NetSuite
to improve and scale their business practices. Encouraged by their success with NetSuite’s Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) System, they decided to look for a solution to optimize their supply chain.
“We didn’t have an inventory organization process before RF-SMART. We relied on individual memory
to find items in our facility. This led to frequent lost and misplaced inventory, especially after moving to
a larger warehouse space,” said Nikki Thomas, Scout Design Studio’s Manager of Store Operations.
LEANING ON THE NETSUITE EXPERTS
Prior to their WMS investment, Scout Design Studio was constantly over and understocking inventory, creating confusion and errors. To address these challenges, they leaned on their NetSuite partner to help them find a flexible, cloud-based inventory solution. Limebox, a NetSuite Alliance Partner with offices in Colorado and Texas, leveraged their years of partnership with RF-SMART to address Scout Design Studio’s supply chain needs. Supported by the collective NetSuite and supply chain expertise of the two teams, Scout Design Studio was able to invest in RF-SMART with confidence.
INVENTORY MOVEMENTS
Scout Design Studio has the complex challenge of organizing varying sizes of mixed inventory between multiple locations. They have two brick-and-mortar stores, including a 15,000-square-foot showroom and vintage store. Each physical location has two multiple inventory locations in NetSuite, which resulted in the need for frequent bin transfers. Before RF-SMART, this was a major pain point that caused inaccurate inventory levels in NetSuite and extremely limited visibility.
Now, Nikki‘s team is seeing improvements with RF-SMART’s easy-to-use Transfer Order function. “Transfer Orders have also been a game changer because I can make a plan of what’s moving where,” said Nikki. Transfer Orders allow Nikki’s team to seamlessly transfer inventory between locations, allowing for a more streamlined and dynamic process of picking and fulfilling orders. With inventory transfers going smoothly, the team can now plan where an item will be placed and further organize their inventory proactively. This has helped the team anticipate inventory needs and address them with less stress on the individual user.
PICKING WITH PRECISION
RF-SMART also helped Scout Design Studio refine their picking process. Before RF-SMART, they had to sort through their orders and manually plan picks. “We really needed something to help with picking our orders because we have thousands and thousands of different items,” said Nikki. Being able to navigate their high-volume inventory with only a handheld device was crucial for faster picking times.
With RF-SMART, they now leverage handheld device-driven picking, which has proven to be an easier experience for staff. This improvement has helped them find greater picking speeds and accuracy, from their warehouse to their storefront. “RF-SMART has helped us pick things in a much quicker way. It also helps us find things and keep track of them,” said Nikki. “We’ve improved in our picking times, and it has helped a lot with our fulfillments.”
DATA-DRIVEN SUPPLY CHAIN
Leveraging RF-SMART’s Inventory Reporting Tool has been a game changer for Scout Design Studio’s managers. This RF-SMART tool allows Nikki and her team to review a host of reports that increase visibility and help troubleshoot discrepancies. “I have a meeting with my coworker at the warehouse every week to check our reports. We check the setup bin, our receiving bins, and the Inventory Reporting Tool. All those snapshots really help us, especially with negative inventory,” said Nikki.
This has empowered their team to address issues proactively, rather than reacting once something goes wrong. “One of the things I love about the Inventory Reporting Tool is being able to figure out something is missing now rather than when we need to pick it,” said Nikki. “It gives us an audit trail from receiving.” They are now using this data to improve their labor planning, project expected output, and more.
TRUE INVENTORY VISIBILITY
All these improvements have helped their team increase overall inventory visibility, which has had tangible impacts on their team and supply chain success. This has allowed their team to minimize the risk of overstocking or understocking, as they can make better planning decisions based on their new-found accuracy. “Before RF-SMART, we wouldn’t be able to find an item, so we would remove it from inventory,” said Nikki. This improvement would ultimately limit the number of sales of a given item they could complete and impact the accuracy of their inventory stock levels. “Now, we can figure out where an item is and how it got there.” Because of this, Scout Design Studio has a clear view of what inventory they can sell - avoiding long wait times for buyers while encouraging customer retention and continued business growth.