OVERVIEW

Gold Crest Distributing, LLC is a wholesale distributor of wild bird and nature products, as well as liquor accessories. They have over 15,000 products being tested and shipped out of various facilities throughout Illinois and Missouri.  Gold Crest maintains steady growth primarily due to their strong values and commitment to excellence. With manual systems and employees working across the country, Gold Crest needed automation and integration. 

“Our warehouse has not always operated with ease,” comments Cody Melton, I.T. Operations Manager at Gold Crest. “I can remember a time when we were manually writing orders at trade shows and navigating the warehouse floor because of all the pallets and clutter.” It was during this season that Gold Crest began to look for a scanning solution.

SCANCO SALES WITH BARCODING AND INTEGRATION CAPABILITIES AN EASY CHOICE

“Scanco was an easy choice,” comments Cody. “I searched online and found two scanning companies. I called both and received immediate service from Scanco. After seeing Scanco’s barcoding solutions and the integration capabilities with our Sage 100 system, I was sold!”

Automating sales was the first problem to solve. “Order taking at trade shows was a tedious, hand-written process, resulting in many repercussions,” comments Cody. “After implementing Scanco Sales, we saw drastic improvements!”

The label printing feature with Scanco Sales, originally thought of as a fringe benefit by Gold Crest, quickly became a high-value automation feature. “It used to take two days to prep our trade show booth, mainly due to manual label generation. With 1,500 SKUs, this was a huge time waster,” comments Cody. “Now, generating product labels is an automated process. We have gone from doing 12 to 30 trade shows each year and with Scanco Sales, we have reduced over 60% of our preparation time for each show—that is a huge savings!”

IMPROVED WAREHOUSE ACCOUNTABILITY

Warehouse accountability was another area that Gold Crest wanted to improve. “The warehouse was a mess. We were losing items, and something needed to change,” comments Cody. “We decided to implement the next applications, Scanco Warehouse and Multi-Bin which was one of the best decisions we made!”

Tracking inventory up on the top shelves of the warehouse racks was another challenge for Gold Crest. “Our company was growing which caused the warehouse to expand from 80k square feet to 120k square feet. At best, we tracked inventory by writing on the side of each pallet—it was near insanity,” comments Cody. “With Multi-Bin and its integration with Sage 100, inventory is scanned and tracked all from a mobile device. Finding product and making transfers is easy and automated thanks to the mobility of these applications.”

NECK EXERCISING A THING OF THE PAST

Neck exercising was the name given to the unwanted task in the Gold Crest warehouse. “Our team used to walk the aisles all day long, moving their necks back and forth from the clipboard to the racks to search for items,” comments Cody. “With Scanco Warehouse and Multi-Bin, we know what we have all the time. We can trust our data too which directly speaks to our core values and allows us to deliver better service overall.”

Having 300-400 pallets on the Gold Crest warehouse floor wasn’t uncommon. “With new growth comes more product and the receiving team didn’t have time to keep up,” comments Cody. “Scanco Warehouse and Multi-Bin reduced our pallets clutter by over 75% and cleaned up our aisles! The residual benefit of this is that we decreased pull times—cleaner aisles mean easier pulls. I guess you could say this solution is the gift that keeps on giving.”

SCANCO WAREHOUSE AND MULTI-BIN INTEGRATED WITH SAGE 100 PROVIDE RELIABLE BENEFITS

Receiving was another area where Gold Crest saw improvement. No longer did they have to dig through boxes to find the original purchase order to read the hand-written notes to research issues. Scanco Warehouse and Multi-Bin integrated with Sage 100 took all the written data and made it digital. Cody comments, “The Multi-Bin solution is one of the most reliable third party products I’ve ever used—it is a solid and reliable product, and we continue to reap the benefits of that foundational system.”

“I’ve been using Scanco’s solutions for almost four years and am still seeing the benefits,” comments Cody. “At the end of the day, I know that software will always have some sort of problem. However, Scanco’s team always makes the problems disappear. I have never felt stranded by their team and know I can count on them, which gives me a peace of mind that’s hard to put a price on.”