Mintsoft and Bray Solutions
This 3PL warehouse management system case study shows how Mintsoft helps Bray Solutions manage their UK facility, and work in partnership with their 3PL clients.
Who are Bray Solutions?
Bray Solutions are a third-party logistics provider based in Peterborough, UK. Founded in 2011, their operations started in a 7000 sq ft warehouse with 3 employees, to now operating from 200,000 sq ft with over 60 members of staff.
Originally set up as a bulk pallet storage facility, Bray diversified in 2013, adding ecommerce pick and packing services, due to ever-growing demand and have never looked back. They strive to be one of the most trusted and relied-upon independent 3PL providers in the UK, offering seamless solutions to their clients to achieve that goal.
The Challenge
As their business grew, Bray Solutions realised the warehouse management system (WMS) they had in place was limiting their scalability.
They struggled to on-board new clients quickly and cost-effectively due to the need for developers to build connections. They were unable to connect to the courier integrations they needed and their clients were unable to get real-time information on their orders without contacting Bray directly.
“With our previous warehouse management system, developers had to get involved. And the cost that comes with developers both on our side and our previous suppliers side, whereas now the scalability just means that we can we can onboard a new customer within a week.” Steve Mills – Senior Commercial Manager
During their search for a new system, Bray focused on finding a solution that would be user friendly for their team, support their ability to scale, offer the integrations to the carriers they needed, as well as provide their customers a window into their operations to reduce the need for queries.
“By using Mintsoft, we've saved around 150 hours a week that we've been able to redeploy in other areas of the business just through not having to do manual processes.”
How Mintsoft has helped
As their search began, Bray were clear on their requirements, prioritising the experience for their team and customers. Then they found Mintsoft.
Scalability
Eager to overcome the onboarding challenges of their previous WMS, the team at Bray looked for a solution that allowed them to offer integrations to customers quickly and without the additional cost of developers.
With Mintsoft, they can now onboard new customers quickly, get their stock booked into the system and warehouse, connect shopping cart and courier integrations to immediately start fulfilling orders for their customers, ultimately allowing Bray to scale without restrictions.
“Since working with Mintsoft, our customer numbers have grown by 33%.” Steve Mills – Senior Commercial Manager
Usability
Bray needed a system that would be easy to use and give their team the ability to easily communicate with their customers. As they work in partnership with their clients, rather than simply transactional relationships, having a system that would allow their customers to access their own information, at any time was crucial to them.
With the Mintsoft client portal, Bray have been able to reduce their team’s workload dramatically, including answering client queries. They’ve been able to replace manual processes, data entry and answering queries with automation, enabling them to redeploy their team to handle more than administration tasks.
Senior Commercial Manager, Steve Mills said: “By using Mintsoft, we've saved around 150 hours a week that we've been able to redeploy in other areas of the business just through not having to do manual processes.”
Warehouse Manager, Phillip Morton added: “It's easy to use, easy to navigate, and it's a step above what we've had previously.”
Courier & WMS Integrations
One of the reasons Bray chose Mintsoft was due to variety of integrations available out of the box. Their previous WMS restricted their ability to serve their clients, and Mintsoft offered the courier integrations they needed.
Additionally, Mintsoft enables Bray to work seamlessly with one of their largest clients, who use their own WMS, through an integration. As stock arrives at Bray, they can book in via ASN and confirm goods-in across both systems – allowing the customer to have real-time visibility of the stock being held in Bray’s warehouse space.
3PL Billing & Invoicing
Prior to using Mintsoft, Bray were manually reconciling their picking activity to generate month-end invoices, which was a timely task prone to human error and missing invoice items. With Mintsoft’s built-in 3PL billing tools, each transaction is logged and tracked, with assigned costs, which can then be generated into a month-end invoice.
General Manager, Dale Sharpe said:
“One of the features I really like with Mintsoft is it's 3PL accounting and billing module. I think the fact that they can capture each individual transaction and movement through the system and monitor all of the billing and consolidate that onto a month end invoice the customers with no manual intervention is perfect.”
Senior Commercial Manager, Steve Mills went on to add: “One of the great things about the billing module is that it's reduced our invoicing queries from on average around 5 a month, down to 0 now.”
"One of the great things about the billing module is that it's reduced our invoicing queries from on average around 5 a month, down to 0 now."
What’s next for Bray Solutions?
Bray continue to grow their presence in the UK, and to strengthen their services, they’ve recently upgraded their BRC Storage and Distribution rating to AA, obtained their ISO 9001 accreditation and are in the closing stages of securing their ISO 27001 accreditation.
As their business grows, Mintsoft continues to offer Bray the opportunity to be involved in the development of the software through early adoption of new functionality, that can further enhance Bray’s 3PL services to their clients.
“The overall experience of working with Mintsoft, for me personally, has been fantastic. They're always responsive to any questions that we raise. They're always prepared to jump on meetings and discuss any concerns that we have, always prepared to actually let us know of any roadmap and development, and consider us for early adoption.” Dale Sharpe - General Manager