Success stories:
Isurus Fulfilment
Learn how Isurus Fulfilment’s ecommerce fulfilment business is growing through automation and process simplification with Access Mintsoft.
Background
Isurus Fulfilment began operating in 2016, helping with the fulfilment operations from their small warehouse for their sister business – a coffee roastery, storing and fulfilling their orders.
As the business grew through organic word of mouth, order volumes and client numbers grew, resulting in the need to scale up their operations to manage the growing workload.
Today, Isurus have extended beyond its coffee-related processes, fulfilling orders for a range of products for their clients.
Challenges
- Isurus needed a more sustainable way to manage their manual fulfilment processes as their businesses expanded from wholesale to ecommerce fulfillment while also supporting clients that sold non-perishable goods.
- Isurus' clients needed full visibility of their products and orders, achieved through hours of phone calls and emails back and forth which created a lot of manual work for everyone.
- Their existing ERP system was primarily focused on accounting and could not work well for ecommerce fulfilment, forcing the team to use manual work-arounds.
Approach
- Swapping paper-based pick lists to barcode enabled picking for increased accuracy
- Using Access Mintsoft for live inventory information, in place of performing manual stock-counts
- Using the 3PL client portal for customer communications, saving time spent previously communicating via email and phone
- Using the system for processing goods-in and out, and ASNs to provide inventory visibility for both themselves and their clients
- Automating client order import from various ecommerce platforms
- Generating shipments through Access Mintsoft’s courier connections, rather than rekeying delivery address information into another tool
Results
- Access Mintsoft automated and digitalise Isurus' entire fulfilment process.
- With Access Mintsoft, Isurus has full visibility and traceability of their perishable inventory, logging batch codes, best before dates and helping with stock rotation.
- Access Mintsoft's 3PL client portal gives Isurus' ecommerce clients full visibility of the order and inventory progress, which helps save time for both parties.
Challenges
Finding the right 3PL warehouse software
All of Isurus’ clients needed full visibility of their products and orders, which was being achieved through hours of phone calls and emails back and forth.
Not only was this a lot of manual work for the Isurus team, it was also creating extra work for their customers too.
Their existing ERP system was primarily focused on accounting, and despite efforts to use it for warehouse and logistics, it was unable to work well for ecommerce fulfilment. Isurus were using manual work-arounds for stock-takes and picking, as well as a separate dispatch tool which required manual data input for every order. This wasn’t sustainable as they continued to grow!
Following online research and demonstrations of various software solutions, we selected Mintsoft due to its 3PL focus and because it was so easy to use.
- Ben Tarratt, Fulfilment Manager – Isurus Fulfilment
Solution
An entirely digitised order fulfilment process
Isurus implemented Access Mintsoft in 2022, shortly after moving into their new warehouse – a huge 10 times the size of their previous space!
They quickly swapped their manual processes to automated and digitalised versions with Access Mintsoft. This included:
- Swapping paper-based pick lists to barcode enabled picking for increased accuracy
- Using Access Mintsoft for live inventory information, in place of performing manual stock-counts
- Using the 3PL client portal for customer communications, saving time spent previously communicating via email and phone
- Using the system for processing goods-in and out, and ASNs to provide inventory visibility for both them and their clients
- Automating client order import from various ecommerce platforms
- Generating shipments through Access Mintsoft’s courier connections, rather than rekeying delivery address information into another tool
Results
Taking care of perishable goods
While their business has expanded over the years, the original coffee order fulfilment is still a core part of the warehouse processes at Isurus.
Access Mintsoft has given Isurus full visibility and traceability of their perishable inventory, logging batch codes, best before dates and helping with stock rotation.
Coffee is still our core business, and there are occasions that we need to trace batches back. With Access Mintsoft, we can do that with ease and is something we wouldn’t be able to live without.
Transforming 3PL client relationships
For Isurus, like any business offering outsourcing services, customer experience is key. The Access Mintsoft 3PL client portal has transformed how they work with their clients. Isurus are not only saving themselves time by giving their clients full visibility of order and inventory progress, but they’re also able to pass that time saving onto their ecommerce clients too.
The automated 3PL client billing engine adds an extra layer of trust to their relationships. Previously, invoicing was done in a spreadsheet and clients would receive a lump sum invoice, which was assumed to be accurate. Mintsoft’s 3PL billing gives line by line breakdowns of activities performed, so Isurus can be certain that they haven’t missed off an order, and clients are assured that they haven’t been over-charged.
We work with our clients in a partnership. By using Mintsoft, we can give our clients full visibility which enables them to trust what we’re doing. We can give them the time back that they’d previously have spent ‘managing’ and not growing.
Continued growth for Isurus Fulfilment
Isurus are continuing to grow through word-of-mouth recommendations and reputation – the Access Mintsoft core features and development roadmap will support their organic growth and order fulfilment operations, while in turn, supporting their client's ecommerce growth.
I would recommend Mintsoft to any 3PL or warehouse looking to improve. It allows you to simplify and get greater accuracy than using manual processes.