Product
A wall to wall stocktake that never closes the warehouse.
A three warehouse hub in Eindhoven counts 90,000 pallets wall to wall twice a year. Those counts now run during normal shifts, and accuracy holds at 99%+ for the rest of the year instead of being rediscovered twice.
The annual count
The event you plan the year around stops being an event.
The unit reads up to 3,000 units per hour against 50 to 100 by hand scanner. Everything below follows from that one ratio, including the part where nobody has to stop working.
| The full count | By hand | With Sentispec Inventory |
|---|---|---|
| Pallets processed per hour | 50 to 100 | Up to 3,000 |
| Effort for a complete count | 3 to 10 people, 2 to 3 days | 1 person, 8 to 12 hours |
| Operations during the count | Reduced or stopped | Running as normal |
| Audit related labour cost per year | €50,000 | €5,000 |
At the three warehouse hub in Eindhoven, which counts 90,000 pallets twice a year, that shape took 3,600 or more manual hours a year and now takes 80 or more, releasing around two full time roles. Time saving reaches up to 98%, and stocktaking cost falls by around 90% across our sites, with a measured range of 80 to 95%. The full method and every site is on the benchmark page.
No downtime, because the count rides on a shift you already run
A wall to wall normally means overtime, agency labour, a frozen system or a Saturday. The reason is not the counting itself, it is the need to stop movements so that the count and the system agree at a single point in time.
Sentispec Inventory removes that constraint. A forklift picks up the recording unit and drives the aisles at normal travel speed, one shelf level at a time. Each aisle is processed as soon as its recording finishes, so results build up while the count is still running. Because a full pass takes hours rather than days, the window in which stock can move underneath you is short enough to work with instead of shutting down.
Sites that also run continuous cycle counting arrive at the wall to wall with the discrepancies already cleared, which is why Eindhoven holds 99%+ accuracy between counts rather than only after them.
For finance and audit
A count you can defend line by line.
The output of a wall to wall is not a number, it is a position you have to stand behind at year end. Every line comes with the recording that produced it.
- Audit related labour falls from €50,000 to €5,000 at a medium warehouse of 30,000 m², because the count is one person for a single shift rather than a team for the best part of a week.
- Every discrepancy carries photographic evidence. The list is exportable, and each row opens the recording that produced it, so a write off is supported by an image rather than a note in a spreadsheet.
- Reports are generated automatically. At a global pharmaceutical manufacturer they are auditor approved, and one employee scans the whole warehouse in under four hours. See the cold store case study.
- Break even starts from one month. Across the ten sites we publish the range is 1 to 6+ months. What a manual count costs you today is set out in the cost of manual stocktaking.
A wall to wall that takes hours instead of days is a different financial instrument. You can afford to run it when the business needs a number, not only when the calendar says so.
What this does not remove. The run needs a forklift and a driver for its duration, and that is a real cost you should put in the business case. It is bounded and predictable: two to three days of driver training during the five day deployment, then a named driver who does the run as part of a normal shift.
The reporting detail, including what an auditor sees, is on the finance and audit page.
Questions
What operations managers ask about the full count.
Can we run a wall to wall stocktake without stopping operations?
Yes. Counting happens during normal shifts rather than after hours, because a complete pass takes one person eight to twelve hours instead of three to ten people over two to three days. At the Eindhoven hub, two annual wall to wall counts of 90,000 pallets went from 3,600+ hours to 80+ hours with the sites still working.
How long does a wall to wall stocktake take in a large warehouse?
Divide your pallet locations by up to 3,000 per hour. A medium warehouse of 30,000 m² is a one person, eight to twelve hour job. The Eindhoven hub covers 90,000 pallet locations across three buildings, and its two annual wall to wall counts together take 80+ hours, against 3,600+ hours by hand.
Do we still need an annual wall to wall if we count continuously?
Most sites keep one, because auditors and end customers expect it, but it stops being the control that carries the whole year. Continuous cycle counting holds accuracy at 99%+ between counts, so the wall to wall confirms a position you already trust rather than discovering it.
What happens to the discrepancies the count finds?
They arrive as a reconciled list against your WMS, sorted into four types: found pallet in wrong location, found pallet not present in WMS, empty location where pallet expected, and expected pallet missing in recording. Each row opens its recording. Working through them is described under lost pallet search and empty and occupied locations.
Next step
Put your own pallet count against the 3,000 per hour figure.
A 30 minute demo where we size your wall to wall from your location count, your racking and your label format.