01/09/08 ColArt - world's biggest supplier of artists' materials - rolls out Autostore
ColArt, the world's leading supplier of artists' materials, has cut its order processing and despatch times by 33% and labour costs by 10% by implementing market-leading warehouse management and control system Autostore. ColArt is famous for its Winsor & Newton, Lefranc & Bourgeois, Reeves and Liquitex brands. It serves both professional and amateur artists plus consumers in the education, craft and hobby markets and accounts for over a third of artists' materials sales made worldwide.
6,000 product lines are distributed through ColArt centres in eight countries, sold via subsidiaries in 14 and bought by millions of consumers in over 120 more. In a strategic review of its supply chain operations, ColArt selected Autostore - the UK's leading enterprise warehouse management and control system (WMCS) developed by logistics software house Central Systems & Automation - to manage its UK distribution hubs.
Richard Woolard, ColArt's operations director, said: "We wanted to make sure that we could turn orders around faster than anyone else. With multiple line factory input and automatic replenishment, we have created a state-of-the-art, automated warehousing operation that future proofs our business. Autostore has enabled us to cut the time it takes to process and despatch orders by a third - turnaround time is now just four hours and this means greater efficiency from our daily delivery schedules."
Concludes Woolard: "As well as faster throughput and fingertip reporting, Autostore has helped us on the macro level - we've been able to cut our labour costs by 10 per cent and this is critical to maintaining competitiveness and improving our bottom line performance."
The company has opted for several Autostore systems and modules, including: warehouse management & control system; crane control system; horizontal carousel (HOCA) control system; conveyor control system; plus the pick to light, put to light and check-weigh modules. ColArt's products range from small and lightweight - like paintbrushes and individual tubes of paint - through to larger, irregularly-shaped products such as pads and easels. For the mission-critical Harrow operation in Middlesex, this meant deploying an advanced and fully automated warehousing system with nine innovative horizontal carousels. Autostore's track record, flexibility, ease-of-use and scalability made it the natural system of choice.
Autostore communicates with and controls ColArt's wide range of mechanical handling equipment (MHE), including a mini-load crane, conveyors, nine HOCAs and several weigh scales. It also integrates seamlessly with ColArt's enterprise business system - MFG/Pro - sharing network drives and high-level management information using Autostore's middleware integration module.The result is a seamlessly integrated, automated warehouse operation that delivers a fast response plus accurate order management and replenishment.
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For more information on this announcement, please email Julian Wright.