Significant time savings in incoming goods inspections with Testify at Karl Oswald GmbH & Co.
About Oswald
Karl Oswald GmbH is a 4th generation family business in Germany that has been in existence for almost 100 years and operates as a wholesaler for hairdressing supplies. With 50 employees and a further 150 supporting home workers, Oswald stores, packs and ships products such as hairbrushes, manicure and massage articles.
Handwritten incoming goods inspections prior to implementation.
Before the introduction of Testify, incoming goods inspections were carried out by hand on paper. With 28 million articles per year, this is a very time-consuming activity.
High communication costs due to media disruptions.
In the incoming goods inspection, the precise assessment and verification of the target criteria is the be-all and end-all. It can happen that items are incorrect and are nevertheless released, or that defects are recorded where there is no defect.
For this purpose, a matrix was created using Excel, which contained 30-50 test criteria and 20-80 items. This was printed out and placed in the warehouse to document the target specifications. The difficult conditions such as wind and dirt were compounded by the additional work involved in changing the inspection criteria and documenting complaints, which also made the process more prone to errors.
This results in increased additional work between the warehouse and purchasing department regarding complaints. The local separation of the two departments makes cooperation even more difficult.
Lengthy checks after unloading.
Oswald’s goods are delivered in containers. It took an average of three full working days for the goods to be unloaded and checked. The defects were recorded on paper and with photos, which were then stored in digital form on the PC.
Transferring the data to a standardized system was very time-consuming.
And so Testify was rolled out in the company.
Checklist templates for incoming goods inspection.
The implementation of Testify started as usual with a proof of concept (PoC) in the incoming goods inspection department. In the course of this, the Excel list with the test criteria was created as a checklist template in Testify in order to carry out the quality control of the incoming goods digitally.
Connection to SAP.
With the connection to SAP as the merchandise management system, checklists were then automatically created and published based on the article. The necessary information on the inspection criteria was taken from the associated material master. This meant that the data for the inspection criteria only had to be maintained in one place.
Structured process for handling defects
Previously, defects in the goods were recorded with a digital camera, stored in a file folder and sent to the responsible purchaser. With integrated defect management, product defects and faults can be recorded digitally directly in Testify and forwarded to the purchasing department for review. Complaint processing and communication now works 100% digitally and without any media disruptions.
With practical functions to significantly increase efficiency in incoming goods.
Digital checklists
The digital checklist designer is used to create checklist templates with numerical, single choice and photo checks, which serve as the basis for checking the respective items.
Mobile defect management
Integrated defect management supports Oswald in the documentation and processing of product faults and defects. These can be noted directly in the respective checklist. In addition, the integrated camera function, the defect category and the severity level are used to record structured information about the defect, which makes internal communication with the purchasing department much easier. This significantly reduces the defect processing time and information on how to deal with the defect can be passed on easily.
SAP Integration
Thanks to the integration of SAP, material master data from the merchandise management system can be transferred to Testify, whereupon a checklist for the article is published.
The result after implementing Testify: more efficiency, better data, outstanding product and service quality.
Product quality has top priority at Oswald. This includes a carefully selected product range, which is continuously evaluated and expanded with the customer, packaging according to standardized criteria and the supply of high-quality hairdressing products. Many different test criteria must be followed and documented. This is exactly where Testify comes in. With a connection to SAP as the merchandise management system, checklists are processed on the basis of the material master.
Significant time savings during the incoming goods inspection.
Before using Testify, the inspection of an overseas container usually took around 3 days. This was mainly due to the fact that the goods had to be unloaded beforehand in order to carefully document the quality criteria using the Excel list. With the use of Testify, the incoming goods inspection now takes place in one day.
Improved cross-departmental communication.
The time saved by Testify is not limited to the incoming goods inspection itself. The preparation and follow-up of inspections is now also much more efficient, as all information is available digitally. The processes are also much more transparent.
With Testify, goods can be checked “on-the-fly” during unloading. Instead of 3 days, our team now only needs 1 day.
Smooth communication is all the more important due to the local separation of our purchasing department from the warehouse. Testify has closed precisely this gap for us and offers us a communication platform in addition to the checklist software. The effect? Everything works much faster and easier and our employees are happier!
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Significant time savings in incoming goods inspections with Testify at Karl Oswald GmbH & Co.
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