Hydro Mississauga purchases power from another utility and converts it to usable voltage for residential and commercial customers in the city of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. With 300 employees and 138,000 customers, Hydro Mississauga is the second largest power utility in Ontario, and the most profitable. A new wireless inventory and warehouse management system is helping to keep it that way.

Application: Inventory Management
Despite the best efforts of the experienced and knowledgeable personnel that Hydro Mississauga relied on to find materials in its warehouse, the utility's paper-based inventory and warehousing system hampered operations. Paper-based inventorying was slow and inaccurate, and it delayed reporting so that inventory records were never current or reliable. Inventory shortages, late paperwork, and delays for tools and replacement parts that line crews needed to make critical field repairs were all unavoidable problems. Typically, 40 to 50 service crews would wait as long as two hours for tools and parts before leaving the warehouse in the morning.

Wanting to account for critical tools and important inventory items like cable reels, transformers, and water heaters accurately, and at any time, Hydro Mississauga integrated a wireless warehouse management system with its host minicomputer. Now, warehouse operators use hand-held wireless terminals equipped with bar code scanners to track inventory in real time. Service crews use the bar code scanners to build their own orders at the end of their shift, so that warehouse operators can have their orders ready for pickup first thing next morning.

Benefits: Huge Savings from Leaner Inventory, Faster Inventory Turnover, and Real-Time Tracking
Since they no longer waste time waiting at the warehouse in the morning, Hydro Mississauga's 40 to 50 service crews arrive at each job site one to two hours earlier each day. Plus, Hydro Mississauga has reduced its inventory by $300,000 (from $5.7 million to $5.4 million), doubled inventory turnover, and saved money by eliminating manual data entry. Hydro Mississauga estimates that its wireless system will pay for itself in six months.

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