CASE STUDY of EDOS

 “More of a partner than a vendor”
EDOS on finding HandiFox

“The Handifox team is responsive, patient, able to resolve issues quickly and collaborate well with our IT person. They made it a priority to understand our business and our unique needs. We felt they were more of a partner than a vendor”.

Phil Doyle, EDOS IT Manager

Key Facts

• EDOS – a leading distributer of plumbing, heating and cooling solutions
• since 1975
• 50 employees
• 2 warehouses (2 in MS, 1 in NY)
• 2019 HandiFox Desktop / QuickBooks Desktop

The challenge

We talked to Phil Doyle, EDOS IT Manager, about how the company used to approach inventory management and the efficacy of their methods. Here is what Phil told us:

“Before using HandiFox, EDOS used a two-part system to receive and send products out of the warehouses.

Receiving was done by a warehouse worker unloading a truck and using a BOL (bill of lading) to check the inventory coming off the truck. The BOL was scanned and sent to the main office. It was checked against items in QuickBooks. A process which could take up to 5-6 hours to complete.

Shipping. EDOS received orders via email which was then entered into QuickBooks. Each order was processed and sent to the warehouses via email with a PDF attachment and printed out by the warehouse employees. Items were then pulled off the shelves and staged waiting for pickup or delivery”.

The company had been handling its inventory-intensive business manually for years until they implemented HandiFox Desktop over a year ago.

Other than being too time-consuming, those work streams proved too error-prone and really damaging to the accuracy and speed of fulfillment as the company’s employees occasionally misread product codes or input wrong items into QuickBooks.

The solution

EDOS short-listed several vendors of inventory control solutions but HandiFox was the one that survived the cut.

“We looked at the cost and learning curve. We also were looking for something that we could integrate barcode scanners. The biggest selling point in favor of HandiFox was the ability to integrate with QuickBooks. The office staff did not have to learn a new system. Using barcode scanners insured that we would have an accurate count of our inventory”.

EDOS asked HandiFox for several modifications that were vital to their business. As said earlier, receiving used to be a major time-sucker, so the HandiFox team delivered a patch through which EDOS got the ability to receive multiple POs at once, under one BOL

“They accommodated us every step of the way and the outcome is a system that meets our needs perfectly. Receiving is greatly simplified and takes a fraction of the time. Errors are reduced to zero. We have an accurate inventory count. No mis-picks and customer orders are being filled accurately and quickly”.

Case Study of EDOS (pdf, 321 Kb)