Getting The House In Order

The art of collaboration and delivering superior customer service comes in many different sizes, shapes and strategies. For superstore retail chain Beauty Brands, a massive and cutting-edge distribution center was the answer to handle its ambitious growth plan, keep its manufacturing clients happy and also open the lines of collaboration.

But it takes more than a big building to do big business in today's competitive health and beauty industry. That's why Beauty Brands selected a highly configurable client/server warehouse management and control system from Intek Technologies to help run its brand new, behemoth building. The company also yearned to make the transition from a paper-based system to a fully automated one that could support rapid growth. Intek's Warehouse Librarian software served up the flexibility and accuracy Beauty Brands was after with the capability to control receiving, put-away, picking, replenishment and other warehouse operations.
"We chose Warehouse Librarian for its ease of use, straightforward integration and flexibility," says Steve Eckman, vice president corporate development and finance for Beauty Brands. "We nearly tripled our warehouse space, and this system gives us the ability to double our throughput from our new facility."

Dispelling Growth Concerns
With 40 midwest stores offering more than 10,000 hair, nail and skin care and bath and beauty products from more than 75 manufacturers, Beauty Brands also has big plans to add 35 more stores by the end of 2006. Intek will also help Beauty Brands to avoid the typical pains associated with rapid growth, like a sudden deficiency in customer service. The implementation was completed six months ahead of schedule. Beauty Brands sells a lot of merchandise to its franchises so the Intek system also hooks into the company's finance department. "We basically utilize a wholesale entry module but all of the information still needs to flow up through the system correctly," says Eckman. "Users cannot believe how easy it is to use the system." A smart conveyor was also installed. Cases of Beauty Brands merchandise contain barcodes so that everything enters the Intek system no matter where it is coming from, a big benefit in the sorting department.

Labor Of Love
Since Beauty Brands is opening, on average, one store per month, labor concerns are justified. Since deploying the tool, the company has kept its labor budget the same as last year. In fact, the company is under budget, thanks largely in part to the new Intek system. "You can monitor minute by minute the productivity on the floor related to all warehouse activity. You can create any type of reports you want," says Eckman.

Feedback from Beauty Brands customers is also high, many noticing that the company is more efficient in receiving product. Under its prior process the company had to sort entire orders before receiving them. "We can get the product processed faster, it goes into accounting faster, which means we can get the products turned around back to our retail outlets faster and on a more consistent basis," says Eckman.

At the end of the day this higher degree of speed means higher customer satisfaction for Beauty Brands customers. It's a philosophy that opened the company's eyes to other customer-facing initiatives, like EDI, as nearly 70 percent of the companies Beauty brands buys from have EDI capabilities. "This will dramatically streamline the entire process," says Eckman. "That's our next project and it will benefit them as much as it will benefit us."