Case study · 3PL · Multi customer hub
3,600 hours of counting a year, cut to 80.
A global 3PL running a three warehouse, multi customer hub in Eindhoven was counting 90,000 pallets twice a year and had no view of its own stock in between. The wall to wall still runs. What changed is the shape of the year around it.
Background
Sentispec services a global 3PL running a multi customer, three warehouse set up in Eindhoven. Stock in the hub belongs to several end customers at once, moving through the same buildings under one operator, which means the hub's own stock accuracy is also a promise it makes to every client whose goods it holds.
Twice a year the hub ran a full wall to wall stocktake across all three warehouses, 90,000 pallets in total, to give itself and its customers a trusted position. Between those two events, the hub had no real time view of its own inventory: whatever the last wall to wall found was the best available answer until the next one, six months later.
The challenge
- Two annual wall to wall scans of 90,000 pallets. Run across three warehouses, a count at that scale by hand consumes a large team over multiple days each time it runs.
- Manual time to complete: 3,600+ hours. That is the labour bill for the two counts combined, before accounting for anyone pulled off normal duties to cover the gap they left behind.
- No real time inventory visibility. Between the two annual events, the hub's own stock position aged by the day, which is a poor position to be in when several end customers are relying on it.
What changed
A recording unit is picked up by a forklift already working the hub. The driver covers the aisles at normal travel speed, one shelf level at a time, and the camera reads every pallet label and every location, including the empty ones, at up to 3,000 units per hour.
End customer satisfaction rose alongside the labour saving, and for a hub holding several customers' goods at once that is the outcome that matters most. The counting cost was always the smaller half of the problem. The larger half was the six months of the year in which nobody could give a client a current answer.
A multi customer hub sells trust as much as it sells storage. Knowing the stock position on a Tuesday, not just after the next wall to wall, is what that trust is actually made of.
Financial impact across the hub is €90,000 to €150,000 a year, combining the labour released from the wall to walls with the value of holding accuracy continuously rather than rebuilding it twice annually.
The wider picture
What comparable sites measured.
| Location | Pallet locations | Accuracy after go live | Sector | Break even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duisburg, Germany | 30,000 | 99.9% | Retail and fashion | 1 month |
| Bremen, Germany | 35,000 | 99.5% | Retail and fashion | 3 months |
| Venlo and Roermond, Netherlands | 85,000 combined | 99%+ | Retail and fashion | 4 months |
| Willebroek, Belgium | 29,000 | 99.99% | Retail and fashion | 5 months |
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Next step
See what a multi site hub looks like at 99%+ all year.
A 30 minute demo using recordings from a multi customer site, covering how one unit moves between warehouses.