Navico Group scales for new business growth with Oracle Warehouse Management

With 22 industry-leading brands in power management, digital control and networking, marine electronics, and more, Navico Group develops state-of-the-art parts and accessories for marine and recreational vehicles. The group’s innovative solutions help create new experiences and enable greater possibilities on the road or on the water.

The company operates 24 locations around the world, so maintaining an efficient supply chain is essential. Navico Group, which is an integral part of the Brunswick Corporation, was formed by acquisitions, which resulted in a complicated web of disparate systems supporting different functions such as reporting, labeling, and audit. The core of this environment was an antiquated and unsupported warehousing application, which was unreliable and not scalable for growing order volumes.

The aging technology also created operational challenges for the business. Processes varied by location, with many workflows relying on the tribal knowledge. Inventory was difficult to track with accuracy levels falling below 50%. Lack of data visibility and accuracy created more manual work for employees, with additional staff needed to manage processes like data audits and order picking. These pitfalls also impacted end customers, with a top compliant being the lack of packing slips in every shipment.

The group’s leadership sought to address functional gaps and create a more seamless customer experience by adopting a cloud platform that could simplify the complex landscape. After evaluating several options, Navico Group selected Oracle Warehouse Management, part of the Oracle Logistics suite within Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing (SCM).

The decision aligned with the larger vision of Brunswick Corporation to move its overall technical ecosystem to Oracle Cloud. When comparing Oracle Warehouse Management to similar cloud applications, Navico found it was more cost effective, robust, and could be easily integrated with its existing ERP systems. Oracle Warehouse Management is the group’s central warehousing platform and establishes a foundation for standardized processes across its distribution centers. The tool’s scalability supports growing order volumes while its native reporting and labeling capabilities eliminate the need for existing legacy tools.

With the help of Oracle partner Accelalpha, Navico Group replaced its existing, unsupported warehouse application with Oracle Warehouse Management, gaining higher availability and the scalability to support growing order volumes. The cloud platform became the nucleus of the group’s logistics operations, supporting standardized rules-based processes that eliminated reliance on tribal knowledge. Technology no longer impeded people getting their work done. Instead, it allowed employees to be more efficient and face less frustrations thanks to modern functionality, simpler tools, and automation.

Oracle Warehouse Management helped the group streamline its warehouse operations to allow on-time and accurate fulfillment. Data was consolidated in the platform for easier reporting and intuitive dashboards, giving distribution center leads greater visibility to improve inventory accuracy and resource accountability. The newfound data accuracy eliminated the need for legacy audit tools and freed up employees to be reassigned to more value-added activities.

Inventory accuracy increased from below 50% in the old environment to 98%. With better insight into the movement of inbound products, putaway efficiency increased by 45%, which ensured inventory was in the correct location. This made it easier for employees on the floor to pick orders, resulting in a 20% increase in picking productivity without any change in headcount. Within five business days, the group increased its total picks from 53 to 1,547—almost a 30X jump.

Navico Group also enhanced its shipment management, which translated to higher customer satisfaction. Every box shipped included a packing slip, eliminating a top customer complaint. The group also gained the ability to ship hazmat in parcels in line with requirements of its newly acquired RELiON battery business. Oracle Warehouse Management provided automated routing for parcels, system-generated shipping methods, and insight into shipping and inventory status in near real time. With the application conveniently organizing manifests by carriers instead of ship codes, manifest management dropped by 90%. All these improvements created more seamless order flows, resulting in a 21% year-over-year increase in lines processed.

Navico Group sought the assistance of Oracle partner Accelalpha to implement Oracle Warehouse Management and deliver integrations to its Oracle E-Business Suite ERP. The Accelalpha team worked with the group’s project leads and helped redesign and standardize warehouse operations. Navico continues to benefit from Accelalpha’s continuous communication and ongoing support post-implementation.