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Going digital with the new ERIKS App
If you visit the Apple App store or Google Play you’ll find ERIKS UK has its own App available. But what does this App do? We spoke to ERIKS’ Mick Holland, Chief Product Officer and Suzie Knowles, Online Marketing Manager, to find out!
Across UK industry, ERIKS is synonymous with engineering products, supplied from trusted manufacturers. Whilst our state-of-the-art supply-chain capabilities provide high availability and delivery performance, there are always items that must always be to-hand at point of use.
Enabled by shop.eriks.co.uk and the ERIKS App, our Digital Replenishment process vastly simplifies the re-ordering processes associated with line-side and open stores. QR codes are generated and applied to two-bin storage systems allowing immediate ordering of the right product and quantity required to replenish the bin. The process is then fully integrated into the ERIKS webshop, where many other advanced features are available to the customers.
Using the App in conjunction with the web shop allows the user to search for products, to set up a favorites list and to build a shopping cart – much as most people do when they use Amazon or other web shops. It’s simple to check out and a full order history is available to view. An important feature of the App is that lead times for products are shown when searching for them and, as with Amazon, products are picked, dispatched and delivered in 24 hours via the ERIKS Fulfilment Centre.
Mick Holland, says, “The App removes the challenge of distance and allows users to interact seamlessly with our IT system in a way that adds genuine value and a great deal of process efficiency.”
The ERIKS App is simple but powerful and once downloaded users can have all their product and order information in their pockets. Using the App means less chance of making mistakes with no more writing down or copying item numbers or quantities. It all provides faster and easier ordering.
Another major advantage of using the App is that it is possible to add a default purchase order to the system for a certain period (such as a month). It’s possible to specify a PO number which applies to all maintenance products, and this can be repeated month by month. This combined with the spend authority controls allows users to give autonomy to the engineering team to buy products up to a certain spend limit through the App and then receive all the spending information on one invoice at the end of the month – which obviously makes life much simpler in terms of vendor management and budget control.
To set up the system users need to understand what they have and want on their shelves, and this requires a little bit of planning (and ERIKS can help with this if needed). The great thing about the App is that it scales easily and quickly. Once customers have ascertained the part numbers and quantity per location that they want, they simply drop that information into an ordering list on the Webshop to create QR codes that print onto Avery labels on a standard printer. ERIKS has also put together a solution whereby customers can buy racking shelves, tote bins and labels all in one place on the webshop to get set up quickly.
Suzie Knowles says, “It’s a one stop shop. Because it’s phone-based technology, people are very comfortable with it and they can use it to quickly improve their workshop or engineering stores. We have made it really easy, in one order users can get the products they need to set up a solution. This will free up capacity and make things more efficient. It is remarkably simple, intuitive and it takes just minutes. The biggest investment in time is printing the labels and sticking them onto boxes. However, should users want more information they can go to the e-business team and make contact through the webshop.
“The App and the launch of Digital Replenishment is our first venture in providing our customers with a fully digital experience – it’s a big focus for us. The user interface means that customers will control all aspects of their digital experience with ERIKS. The objective is to make us easy to work with.”
For more information about the ERIKS App, or get in touch with your local ERIKS Service Centre who will be happy to discuss your options.
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