Micks Garage
WaveOMS has been a game-changer for Micks Garage, revolutionising their warehouse operations.
Overview
Micks Garage is a prominent online retailer specialising in automotive parts and accessories. Founded over 20 years ago by Michael and Ciaran Crean, the company operates multiple e-commerce platforms and processes over 400,000 orders annually. The business employs around 45 staff members across three locations in Ireland and the UK.
As the business grew, its existing warehouse and order management processes were heavily reliant on manual systems and paper-based workflows. This became a significant bottleneck. Micks Garage faced challenges in scaling operations, maintaining accuracy, and delivering a high-quality customer experience. This case study illustrates the transformative impact of WaveOMS on MicksGarage’s warehouse operations, showcasing how technology changed the way they managed “order priority” and their “goods in” process.
The Challenge
To address inefficiencies in manual warehouse operations, order prioritisation, and goods receiving processes, while scaling the business.
This case study outlines how WaveOMS transformed these operations, helping MicksGarage achieve significant improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and profitability.
Prior to implementing WaveOMS, MicksGarage warehouse relied on printed pick lists for order processing. This manual method was labour-intensive, time-consuming, and prone to errors.
The company struggled with inefficiencies that limited its ability to handle growing order volumes.
Pain Points
Manual, paper based
Error-prone manual picking
Over staffed
Cross docking inefficiencies
Priority order handling issues
The Solution
MicksGarage partnered with WaveOMS, a WMS and order management system designed to automate and optimise warehouse operations. The system was integrated to improve key processes, including order management, cross-docking, and goods receiving.
WaveOMS Results
“You can trace the increase in profitability to the date that WaveOMS was turned on.”
BARRY THORNTON, MD
+48%
Increase in output. From 13,000 orders to 25,000 p/month.
52%
Reduction in floor staff. From 27 to just 13 members.
0%
WaveOMS reduced our mispick rate from 2% to zero.
Real-time data gives full visibility of all orders & their status.
The company now handles twice the volume with half the workforce.
Summary
After switching to WaveOMS, the transformation was immediate:
- Increase in Output: With 13 staff members, the warehouse now processes an average of 24,000 to 25,000 orders per month, compared to 13,000 orders processed by 27 staff members previously.
- Error Reduction: The mispick rate dropped from 2% to zero.
- Full Visibility: Real-time data tracking allows the team to see where every order is within the process.
- Efficiency Gains: The company now handles twice the volume with half the workforce.
According to Barry, CEO of MicksGarage, “You can trace the increase in profitability to the date that WaveOMS was turned on.”
Micks Garage’s initial warehouse operations involved manual order processing using printed pick lists. This approach was labour-intensive, time-consuming and error-prone. Warehouse staff had to navigate through stacks of paper to pick, pack, and ship orders, leading to errors & massive inefficiencies. WaveOMS changed all of that. “At one point, we were doing half the number of orders we’re doing now with twice the number of staff.
In our main warehouse, we’ve 13 staff, who can get out on average about 24000 to 25000 orders a month. At one point, we had about 27 staff getting out to up to 13000 orders a month. Not only can we get our orders out faster, with zero errors, we’ve got full visibility across the entire business of where the orders are, and we do it with half the staff. Our mispick rate has also gone from 2% to zero. “You can trace the increase in profitability to the date that WaveOMS was turned on.” “The operational efficiency that Wave brought to the warehouse and to customer service is incredible.”
Dealing with Priority Orders
As order volumes grew MicksGarage.com found that they could not manage priority orders efficiently and certain customers were being let down which caused reputational damage. As Barry CEO says “managing priority orders became very unwieldy, because it was paper based, customer service did not know where the order was. With WaveOMS, management pre-set up rules on WaveOMS to manage all our orders. Now order prioritisation is dealt with automatically with no need for day to day input from management or warehouse staff. They can also set rules based on Weight, destination, Courier, etc. This has saved us hours in administration and allowed us to serve our customers better.
“Priority orders are shipped on time every time, our customers are happy and Customer Service has complete visibility of where an order is at any point in time.”
Cross-Docking Challenges:
MicksGarage Cross-dock 40% of their daily orders. Cross Docking is the process of moving products directly from receiving to shipping with no storage. This was a logistical nightmare for MicksGarage.Com with their paper-based system. Matching incoming products with existing orders required manual checks, often leading to delays and increased labour costs. With WaveOMS incoming goods are scanned and immediately directed to the correct location in the putt wall, eliminating errors and reducing delivery times & costs.
Receiving goods into the warehouse
With paper the process of receiving and storing goods is tedious. Staff had to manually count items, verify them against goods received notes, and allocate them to specific warehouse locations. This method required multiple handling steps, increasing the time and effort needed to put products away accurately and make them available for sale quickly.
WaveOMS enabled MicksGarage.com to receive and store goods with unprecedented speed and accuracy. Staff now use handheld scanners to scan products directly into the system and allocate them to multiple locations in the warehouse. This electronic goods-in process eliminated the need for manual counting and paper documentation, cutting the time required to process incoming pallets by more than half.
Whereas now, using WaveOMS, you take the pallets to your nearest free locations, select the purchase order, you scan location and put the goods on the shelf. This adds the goods to stock and also debits off against electronic purchase order. “WaveOMS allows you to get products away fast and ready for sale. This is so fast compared to the old process of receiving, breaking it down,
checking it off, and then somebody putting goods away.
Conclusion
Implementing WaveOMS has been a game-changer for Micks Garage, revolutionising their warehouse operations and positioning them for sustainable growth & profitability.
“WaveOMS brought a new level of order and efficiency to our warehouse. We can now handle more orders faster, with fewer people, and provide better service to our customers. The visibility and control we have over our operations are unparalleled.”
Barry Thornton, CEO, MicksGarage.com
