1. OzLINK Customer Success Story
howies “Goes Paperless”
Creating Environmental Awareness, and
Warehouse Efficiency with OzLINK
At a Glance:
howies is an environmentally conscience clothing company based in the UK. For the last thirteen
years this mail order company has been producing clothing made with organic cotton for the active
lifestyle. They first started as a print catalog company encouraging their subscribers to return the
catalogs to be recycled. Today howies pick and pack process is completely paperless. Their "OzLINK creates great efficiency
sales channels include an eCommerce site, and their retail shop located in their hometown of because of the integration with
Cardigan. In addition to driving their eCommerce business, howies sports their gear in cycle
competitions across Europe.
NetSuite. The Oz support staff is
excellent to deal with and their
Industry: eCommerce, Retail Clothing response time is fantastic."
Oz Solutions: OzLINK Mobile
Applications: NetSuite
Key Benefits: -Robin Parsons, Warehouse
 Increase in picking efficiency Manager, howies
 Reduction of order errors by 99.9%
 Better inventory visibility
The Challenge:
Given their growth and success, howies needed a better system to gain control of their inventory.
Their legacy ERP system did not have the flexibility they needed for their dynamically changing
market and growing eCommerce business. Their receiving process was paper based, which
resulted in misplaced inventory and difficulty in fulfilling pending back orders. Furthermore, their
items were not barcoded.
In addition, howies’ picking process was completely manual. The customer service
representatives were printing sales orders and sending them to the warehouse. The warehouse
would then need to sort through the paperwork, creating multiple piles based on single or multiple
item orders, as well as the location of items in the warehouse. Many single item orders were
picked at the same time. However, it required the picker to walk throughout the warehouse, often
going up and down 11 aisles before obtaining the correct item. They could not group multi-order
items together while picking. The path through the warehouse was based on the picker’s memory
of the item’s location, rather than an optimized walking path.
The Solution:
howies decided to invest in NetSuite and OzLINK Mobile to optimize their order management and
warehouse fulfillment processes. The addition of OzLINK Mobile allowed howies to streamline their
picking procedure and connect their warehouse real-time into NetSuite. They implemented
barcode scanning, using the mobile devices to capture PO receipts and perform wireless picking to
improve inventory control. The warehouse employees now process multiple orders picked
together, all which are loaded real-time to OzLINK Mobile. Each order is picked into a tote, placed
on a trolley, and the picker is then guided through the warehouse based on the best walking path.
For example, if the order requires items in aisles 1, 6, and 10, those are the only locations they are
directed to pick from. OzLINK Mobile also validates the item numbers and quantities to reduce
picking errors. This is achieved with barcode scanning, which further accelerates the process.
OzLINK Mobile has made howies' fulfillment process much more efficient by giving users the ability
to:
 Prioritize express orders by loading them to OzLINK Mobile first
 Fill backorders immediately when product becomes available
 Create better visibility and inventory control with real-time communication to NetSuite
 Receive purchase orders wirelessly as inventory is received, eliminating paper and
clerical errors
Robin Parsons, Warehouse Manager, said, "Implementing a new system in to the warehouse was
challenging at first because it was new, and, in general, people fear change. We are now 10 O Z D E VE L OP ME N T , I N C .
months into the new process and my team is hooked because they realize how much easier Phone: 508-366-1969
OzLINK has made it for them to do their jobs. They love OzLINK and I love how efficiently the
warehouse is being run."
sales@ozdevelopment.com
www.ozdevelopment.com