Processing Parts Orders

Parts orders are labor intensive. With over 15,000 unique parts in stock at any moment, finding those parts to fill orders can easily be a full time job for 8 people. We were at that point once. Now, we utilize technology and machinery to process more orders in less time with fewer people. (We moved them to packing boxes and applying labels. No employees were let go in the name of technology.)

So what's the answer to increasing speed and accuracy in filling our customers orders of replacement parts?

Horizontal Carousels

Horizontal carousels sound like they belong in a carnival to me. But rest assured, they're very at home in our warehouse. You can see a picture of them being set up to the right (our old warehouse - the new one has much higher ceilings). They occupy a section of warehouse 56 feet wide by 70 feet long, have a lift platform at one end and large motors that turn the entire assembly (there are 4 carousels pictured) to bring parts to our order fulfillment crew. I might also mention that they stand about 14 feet tall. The result is that our employees don't have to go look for a part, the part comes to them and lights tells them how many of which one they need to grab. Add in some verification scanning to the actual products and it becomes tough to make an error in filling an order.

More Carousels

Seeing how efficient these carousels are, we have an option on more of them later this year. It's our belief that small tools, batteries, chargers and even small boxes of nails and staples would be incredibly fast to pull if we put them all on carousels. Adding four more won't be hard - our software already supports as many as we want with however many PC's we want attached, so if we need 4 people pulling from 8 carousels, we're covered. The end result of this should be something just short of amazing. We should be able to fill 400 - 500 orders per shift for each person on the carousel. Add in some pre-sorting and a few more goodies and we'll get those orders out the door almost before you finish pressing the confirm button. Maybe not quite that fast, but there should be very little time between the order being placed and it being in line to be boxed and a freight label attached.

All In The Name Of...

These carousels are far from inexpensive, but we feel our customers are worth it. We've done it all in the name of customer service. There is no way that we could run like a normal repair center with parts thrown all over and expect to fill orders in a timely fashion. But our customers are worth the effort to get parts to them quickly and accurately. Ideally, the parts won't ever break again and we won't have any repeat customers. But realistically, the next time a tool breaks we'll be there, ready to ship your parts order faster than ever.