21 November 2007

Home interiors retailer Habitat has consolidated its stock taking across the UK using new portable data capture units and bespoke software from Portech Systems. Following the successful UK implementation of the new system, it will be rolled out to Spain and potentially other European countries.

The implementation includes the use of 108 multi-lingual Unitech HT660 portable data capture units. These will enable Habitat to make perpetual counts and rolling counts once the initial stock audit has been undertaken. The new units and software will help to provide a unified approach to stock auditing, as well as improving the speed and accuracy of counts - as they are programmed to recognise and alert the stock auditor to skew very quickly.

The HT660 is Bluetooth enabled and comes with Microsoft Windows CE 5.0 Professional operating system, integrated 1D laser scanner and an SD card slot.

Implementation is already underway with a testing phase running concurrently and will be finished before the critical January stock audits in the UK. A Habitat spokesperson said: "We are confident that we will be able to transform our stock audit process to deliver strong benefits to our business down to the individual store level. The new system is more than a simple stock audit solution ? it has huge potential to help us improve traceability of our products and manage our inventory more effectively at any time of the year. Store managers will be able to access real time product inventory during the order process and analyse turn levels far more accurately than the method we use today."