IKEA Stock Management

When the Edinburgh IKEA store wanted to improve their customers’ shopping experience by expanding its retail floor space and increasing the amount of products in stock it turned to Optima to provide a WMS solution for its brand new 2000 square foot off site warehouse.

IKEA has a very sophisticated stock management system for its stores worldwide however IKEA Edinburgh sought an affordable stand-alone warehouse management system that could help them to cope with increased stock movements in the new warehouse. Optima installed a “WIFI” wireless computer network to run Optimiser Freedom. This “managed services” version of Optima’s tried and tested software means that the whole warehousing operation could be run securely over the Internet with no local requirement for expensive computer hardware or in house IT expertise.

The system incorporates barcode scanning technology. Handheld terminals record all incoming pallets and storage locations and automatically feed data into Optimiser thus eliminating paperwork and any chance of human error.

Furthermore because the Store’s daily stock requirements are now entered into Optimiser – a picking list for the warehouse team can now be created in minutes -  a job that previously done by time consuming manual spreadsheet input.

Simon Edwards of IKEA Edinburgh who project managed the new warehouse commented:  “The whole system was up and running in a couple of hours and with the data being held offsite, it’s a very secure solution so we don’t have to worry about expensive hardware and back-ups etc. All in all this solution has been perfect for our needs.”