Gold Market
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Client: Daniela Srl
Industry: Wholesale - Retail - Multi Store
Key Solution: Focus on real time management of sell out while also running full operation
Key Benefit: While the Client focuses on daily operation, ArtsMagna automatically manages sell out Region: Italy |
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Background - The Environment - One of Italy`s first chain of Jewellery Stores, their main office, located in a very busy part of Milan near Piazzale Loreto, consist of three floors over half a block surrounded by three streets and two corners. This one shop alone in the December period runs a 4 digit daily sales count. Having been taken over by one of Italy`s more important Jewellery Wholesalers, with 12 Offices all over Italy, the Fiorentino group.
Background - The Requirements - The Fiorentino group planned to implement ArtsMagna business software to provide an integrated POS, Accounting, logistical/distribution and Stock management to their newly acquired Milan Retail outlet. The most important quality that ArtsMagna had to have to be considered for the job was to be able to manage the Stock for correct handling of merchandise received and shipped on consignment. Most software system in fact have a concept of Quantity On Hand, Committed and Available but the requirement here was to have Quantity Available, Owned, From Suppliers and At Customers. The company decided to simultaneously upgrade its expensive AS400 IBM`s hardware infrastructure to facilitate the increased demands of the powerful new software and also to ensure complete Y2K compliance. |
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Solution - Phase One was carried out at the beginning of December 1999 and consisted of installing the new Fast Ethernet LAN as the previous AS400 system was working on terminals through thick coaxial cables. All previous terminals and printers were dismissed. An IBM Netfinity 3000, with 192Mb of Ram and 2x9Gb 80Mb UWSCSI hard disk, was chosen to be the Server on which we installed NT Server, four IBM NT Workstation Clients were also installed on two of which we installed Specific IBM Cards able to allow connectivity to the Old AS400 Server while also providing Support as Clients to the newly installed ArtsMagna Server on the Netfinity through TCP/IP. These computer were used by the Administration section to help the transition to the new system while providing lookups to the old accounts and double entries for the Accounting and all the previous transactions related to Stock. They were also used to export all relevant data from the AS400 for reimporting into ArtsMagna. An IBM ThinkPad laptop was provided to the Manager to allow onsite connectivity through the LAN and Remote Access capability through the Modem. Two iMac interfaced with TEC BarCode printers ,USB Webcams and Mettler scales where installed for allowing Stock Items simplified loading. An older IBM PC with Windows 95 was also reutilized in the new LAN with its own Epson Stylus 800 Color inkjet printer. To this printer another 3 printers were added. A HP2100TN connected through TCP/IP and accessible to all Computer (Windows or MacOS) and another two Epson Stylus Photo (750 and 900). Later in 2000 another two iMacs have been added to this Site. Phase Two started from 1st of January 2000 as the AS400 system was dropped and work started on the new ArtsMagna server. The initial skepticism about the capability of the new ArtsMagna server to run with the same reliability they were used to on the AS400 is now a joke of the past as even this installation has now been working reliably and unattended 7 x 24 since that January. This is a very intensive and high volume of transaction business, adding on average per year of 50000 new Stock Items, 40000 sales, 8000 purchase orders, 1800 accounts General Ledger and over 100000 accounting double entries. A best-of-breed client/server system, ArtsMagna offers a dynamic, flexible, user-friendly and integrated merchandising solution. It delivers improved productivity, precision planning and co-ordination across all the different functions within a retail organization. ArtsMagna Statistics allow Merchandise Planning, Assortment Planning and Allocation. This module is centrally managed and stored by the Automatic Job Scheduler on the database. Of particular importance to Goldmarket was the Performance Analysis decision support capability within ArtsMagna Statistics, which allows hyperbolic viewing of data and exceptions.
Result - The necessary period to get this site fully independent and perfectly operational has been approximately 6 months. The benefits to Goldmarket are many. First of all we have been able to achieve the ownership main objective to simplify and streamline the sell out process of Goldmarket. The Fiorentino group is now in fact able to know in real time the items supplied to Goldmarket already sold by them allowing weekly invoicing and restocking. The ArtsMagna solution enables Goldmarket to drill right down in its planning so that the company can be absolutely accurate when it comes to stocking its different stores. This has helped alleviate the need for returns to move unwanted items. It has also assisted the company in meeting its objective to have a very clean, lean range in its small stores, and highly targeted ranges in large stores. By making more accurate information available, Goldmarket has managed to attain tighter stock turnover. According to Paolo Cattaneo, director of operations at Goldmarket, the excellent management of stock and expenses should also further increase profitability.
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