Royal Design & Ongoing WMS: The E-commerce Giant's Encounter with Logistic Innovation

When the e-commerce giant in design and home decor, Royal Design Group Holding AB , underwent strong growth, it became clear that a logistical change in their warehouse management was necessary. This realization led them to Ongoing WMS, which not only met Royal Design's high demands but also offered innovative solutions that came to exceed their expectations.

From Kalmar to E-commerce Giant

Royal Design's journey began in 1999 in Kalmar, with a clear vision to offer design and home decoration products for the American market. Early on, the company recognized the enormous potential of e-commerce. They therefore chose to fully commit to this strategy and expand their target market to include the Nordic countries as well. Around 2021, Royal Design had established itself as a leading e-commerce player in the Nordics within its niche. However, success also brought challenges, especially when it came to their warehouse management. For a long time, they had only worked in the warehouse management system intended for their AutoStore? . There was now a need to evaluate and upgrade the WMS, especially for handling larger products such as sofas and tables. Here, Ongoing would be of great help.

When Royal Design first got in touch with Ongoing, they were simultaneously looking at several other systems. They had many complex requirements for their future WMS provider, such as being able to integrate smoothly with Autostore and its WMS while also being able to efficiently manage the regular warehouse operations. And, of course, being able to consolidate orders between Autostore and regular picking.

Greatest Strength: Personal Customer-Responsible Software Developer

From Ongoing's side, there was never any doubt that the system could handle Royal Design's various needs. However, larger WMS clients may want the warehouse system provider to take overall responsibility and, above all, have several consultants on-site for an extended period. This is, however, not part of Ongoing's business model. In Ongoing's model, each new customer is assigned a personal customer-responsible software developer with whom they can have direct contact. Behind the personal developer, there is a team consisting of about 4 developers in total, where they often discuss clients' specific needs to come up with the best solutions.

Jimmy Rothberg , Head of Logistics / Site Manager at Royal Design, talks about their experience with Ongoing's model: "At first, we were a bit worried that we would only have one dedicated person at Ongoing to have our dialogue with during the implementation. But quite quickly, we realized that it instead became a strength to have direct contact with a software developer where we always got quick and competent responses to our many questions. I am very satisfied with the personal service regarding the development and the daily cooperation with Ongoing!"

Engineering Invention Creates Solutions

Royal Design's customer-responsible software developer Tianfu Yun shares his view on how the implementation has worked in this case with a company as large and complex as Royal Design: "Sure, compared to our smaller customers, Royal Design had a relatively long implementation process from becoming a customer until the go-live date for the warehouse, but considering how many systems and different parties were involved, I think it went very smoothly. From my perspective, I had to apply much of my knowledge in logistics but also had to be very inventive to solve their problems."

An example of engineering ingenuity from Tianfu, who has a master's degree in engineering physics from Chalmers University of Technology and has worked at Ongoing for 6 years, is during Royal Design's delivery process when carriers come and pick up pallets filled with various types of goods. The problem before was that the carrier often couldn't take all the pallets in one truck according to the correct order of operations. At the same time, it was not practical to scan and register each individual pallet being loaded into the truck. "After some back-and-forth discussion, we came up with a good solution where we simply put an incrementally increasing ID on each pallet queued for pickup, which meant that we only needed to scan the first pallet that didn't fit with the truck to know how many, and which pallets, went with the delivery."

Efficiency Processes in Continuous Development

In return for having a personal contact and software developer, Ongoing prefers to have a single-point-of-contact with the client to streamline communication. In this case, the main responsibility fell on Jimmy. "Of course, many of us at the warehouse use Ongoing WMS, and we make joint decisions regarding the development of processes and continuous improvements. In the warehouse we have our Technical and Systems lead Martin Kr?ger, who provides a deeper understanding of various aspects related to the WMS. We also have several system specialists who together streamline warehouse operations in different management projects, but Martin is the person who, along with me, has managed the dialogue with Tianfu about specific problems and challenges at the warehouse. For me, it is important that the entire operation develops with a focus on continuous improvements, and all employees need to constantly gain a better understanding of the process flow. This is something we have been able to accelerate thanks to fruitful dialogues with Tianfu, who then also carried out the development on Ongoing's side," he says.

A Bright Future Ahead with the Customer Promise in Focus

Jimmy concludes by talking about some of the benefits of using Ongoing: "We look a lot at data from Ongoing WMS and continuously achieve efficiencies at the warehouse based on this. For example, we have a much better track of the articles' path through the warehouse now than before. We work much more efficiently linked to many improvements that mean we do not need as much staff on site as before. Many processes that we have carried out have also been put in an automated standard that helps us further focus on the customer experience and constantly keep the customer promise in focus. We have several important projects to complete in the future that will have a major effect on the overall goal of continuously improving the customer experience and shortening delivery times. And we look forward to continued cooperation with Ongoing!"

Fredrik Einarsson , CEO of Ongoing, has also been involved from the start and offers some concluding words: "Since I know what our software is capable of, I was completely confident that Ongoing's model would suit a large customer like Royal Design. We will continue to develop their logistics flows so that they can continue to save time and money. From our side, we are incredibly proud to have such a fine customer and brand as Royal Design among our clients!"