Powell s Books Goes Mobile to Manage Growth
From humble storefront beginnings in 1971 on a derelict corner of northwest
Portland, Oregon, Powell s Books has grown into one of the world s great
bookstores in the Portland metropolitan area, and one of the...
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Powell s Books Goes Mobile to Manage Growth
From humble storefront beginnings in 1971 on a derelict corner of northwest
Portland, Oregon, Powell s Books has grown into one of the world s great
bookstores in the Portland metropolitan area, and one of the world s most
successful dot-coms (www.
powells.
com), serving customers worldwide.
The
company has about 450 to 500 employees, seven stores and two warehouse
locations storing an average of 400,000 books.
Powell’s Books warehouse workers are constantly counting and stocking nearly
10,000 shelves with books so to keep the warehouse organized.
In the past
when a book was misplaced, workers had no way of finding it creating an
unorganized warehouse.
Previously, workers would scan a book s SKU number and have to enter the
locator code during the data entry process.
While data entering they would keep
a tape measure with them to measure their stack of books to see if they
exceeded the amount of space on the shelf.
When they hit their l
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