Walk With Me Replaces Excel with Katana and Improves Material Inventory Control by 65%
Walk With Me Replaces Excel with Katana and Improves Material Inventory Control by 65%
“Katana keeps our stock well managed and allows us to have a complete, real-time overview of our manufacturing processes. It's a powerful software which keeps our operations under control.”
— Pablo Baque, Walk With Me CEO
“With Katana, we were finally able to get a full overview of our manufacturing processes and material inventory. This software not only helped us significantly improve our production planning, but we are now twice as productive, as we save so much time on daily operations.
— Pablo Baque
Walk With Me CEO
Company Profile
Company Profile
Through contemporary design and local production on one of the most vibrant streets in Madrid, Walk With Me offers stunning leather backpacks, shoulder bags, stationery and accessories. Their designs have minimalism and utility at their core, aiming to marry fashion and functionality.
They repurpose materials as much as possible, in order to eliminate unnecessary waste and leave a positive mark on the world of retail; they also use a mixture of recycled leather bears and natural latex to remain sustainable.
Their production and retail all sit under the same roof, allowing customers to see exactly how they work at their workshop store, situated in Madrid’s Lavapiés neighborhood.
At some point, the business saw a rapid surge in orders, and keeping track of manufacturing and inventory started to get out of control. The Excel spreadsheets soon became difficult to manage, and Pablo, CEO at Walk With Me, knew he had to take their backend operations to the next level, in order to keep up with demand.
Challenges
Challenges
The three major challenges Pablo identified were:
- Controlling their inventory with messy spreadsheets;
- Keeping track of raw materials; and
- Planning production.
He said that one of their main struggles was the inability to plan the right amount of necessary raw materials.
“We were getting more and more orders, and couldn’t manage our production with Excel anymore. It became increasingly difficult to plan our raw materials and work load.” , Pablo added.
Objectives
Objectives
Pablo understood he needed to better manage Walk With Me’s business operations by:
- Improving inventory control of raw materials and finished goods by at least 50%;
- Having a complete and real-time real-time overview of their manufacturing process; and
- Optimizing the time spend on daily operations.
As Walk With Me’s website is based on Shopify, it was vital for Pablo to find a tool that also supports Shopify inventory integration, as well as stock sync with multiple Shopify stores.
How Katana Helped
How Katana Helped
Walk With Me was managing material inventory and finished goods, based on a production spreadsheet template. And that was fine, until they started getting rushes of orders and things became prone to human error.
After conducting research on the best production scheduling softwaresuitable for their needs as a scaling business, they found Katana and decided to give it a try. They haven’t looked back ever since, as Katana considerably helped them to:
- Improve raw material inventory control by 65% by tracking the availability of required materials with Katana’s smart auto-booking feature
- Improve production planning by 60% by being able to drag-and-drop priorities for manufacturing jobs and identify delay risks related to material supply lead times; and
- Save a significant amount of time spent on managing day-to-day operations.
Pablo said, “We needed a tool to help us deal with Shopify inventory management for raw materials, and Katana exceeded our expectations. It has quickly became an essential tool for our daily operations, and we couldn’t be happier!”
Katana’s visual and easy-to-use dashboard has allowed them to regain control over their business. Since ditching the inefficient spreadsheets, Walk With Me has significantly optimized their operations, inventory control, and time management.
