Fabric Samples No Longer Run Amok
Client: Fabric Distributer with 27 National Showrooms
Project
A wholesale distributor of fabrics for home décor designers had 27 fabric showrooms across the U.S.A. Our client wanted to automate the process of shipping fabric samples to designers and keep better track of each showroom’s thousands of samples. The client had an automated shipping system in their central warehouse that was provided by UPS to ship 600+ packages each day. The UPS system, however, was not feasible for the showrooms because the showrooms shipped a much smaller volume than the warehouse and UPS only provided such a system to locations that had a substantial shipping volume. The client also needed a better inventory system to keep track of the fabric samples available in each of the showrooms. At the time, the sample inventory numbers were imprecise and often the showroom managers would have to call the warehouse to cut fabric samples and ship from the warehouse directly to the designer. Shipping samples was tedious for everybody involved when this occurred.
Solution
To solve these problems, we integrated Outbound , a stand-alone shipping software package, into the client’s distribution software, InfoFlo. We attached a Symbol Handheld Scanner and a small thermal label printer to a Windows Thin Client situated at each showroom. The showroom staff calls up the designer record on the computer and ships the fabric samples by scanning the label that is adhered to the back of each sample. Once all samples are scanned and the order is complete, the shipping application builds a shipping manifest, generates the UPS tracking number, prints the UPS shipping label, and transmits the manifest to UPS for pick up later that day. At any point in the future the showroom can retrieve exactly what samples were shipped to which designer on what day.
Results
The integration of the Outbound shipping software into the InfoFlo distribution software significantly improved the shipping and inventory tracking of fabric samples. Each showroom now had a record of how many fabric samples they have on hand and how many samples need to be ordered when stock runs low. The overall efficiency of each showroom and the central warehouse has been greatly improved.
