How innovation in warehouse operations set Parts Town up for success

The business is a pioneer in its industry and implemented a warehouse management system to get even further ahead of the game.

Finding an opportunity in the market

Manufacturers were frustrated with declining parts sales, customers wanted better customer service and there was no platform for e-commerce. Parts Town saw this as an opportunity to own the market and proceeded to collect massive amounts of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) inventory.

Investing in tools to optimize your operation and successfully serve customers

Parts Town created a website and then the industry’s first mobile app to facilitate sales. The business became the industry’s largest and fastest growing company, with a 20-30 percent growth rate year over year. With the increase in volume, complexity in the warehouse increased, too. Performance, inflexibility and lack of support presented the biggest challenges.

Adopting innovative technology within the operation

Reaching its limits, the current warehouse management system was not built to support a company growing at this rate.With increasing reliance on labor, human errors and training time increased as well, with the legacy warehouse management system compromising the ability to adapt and scale with growth.

The new warehouse management system would need to be able to scale with their year-over-year growth and improve accuracy as well as speed. An additional requirement was to support operations in a way that they could fulfill all orders before 9pm the same day.

Although Parts Town reviewed multiple warehouse management system providers, the company chose Körber’s K.Motion Warehouse Advantage WMS. Körber distinguished itself by listening to Parts Town’s challenges and matching a solution that could innovate its operations at the needed speed.

Watching the success from the decisions made

Parts Town’s has realized the following key benefits with the implementation of Körber’s WMS:

1. 1. Inventory accuracy improved by over 30 percent
   2. Picking rates increased by over 20 percent
   3. Streamlined training – employees follow instructions on the RF scanner to take the optimal path
   4. Increased job opportunities – Parts Town had built a team around the WMS to customize and oversee its impact on the operation
   5.  

Assisted by Körber’s WMS, Parts Town was able to make the WMS its own by building company-specific business processes into the software. The user-friendly, easy-to-configure program will grow with Parts Town for years to come. To learn more about Parts Town’s WMS project with Körber, download the case study: Adapting to Change - Industry Best Practice.