Western Pet Supplies was established in early 1980’s as one of the first barn style retail outlets in Australia. It has expanded its wholesale operation to the extent that is now one of the principal pet product suppliers and distributors to the pet trade in New South Wales and Queensland.

The ERP Western Pet Supplies use is MYOB EXO and the warehouse operations had created a multitude of manual processes which was leading to subsequent confusion about vital figures. The manual processes in the warehouse was becoming unsustainable for the growth Western Pet Supplies was achieving and in 2017 Western Pet Supplies went to market to evaluate the right Wraehouse Management Solution (WMS) for their complex business needs.
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Western Pet Supplies selected The RIC Group’s WMS as it provided a modern browser based user interface and for the experience and success The RIC Group had with a number of MYOB EXO customers. The WMS provides best business workflow with releasing of orders to pick and releasing of orders for pick and pack with also having Zone picking. Phase one of the WMS implementation was for 20 WMS users in the Sydney warehouse.

The errors in handling the orders is now minimal and the double handling has been stamped out, saving time and money for Western Pet Supplies. With the success of the WMS in the Sydney warehouse the WMS has also been deployed to the Brisbane warehouse which means the total WMS users is 50.

The success of Warehouse Management Solution has allowed Western Pet Supplies to use Power BI for business intelligence reporting and analytics. This has helped to unlock insights and drive more informed decisions and monitor the progress of employees in the warehouse.

Here is the article I wrote Anzac day 2018.

The  RIC Group is an Australian run and owned family business. Being a family business means there are great challenges and opportunities at the same time. There is no doubt we have been able to weave our own family values right through the company's culture and this is one of the reasons I believe our employees have a strong loyalty effect as they support our aspirations.

What I also take great pride in is on a day such as Anzac Day which is Australia's most important day, my great grandfather Clifford Arthur Alfred Ellis was a Lieutenant for the Australian Army for the 24th Battalion. He was part of the Battle of Gallipoli. From Gallipoli he then marched into the Western Front and was part of Battle of Le Somme. It is hard to imagine exactly all he experienced but some of it was being gassed multiple times, shot, losing a number of friends and mates on the battlefield, and being away from home for a substantial period.

Wikipedia states that Anzac spirit has perceived qualities which include endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour, larrikinism and mateship. For me these are the qualities for the Anzac but also qualities you need in run a family business.

Here is a story from my great grandfather from his diary:

The bully picked on him once... He said OK I'll fight but let's have a drink first... CAA (Clifford Arthur Alfred) made sure the big bloke had plenty so when the fight was on the bully could not fight at all... That is smart, force not the answer but brains. The fight created a bond with the bully as all your mates were like family.

In a way with a family business your team becomes your family. Everyone is aligning themselves to help the company goal.

Below is a photo of my great grandfather Clifford with his battalion. He is the lieutenant in the middle sitting down at the front.
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Lest we forget.

The RIC Group's Intelligent Warehouse Management Solution now has the ability to capture a Proof of Delivery signature and ensure the right goods are dropped off to your customer. All integrated with  SAP Business One Delivery Notes and AR Invoices. This will allow our customers to have their customers sign for their goods when they pick them up or when they are getting dropped off.

On the WMS the user simply opens up the correct document number and can scan the goods being dropped off to the customer site which increments a delivered quantity. On completion of the delivery the customer signs for the goods and enters in their name. Date and time is captured of the signature. All details captured is sent back to SAP Business One against the Delivery Document or AR Invoice.

In March we sponsored the SAP Summit in Bangkok and it was great to show the SAP partners our browser based WMS. The feedback was very positive and a lot of comments were made on how clean and easy to use it looked.

Our focus is building an Intelligent Warehouse Management Solution for SAP Business One. With this we are starting a number of projects of AI and robotics with our WMS. The focus is to always be organically integrated with SAP Business one and have a real time WMS.

