Inventory management software: from pains to gains for Nike and Nederlandse Spoorwegen

Stock shortages, suddenly disappearing items, administrative hassle, and a lot of wasted time. Inefficient management of your stock is a latent problem that, sooner or later, translates into unnecessary – and often unexpectedly high – costs. But it can be done differently. Just ask Nike and Nederlanse Spoorwegen (Dutch railways), two customers who chose the way forward thanks to smart Telloport inventory management software.

Nike: from safety shoes to MRO materials

The Nike European Logistics Campus in Laakdal is the US sports giant’s logistics nerve centre in Europe. More than 6,000 employees converge here every day. Not surprisingly, this poses quite a few challenges, including in terms of internal distribution.

For Nike, we initially built a contactless digital ecosystem for efficient distribution of safety shoes, including close monitoring of their inventory. Over the years, we expanded that ecosystem to facilitate the internal distribution of additional items, such as MRO materials and specific tools.

Today, Nike Laakdal uses multiple smart distribution points linked to hyper-accurate inventory management software, which monitors and adjusts flow of goods in real time.

On one hand, this takes the form of automated shops (vending) for the employees themselves. On the other hand, they rely on smart, unmanned PuDo (pick-up & drop off) points for receiving deliveries, for internal distribution, and for returning PPE- and MRO-related items.

Nike’s Telloport-gains

• Time saving
• Flexible supply chain
• Systematic quality control
• Cost optimisation
• Minimal loss of materials

Nederlandse Spoorwegen: maxi-check on mini-items

One of the workshops of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) is located in Groningen. It goes without saying that countless materials and components, such as work gloves, safety glasses, flashlights, and so on, move from place to place and person to person here every day.

To take the distribution of these materials, as well as personal protective equipment, to the next level, we implemented our smart inventory management software in a centrally located distribution point. The NS easily manages their distributable portfolio of products themself via the user-friendly software and, thanks to the contactless badge system, knows perfectly which items have been transferred through which persons.

NS’s Telloport-gains

• Better control over material quality
• No more stock shortages
• Minimal loss of materials
• Time savings
• No more need for a physical warehouse manager