QK Coldstores Ltd is a wholesale refrigeration and cold storage service provider for the food industry. Its main facility in Marston, Lincolnshire, is a 200,000 square foot refrigerated warehouse and distribution centre that handles deliveries and collections from over 120 trucks every day.
QK Coldstores experience large volumes of traffic, often seasonal, arriving from major agricultural producing regions, cities, and ferry ports to Continental Europe. At any given time, the cold store may contain perishable food items exceeding £10 million in value.
It’s essential that QK Coldstores and similar businesses can keep track of all incoming and outgoing stock, and locate specific consignments at any time with efficient business systems. Staff need to be available to check in and unload trucks as soon as they arrive, and readily locate goods that are required for collection.
Haulage drivers must adhere to strict guidelines around consecutive hours worked and multi-stop routes, so there is great pressure to turn around consignments quickly. However, multiple truck arrivals were resulting in backlogs, delays and avoidable extra costs. To manage these logistics, QK was using a warehouse management software from Chess Logistics Technology alongside a paper-based administration system. The system ran in a Microsoft environment, and required timeintensive manual input controls, which invariably led to errors and costly losses.
This environment often proved to be unstable and unreliable, leading to frequent downtime when staff had to revert to fully paper-based administration, slowing down processes even further.
QK Coldstores needed to upgrade to a newer, automated warehouse management system (WMS) and selected Empirica. Node4 played a key role in advising on the implementation and configuration of the new business systems within a Linux environment. We also designed a new solution using Red Hat Linux to ensure the long-term stability of the WMS. In 2006, Node4 oversaw the introduction of the new system, providing onsite and offsite support and maintenance. QK also appointed Node4 to provide fully managed services for the WMS, with 24/7 support availability.
An application is only as good as the system that it runs on. Node4 has designed a bespoke environment for Empirica that has required minimal maintenance and support. It just works. Node4 has been instrumental in helping us eliminate costs for lost goods, increase staffing efficiency and improve our industry reputation. Coming from a system that crashed on a regular basis, to not experiencing a single crash in over nine years, is a phenomenal change.
Darrell Swaine, Business Development Manager, QK Coldstores
A business information system is a set of digital structures and processes used to organise and efficiently manage all data relating to a business’ processes. This can include organisational, personnel, financial data and more.
All good businesses thrive with effective business systems in place. If yours requires improvement, Node4 can work with you to update and advance your business.
If you’ve been intrigued by QK Coldstores’ success with transforming their business information system using our services, we can help streamline your system, too.
With our digital transformation services, you can modernise your business and make your life easier with business systems that feature automated processes, faster response times and increased dependability.
Get in touch with one of our specialists today, who will be happy to discuss our expertise in improving business systems and how we can enhance yours.