1. Customer Success Story
© NetSuite 2012. www.NetSuite.com R1212
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 sales channels include an eCommerce site, and their retail
shop located in their hometown of Cardigan. In addition to driving their eCommerce
business, howies sports their gear in cycle competitions across Europe.
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.
Company Name:
howies
Industry:
eCommerce, Retail Clothing
Oz Solutions:
OzLINK Mobile
Applications:
NetSuite
Key Benefits:
• Increase in picking efficiency
• Reduction of order errors
by 99.9%
• Better inventory visibility
To find out more, contact NetSuite Inc. at 1-877 NETSUITE or visit www.netsuite.com.
OzLINK creates great efficiency because of the integration with
NetSuite. The Oz support staff is excellent to deal with and their
response time is fantastic.
—Robin Parsons, Warehouse Manager, howies

2. Customer Success Story
© NetSuite 2012. www.NetSuite.com R1212
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 months into the new process and my team is hooked because they
realize how much easier OzLINK has made it for them to do their jobs. They love OzLINK
and I love how efficiently the warehouse is being run.”