Honeywell helps Auto One boost warehouse, in-store productivity

Honeywell has delivered significant warehouse and in-store productivity and accuracy gains for Auto One, decreasing product picking time across its operations by 30%.

Auto One is an independent, member-owned automotive parts and accessory group in Australia, established in 1988. To improve supply chain and retail processes, Auto One recently began a transformation project to upgrade manual and paper-based systems within its distribution centres (DCs) and stores.

“Our legacy warehouse scanners didn’t integrate with our warehouse systems. As a result, order picking was done by printing and scanning packing slips, which was open to inefficiencies,” explained Adam Townsend, Franchise Operations Manager, Auto One. “Stock-take within our stores was also previously very labour intensive and prone to human error due to the manual and paper-based processes.”

To resolve efficiency issues with its legacy systems Auto One worked with integration partner Sonar Technologies to deploy the Honeywell CK65 Mobile Computer across its operations.

“The CK65 system plays a very important role at both our DCs and stores, by systematically listing and locating all Auto One products for order picking and organising inventory,” added Adam. “The CK65 is used to receive orders, put away stock, pick and dispatch purchased orders, and complete DC and in-store inventory stock-take.”

The Honeywell CK65 mobile computer has helped drive efficiencies throughout Auto One’s warehouse and stores.

“By implementing the Honeywell CK65, Auto One has significantly improved picking productivity. The device’s ability to rapidly and accurately read barcodes has allowed staff to pick more orders per day, getting products to customers in a timelier manner.”

Retail processes have been enhanced with the new mobile computers, which improve the speed and accuracy of product stock-takes.

“The use of Honeywell devices across our retail operations has allowed Auto One to reduce stock-take time by 50%. This is compared with the previous legacy system we had in place, which resulted in store closures and after-hours work being required to complete stock-take tasks.”

The integration of the Honeywell CK65 into Auto One’s order picking processes has increased the accuracy of product identification via barcode scanning when compared to the old devices, which would not read poor quality barcodes, requiring staff to enter them manually, which resulted in frequent errors.

“Our warehouse has seen a 35% increase in accuracy in relation to workflows such as order picking, which means we now have an overall picking accuracy of 99%. This is largely due to the CK65’s ability to read damaged or poor-quality barcodes that our old system simply could not. Additionally, the CK65 has delivered warehouse managers complete visibility to oversee all work tasks, which is a big contrast to the lack of coordination and duplicate handling experiences that occurred under the old system.”

The Honeywell CK65 has contributed to large improvements in productivity, with extended battery power lasting up to 48 hours without a recharge. The devices’ long battery life reduces the amount of time staff had previously spent recharging or swapping out old devices and maximised the availability of workers over the course of a shift.

“Speed, accuracy and stability is vital to Auto One’s day-to-day operations,” explained Adam. “Any disruption to this backbone functionality can adversely affect operations, leading to poor customer service. Parts which are ordered by stores must be picked and dispatched in a timely manner to ensure the Auto One customer receives it on time. The Honeywell solution greatly helps in delivering this outcome.”

The Honeywell CK65 has also been integrated with Auto One’s critical B2B portal for its customers and ensures stock availability information inside the portal is updated in real-time, which allows for an enhanced level of supply visibility for customers.