We deliver continuous improvements and with our WMS we have delivered multi lingual feature which allows our customers to have the WMS in any language they want. This is providing a highly competitive solution across the globe.

We understand that the workforce of today is higly mobile. There is no doubt our cloud transformation has accelerated but we do still offer maximum flexbility with low complexity. Our customers are able to deploy The RIC Group's WMS on cloud or on premises. Being browser based it allows our customers to BYOD (Bring your own device) and ensure the user is completely mobile.

At The RIC Group we understand business needs change and our WMS solution will continue to co-evolve with you. Contact us on sales@thericgroup.com for further information.

As of 30th of September 2019 MYOB will no longer be providing features, patches, compliance updates or product support for AccountRight classic platform.

Please find further information on the MYOB website here.

Also it is important to note that MYOB ended support of ODBC from September 2018. Our add on called Barcodes4 all integrated with MYOB AccountRight classic via the ODBC.

In business you must keep creating new, better versions and follow your vision.

At The RIC Group in the earlier years our business motto was 'for software that works the first time'. We definitely achieved that and we were probably the one of the first ISV's to build what are known as minimalist apps. The apps we built for MYOB Premier customers were Labels4, POS4, Stocktake4, Sales4 and Picking4. The apps were really easy to use and allowed so many businesses to incorporate barcodes into their business which still so many businesses want to do today.

One of our most popular products was called Labels4. This was such a small app but helped clients who were using MYOB Premier print barcode labels ad hoc or from purchase orders or sales orders. We sold 100's of copies around Australia and New Zealand who required barcode labels for their stock items. The product rarely required any support and still is being used by most of the customers today.

With business we did replace the mothership which was the Barcodes4 suite of products and have created our better version which is a full cloud Warehouse Management Solution. Our latest WMS is generation 4.0 and it is browser based, cloud and subscription priced. It has all the functions of printing barcode labels, allowing customers to accurately receipt and putaway goods, pick and pack, stocktake, bin transfers, proof of delivery and route management.

One of our biggest achievements with our latest WMS is we created a complete RestAPI. So many of our customers have grown are are using different ERP's. With this our business needed to evolve as well and with our API it allows us to integrate with many different ERP packages.

Our WMS has become a best of breed solution and competes globally.

Contact us at sales@thericgroup.com for further information.

One of the most common warehouse mistakes I see is businesses holding onto paper work. A lot of smaller businesses consider themselves a pick and pack business with no need for technology. There is no doubt it seems simpler at first, however, when looking at the overall picture it is a sure way to slow down the processes from sales order to pick and pack to invoice. It forces warehouse staff to bring in paperwork from the warehouse, and office staff to take the paper work outside to the warehouse. Materials handling is increased, then there is interpreting issues and also lost paperwork. It can seem like a huge effort to switch to a digital WMS but there isn't a need for the WMS to be complicated. There is an upfront cost but the return on investment is pretty rapid and it ensures the business has a standardised process when new or casual staff start.

The other mistake I see is businesses not optimising picking paths. Efficient picking paths can only really be determined once a WMS is in place and the business can start measuring active bin locations. Looking at what the most active bins can mean the warehouse may need to be laid out a little differently to ensure the shortest pick path. It is all about optimising not just the pick path, but also the putaway path, the replenishment path and more.

Just from these two points a business can have a relatively quick return on investment when implementing the right WMS. Speak to our team at sales@thericgroup.com to see if our WMS can fit your business needs.

The SAP Innovation Summit locations for 2019 are Bangkok, Nice and Orlando. This year will supercharge the SAP Partner Ecosystem to execute small to midsize business growth and success.

The SMB Innovation Summit will first be held at Bangkok and The RIC Group is a sponsor. We are really looking forward to connecting with partners and showing the latest features of our Warehouse Management Solution for SAP Business One and SAP ByDesign.

The date for the SMB Innovation Summit in Bangkok are March 12th to March 14th. Here is the URL for further information: https://smbsummit2019.com/