As the customer carried out daily warehouse tasks such as receiving, shipping, and inventory counts, they faced challenges including gaps between recorded and actual inventory, difficulty identifying where products were stored, and limited traceability of work records. Operations that depend on forms and spreadsheets tend to rely heavily on the experience of on-site staff, making each confirmation and handover time-consuming.

When product status, lot information, storage locations, and inbound and outbound history are managed separately, inventory checks become more burdensome and the risk of incorrect shipments or overlooked stockouts increases. As transaction volumes grow, these issues become difficult to absorb through on-site operations alone.

For this reason, the customer needed more than a system for simply recording stock quantities. They needed a solution that could organize warehouse movements as a unified business workflow and manage them in a way that was easy for on-site staff to use.

The purpose of this project was to systematize warehouse operations, including receiving, shipping, inventory counts, and location management, and to make inventory information more accurate and easier to understand.

At the same time, the project aimed to use barcode/QR technology to connect work records with inventory data, helping standardize on-site operations and improve processing speed.

SMILE was responsible for designing and developing the data architecture required for warehouse management, along with receiving, shipping, and inventory management functions, location management, barcode/QR support, history management, inventory alerts, and reporting features.

The solution also combines a web-based management screen with mobile usage to support both on-site work and management-side verification. A key feature of this project is that it balances ease of use for field staff with traceability for managers.

A key focus of this initiative was not only registering inventory quantities, but also enabling the business to track where products are located and how they have moved as part of the operational workflow. In warehouse operations, even if data is updated every time goods are received or shipped, the burden of on-site checks will not be reduced unless storage locations and history are properly organized.

To address these issues, SMILE designed a system that organizes the information needed for receiving, storage, shipping, and inventory counts, while enabling inventory to be managed in connection with specific locations. By incorporating barcode/QR scanning, the system helps reduce manual input errors and makes it easier to improve both the speed and accuracy of work.

By combining history management with alert functions, the system was designed to make it easier to review past movements and understand inventory status, supporting not only day-to-day operations but also management decision-making.

The challenge in this project was to manage inventory, locations, and history consistently in line with actual on-site workflows, rather than handling them separately. For example, when the same product has different lots or storage locations, simply increasing or decreasing inventory is not sufficient for real-world operations.

In warehouse operations, on-the-spot processing speed is critical. The system therefore needed to support barcode and QR-based workflows while avoiding excessive data entry or confirmation steps. Balancing ease of use on mobile devices with data integrity, while taking network conditions and device operations into account, was also an important consideration.

For SMILE, we designed a data structure that makes inventory easy to track by location and combined history management, scan-based operations, and synchronization design to create a system that is easy for on-site teams to use and easy for managers to monitor.

This project made it possible to manage receiving, shipping, inventory counts, and location checks within a single system, making warehouse workflows easier to standardize. As a result, discrepancies between inventory data and actual storage conditions can be reduced, while on-site product verification and operational decision-making become easier.

By using history records and alerts, teams can identify stock shortages and missed checks more quickly, helping reduce operational errors and improve processing speed. Although the publicly available information does not disclose the actual number of SKUs or the rate of accuracy improvement, the initiative is highly significant in terms of visualizing warehouse operations and strengthening the operational foundation.

When building a warehouse management system, it is important to design not only the screens but also the overall workflow, including on-site operations, product management units, location handling, and methods for reviewing history. At SMILE, the Japan and Vietnam teams work together to organize business flows and move step by step through functional design, implementation, and testing.

By continuously organizing requirements through BrSE, sharing screen mockups, reviewing progress, and confirming testing perspectives, we have established a structure that makes it easier to move development forward while minimizing gaps in understanding, even for themes closely tied to on-site operations.

The value of a warehouse management system lies not only in recording inventory quantities, but also in managing product movements, storage locations, and history in an integrated way, enabling standardized on-site operations. In this case study, SMILE organized inbound and outbound operations, inventory, locations, barcode/QR workflows, history, and alerts to build a management foundation for a model warehouse.

For companies facing challenges such as overreliance on specific individuals, inventory discrepancies, and heavy verification workloads in warehouse operations, implementing this type of system is an effective option for improving day-to-day operations.