Kalalou Case Study
Company Size
200-1,000
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- ShipHawk WMS
Tech Stack
- NetSuite
- Real-time dashboards
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Customer Satisfaction
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Retail
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
- Warehouse & Inventory Management
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Warehouse Automation
Services
- System Integration
- Training
About The Customer
Kalalou is a leading designer and supplier of home accents, garden decor, and gifts. For more than 30 years, the company has brought international products to the U.S. market. It is committed to working with recycled/sustainable materials and dedicated to improving the lives of those with whom it works through its Doug and Susan’s Kid Foundation. Kalalou delivers its products via three channels: Wholesale to big home décor companies and brick-and-mortar boutiques & gift shops, Direct-to-consumers via its eCommerce store, At West End, Drop-shipping for D2C customers.
The Challenge
In 2008, Kalalou, like many wholesale companies at the time, was manually receiving and processing inventory with paper-based systems. It needed a better way to allocate inventory and work with back orders and releases. In addition, the company was looking to improve how it dealt with containers with multiple purchase orders, receiving, and to better manage overall warehouse operations, including cube utilization, efficient rack positioning, stock rotation, and inventory placement. The company has four onsite warehouses and one offsite, and routinely maintains approximately 80 trailers of merchandise onsite. Because it has so many yard-based trailers in addition to its main warehouses, the company faced issues with replenishment to and from offsite facilities and yard-based trailers. Manual cycle counting also affected the accuracy of inventory quantities.
The Solution
Since implementing ShipHawk WMS (formerly SuiteWM) in 2009, Kalalou has achieved a wide variety of efficiencies and improved productivity outcomes. As it replaced manual processes with automation, Kalalou now uses handheld wireless devices to effortlessly receive goods against multiple purchase order (PO) advanced shipping notices (ASNs). Using ShipHawk WMS, the company now has visibility into the entire process, meaning they can utilize the real-time data and make decisions throughout the day. Once their inventory is offloaded, the team uses handheld devices for efficient directed-put away to consolidate inventory in storage and maximize cube utilization and placement. Most of Kalalou’s POs aren’t single orders or for single suppliers, so the warehouse team often makes consolidations and being able to track them in the system is instrumental in staying on top of inventory.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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