The HVAC company Sanutal was founded in 1993 and has been distributing components for heating and cooling systems ever since. The warehouse and production area covers more than 20,000 m², and the company carries more than 5,000 items. Its customers are primarily located in Belgium and Luxembourg and are distributors for ventilation, plumbing, and solar energy projects.
Sanutal's core values have always been based on excellent customer service, high-quality products, innovation, and expertise.
We wanted a solution that had already proven its worth in the market. After the first online demo with Tasklet Factory and Alistar, I was already convinced.
Patrick Verdonck, logistics manager
Growth is putting pressure on warehouse operations
Patrick Verdonck, Logistics Manager at Sanutal: “Most of Sanutal’s customers naturally expect their orders to be processed on time and accurately. To achieve our service level, we realized that we needed to change our warehouse work processes, because the existing processes could no longer keep up with the rising number of orders. We needed a solution to help our warehouse staff process the order flow as efficiently and quickly as possible—without putting extra pressure on employees or hiring additional staff. In addition, we needed a solution to help us track inventory and reduce errors during order picking.”
“Before the Mobile WMS solution (from Tasklet Factory) was implemented, the warehouse at Sanutal for 100% was paper-based. We didn’t use barcodes for our items, so registering the more than 5,000 items with barcodes was actually one of the biggest challenges, but it was worth it,” says Patrick Verdonk.
Looking for a user-friendly solution
Patrick Verdonck had previously worked with various WMS solutions, which were quite complicated, so when his ERP partner Alistar (then known as the GMI Group) introduced the Mobile WMS solution, he was very pleased to see just how user-friendly it was. Simple, straightforward, and easy to train warehouse staff on—these were some of the requirements Sanutal had for a new WMS solution. “After the first online demo with Alistar, I was already convinced,” said Patrick Verdonck. “We wanted a solution that had already proven its value in the market, and that’s exactly what we got.”
“One great feature of the solution, for example, is the ability for warehouse staff to look up items and/or bins, move them, perform unscheduled counts, and so on—all right there on the spot. So we no longer have to go to the nearest computer or ask the sales department for help.”
Looking for a user-friendly solution for warehouse processes
“We’ve been able to save a lot of time in the warehouse, but the sales department’s back office has also benefited from the solution. The sales department sends us the order, and we handle the rest, including all entries in Navision using the scanners.”
“We’ve also seen an improvement in picking. It’s much faster now than it used to be. Now, four months after we started using the solution, we’re seeing a clear improvement in the receiving area—both in the time we spend on receiving and in the significantly lower number of errors,” Patrick continues.
Overall, we feel that the warehouse isn't as busy as it used to be. It feels less hectic, even though that's not actually the case, since we're handling more than 10% compared to last year—and we're doing it with the same number of employees.
A good ERP partner makes all the difference
“Before I joined Sanutal, the company was using an older version of Navision, but in 2016 we decided to upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV (now Dynamics 365 Business Central), and Alistar helped us with that.”
Before switching to Alistar, Sanutal worked with another ERP partner. They encountered many problems and didn’t feel they were getting the expertise they needed. The main reasons for choosing Alistar were, first and foremost, their strong track record, but also because Patrick had previously worked at GMI, where they had also done a fantastic job.
“We implemented the Mobile WMS together with Alistar. They assisted us in creating a project plan, which really helped us maintain control and keep track of the project at all times. We held weekly or biweekly meetings to ensure that everything was proceeding according to plan. Alistar did an excellent job helping us find the best solution and guiding us through the entire implementation process.”
They are very knowledgeable, they speak the language of the operational staff, and they don't speak computer jargon—that's so important.
