Home goods manufacturer and designer simplehuman has taken management of its warehouse operations in-house, after previously outsourcing to a third-party provider.
The company now operates a new, purpose built 103,000 sq ft warehouse in Thrapston, Northants, which employs around 25 people and receives up to 15 container loads of products and ships around 500 pallets and around 2,000 ecommerce orders each week.
The company, which launched in the UK in 2004, is managing the warehouse with Snapfulfil Cloud WMS from software house Synergy which integrates with simplehuman’s Sage 200 ERP.
The warehouse went live with Snapfulfil in September with the system already driving efficiencies. Simplehuman is shipping 40% more ecommerce orders and expects to reduce headcount in the operation by around 15% within six months.
James Dowdeswell, simplehuman’s (EMEA) director of finance and operations, said: “Unlike many vendors Snapfulfil understand that every business is unique and didn’t try to pigeon-hole us as just another wholesale distributor. Allied to this, Snapfulfil’s rules-based approach to configuration allowed our instance of the system to be closely tailored to our specific operational and reporting requirements,” he said.
The WMS will also be used by simplehuman as part of plans by the company to offer third party warehousing and fulfilment services from its UK warehouse and will also support the opening of a second distribution centre in mainland Europe within the next two to four years.
Image credit: Snapfulfil
