It has been a busy beginning of the year for Mexpower. Malaysia’s increasing number of daily Covid-19 cases has prompted the government to implement stricter measures for seven states dubbed Movement Control Order 2.0 (MCO 2.0) after almost five months of relaxed movement restrictions. With the boom in e-commerce due to government-imposed restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19, we were tasked by an existing customer to operate a dedicated distribution centre of at least 7,000 SKUs (at any point in time) across four brands to store stock and fulfill orders from an online marketplace as sales continue to rise. They requested for everything to be ready in less than two months. We said, bring it on!
What’s a Distribution Centre? Click here for an introduction to a mainstay to modern supply chains.
Not Quite From Scratch
Even though this will be the first time Mexpower ventures into e-commerce logistics, it certainly feels similar to what we have been doing to support our customer’s brick and mortar retail network across Malaysia. After all, we are operating a distribution centre for two brands for the same customer with documented improvements made to their supply chain since 2016. The big difference now is to operate a space optimised to fulfill orders in smaller quantities for individual shoppers rather than in bulk for individual stores. And we must do it in typical Mexpower fashion of high fulfillment accuracy and punctuality.
Firstly, storage was adapted to prioritise easy retrieval for the picking of a single item by members of our fulfillment team while being space efficient. Modified corrugated boxes with unique identifiers were used to separate SKUs of particular design or range after the receiving process. (Think pigeon hole cabinet.) This helped us fully utilise rack space to hold the maximum amount of items and distinguish subunits of SKUs for quick and accurate picking.
Secondly, we got suitable material handling equipment to process waves of order picking. In addition to the mapping module of our proprietary system, bins on lightweight trolleys create an efficient picking process of not only being able to gather large numbers of goods, but to separate them at the source for increased accuracy during order fulfillment.
Warehouse Operator, Warren, picking an item with ease from a storage bin from easily accessible racks. He will then place the item into a bin on the lightweight trolley corresponding to the correct order.
Thirdly, we have upgraded our proprietary system to create a smooth order fulfillment process. All parts of the process – stock receiving, storage mapping, receiving orders, picking, validation, and delivery instructions, are integrated to our customer’s system to achieve 100% accuracy to create an enjoyable digital shopping experience for the shoppers.
We created a seamless order fulfillment process where order picking, validation, and packing are carried out with ease and speed without sacrificing accuracy.
Last but not least, we have heightened our quality control checks at both the incoming and outgoing part of this distribution centre to ensure that each individual product delivered from our site directly to the shoppers are on point. We are glad that our team members have a keen eye to detail to pick up blemishes, defects, and various nonconformities to the quality set by our customer. Since Mexpower is the last party to directly handle the contents of a package (last-mile delivery is carried out by other parties assigned by the online marketplace and they do not have access to the contents), we now assume the duty of checking the condition of the goods which “traditionally” is to be done by a store clerk at the checkout counter of a physical shop. (Mexpower provides quality control checks by default in all of our services. The big difference here is that we check every single piece of item rather than batch sampling.)
Constant Improvements
Mexpower promotes open communication in the team to gather feedback from the ground to improve our processes. It has just been a fortnight since we started operating this e-commerce distribution centre (and a few days shy of two months since we embarked on this journey) and upgrades to our system are already under way to smoothen the processes of stock receiving and order picking thanks to information shared by the team.
Furthermore, we try to be one step ahead of our customer so that we can create the best experience for them (and indirectly for the shoppers). We have already implemented a step previously not identified by our customer to further reduce the chance of order fulfillment errors. And we continue to improve our diagnostic methods as we further explore the capabilities of the backend of the online marketplace to address any non-conforming possibilities.
We may seem new in the e-commerce game but the fundamentals of fulfilling online orders are basically similar to that of “offline” orders. So if you are in need of a logistics partner with the knowhow to support the expansion of your business into the cyberspace, or to start an e-commerce business, look no further. Mexpower is an experienced customer-centric logistics provider passionate about creating efficiencies and optimising processes to drive supply chains. We free up your hands so that you can focus on growing your business.
Contact us for more information about how Mexpower can be your e-commerce logistics partner.
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