With around 320,000 members, DONAULAND is Austria's largest book and media club. In addition to catalog mail order sales and the online internet shop, the company also operates a third distribution channel via its network of eight branches. In this area, transparency is a key factor in achieving high levels of customer satisfaction. To always know which book is in stock in which store, DONAULAND relies on the DENSO BHT-400 mobile terminal and "easyMITS" connectivity software from our partner BARCOTEC to manage their inventory and store orders.

The need for a future-oriented system

Is that new novel already in stock? Can that detective story be ordered and when will it be delivered? These are the sorts of questions that DONAULAND's knowledgeable store staff need to be able to answer every day. To do that, they need a reliable system, and it was in this area that the company saw an opportunity for improvement. Particularly in the company's largest store, on Vienna's "Mariahilfer Straße", it was not always possible to immediately retrieve inventory details.

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Since all books were sold under a single number, employees often did not know exactly which items were still in stock and which were not. Due to its length, the 13-digit EAN number was too error-prone and not suitable for manual data entry. The company needed to find a reliable and forward-looking solution. "IT should make processes more efficient, quicker and cheaper", observed Herbert Schöfbänker, CIO at DONAULAND, talking about the requirement profile. "We found a big hole in the manual in-store processing of inventory and orders. The main orders are automatically and centrally processed, but branch-specific needs were handled manually and were therefore slow, inaccurate and time consuming." BARCOTEC took the specification needs onboard and designed a system for DONAULAND through which data can be quickly collected and immediately processed online.

BHT-400 wins staff confidence

When choosing a mobile data collection device, it was very important to DONAULAND to involve the workforce in the decision-making process. For this reason, staff tested a selection of three different terminals. The winner was the BHT-400. A major reason for the decision was the highly user-friendly nature of the device. To begin with, it is extremely compact and can be easily carried with one hand. The sharp screen also increases user comfort.

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Twice as fast with BHT-400 and "easyMITS"

Where the approximately 2,500 items in-store previously needed to be individually recorded by hand, a complete inventory now takes as little as six hours. To handle the data transfer function, all stores were equipped with WLAN, which will now also be available for other hardware in the future. Thanks to the BHT-400 mobile data-capture device and the "easyMITS" software, employees are able to work almost twice as fast, errors have been reduced to a minimum and the need to correct previous errors eliminated. This saves DONAULAND additional time. Differences in stock status are now instantly recognizable during data capture, producing noticeably better results. Especially useful is the option that "easyMITS" gives to enter quantities in the BHT-400: this means that identical items only need to be scanned once. This has exponentially reduced the number of scans, meaning that a complete inventory can be performed with as few as 4,000 scans.

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There are other aspects of the BARCOTEC software solution that impress Schörfbänker: "The configurator is self-explanatory and easy to use. We can thus define processes as we want, modify existing processes or develop entirely new processes, all without adding to our service costs. In the future, we will definitely make further enhancements, such as a stock level review." By selecting a standard software system, in which the connectivity software was already installed and ready for delivery, implementation could take place very quickly.

The automation program continues

The introduction of the new data capture system for DONAULAND has proved a great success. Because less of their time is taken up with administrative tasks, employees have more time to spend advising customers. Against this background, in addition to inventory management, DONAULAND plans to automate the branch-specific order and returns processing functions. And it is certain that the book and media experts will again turn to BARCOTEC and DENSO for their solutions.

DONAULAND

With approximately 320,000 members, DONAULAND is Austria's leading book and media supplier. Since 1950, DONAULAND has enabled its customers to buy all the top current titles at very affordable prices. In addition to a wide selection of the best novels and stories, beautiful children's books, helpful guidebooks and interesting non-fiction titles, DONAULAND's product range includes the top titles in music, video, DVD and games, as well as numerous products from the world of photography.
To find out more, please visit www.donauland.at

BARCOTEC