Edwin C Farrall Transport delivers the goods with the aid of Clydebuilt Solutions

Edwin C Farrall Transport Ltd is a family owned and operated storage and distribution company located in the Northwest, with sites in both Chester and Deeside. Established in 1956, Edwin C Farrall Transport Ltd has enjoyed substantial growth year on year, and have won Palletforce's Depot of the Year award 6 times in the past 8 years.

Edwin C  Farrall Transport Ltd were approached by Witter Towbars who, at very short notice, were looking to change their outsourced warehousing services, complete with links into their own sales and order processing system. These links had historically been created before using LocateIT WMS in another site.  Witter Tow Bars therefore suggested that Edwin C Farrall Transport Ltd implement LocateIT from Clydebuilt Solutions Ltd.
 
Implementation
Within logistics, customers are becoming more demanding and increasingly approaching partners with requests that have to be delivered now.   Witter Tow Bars knew when they approached Edwin C Farrall Transport Ltd that like many, they had tight timescales; in this case, they were looking to move their stock in within two weeks.  Edwin C Farrall Transport Ltd and Clydebuilt set about obliging and quickly (on a Saturday) organising an outline project plan including everything needed from process organisation to location labels for the racking.   Peter Marsh at Belgravium, for example, received a text on Sunday morning asking, if we formally place an order for 10 Atlanta RF hand-helds on Monday can we pick them up from Bradford on Wednesday morning. To their credit, they not only responded on Sunday but delivered.

Working directly with Mike and Elaine, Jessica from Clydebuilt provided her practical experience of setting up these complex systems, on the ground over the next fortnight.   Server hardware was sourced, installed, LocateIT WMS, SQL and the RF processes installed and configured.  Within 9 days, pallets of serialised product started arriving in their thousands.  It has been a considerable rollercoaster event says Mike but from the initial pallet into the warehouse, Witters can enjoy the level of stock control that they have come to expect.  Clydebuilt staff worked closely with both Edwin C Farrall Transport Ltd staff and those of Witter Towbars to ensure that 2 weeks after the initial contact the system is basically live.

The links with the back-office system were already in existence and required installation onto this server set-up, and test messaging piloted to ensure smooth automation of the communications between  the systems.

The overall process was not without its problems but nothing was insurmountable and John Hinchliffe (MD Witter Tow Bars) expressed total astonishment at how quickly everything managed to become a reality.

Future Plans
With the initial install almost out of the way, the next stage will be interfacing LocateIT with Edwin C Farrall Transport Ltd's existing Traffic System by RoadTech.  Edwin C Farrall Transport Ltd offer a host of value added services for its client base and the introduction of LocateIT WMS, the RF barcode processes and Communications will allow the company to continue to grow whilst enhancing the existing high standard of services that their clients currently enjoy.