Agrinet supplies a comprehensive range of branded products and related value added services to the agriculture, hardware, irrigation, industrial and mining sectors in Africa. Their direct involvement with more than 500 agricultural retail outlets in South Africa has established the company as a leading supplier.
The company operates from its head office in Samrand, Gauteng and has warehouses in Samrand and in Bellville, in the Western Cape. Scheduled deliveries on their fleet of trucks are done on a daily or weekly basis to almost every town and city in the country.
Choosing a flexible Solution to Suit Growing Business Needs
“Agrinet implemented the ACS-Embrace business solution over 20 years ago. Our decision then was based on price; functionality; customer service and support; system flexibility and agility; ease of use; ease of access to data and reports,” says Jaco Kriel, Managing Director at Agrinet. With Embrace, Agrinet run a paperless system and have full visibility of the entire process. Agrinet are able to monitor every transaction through its various stages, from receiving to when the goods leave the warehouse.
Double the Number of Transactions in Half the Time
Since using Embrace with RF Scanners, Agrinet has been able to double the number of “picks” per day and do up to 15,000 transactions per day and can load in excess of 65 tons per night. Picker performance is key! It has a ripple effect throughout the entire business. Agrinet are able to measure picker performance and productivity on Embrace and pay incentives accordingly. The earlier the picks for the day are complete, the earlier the trucks can be loaded and the sooner the goods can be delivered.
Ensuring Higher Productivity and Improved Quality of Service to Clients
Agrinet also uses JIT (Just-In-Time) Picking, within Embrace. This has led to higher productivity and improved quality of service to clients. It enables them to run a warehouse that is more efficient with space, resources and capital. Binning and Picking rules are defined on the system. With system directed put away, based on product movement, only 15% of transactions come from racking high up. The lowest, closest product is always picked first. Picks are automated, so that if a customer or courier is waiting to collect an order, theirs will be prioritised and be the next order picked. Foodstuff is stored in a separate area in the warehouse. The integrated batch/lot control module in Embrace ensures that products are picked according to their lowest and earliest expiry dates
Critical Information at your Fingertips
Agrinet has over 40,000 bins and carries in excess of R120 million of stock. Perpetual stock takes are done on Embrace and because of the tight system controls, shrinkage is well below acceptable norms.
Managing the costs associated with inventory management is one of the greatest challenges for Agrinet. The Company maintains nearly 18,000 line items sourced both locally and abroad. Agrinet have longer lead times for overseas orders and shipping and therefore need to ensure safety stock levels. Visibility into stock is essential.
The entire company is run on the 241 concurrent-user, fully integrated, on-line, real-time Embrace business solution, including a full point-of-sale system in all the retail outlets and the service and maintenance module in the workshops. Warranties and full service history per engine are tracked in Embrace.
Process Thousands of Transactions Per Day with Maximum Speed and Efficiency
Embrace enables Agrinet to receive and process thousands of orders per day with maximum speed and efficiency. 70% of all transactions, invoicing and price updates are done electronically. This means fast and accurate flow of information at a fraction of the cost.
“System up-time is critical to our business! In the 20 years that Agrinet has been running on Embrace, we have experienced 99.9% up-time!
Our Embrace ERP solution has enabled our company to grow sales without growing costs. We're very happy with the product, the support, and the ongoing development. The fact that we've been with ACS-Embrace as long as we have, says a lot. The software has evolved alongside Agrinet and continues to give us the sophistication and customisation capabilities we need to grow our business, today and tomorrow!" - Managing Director - Agrinet
