Montirex

Montirex is a sports performance brand serving customers through direct-to-consumer (DTC), wholesale, and retail channels. What started as a small operation has grown into a thriving business. Today, the company operates from a 50,000-square-foot warehouse and continues to expand across the UK, Ireland, and Europe.

As demand increased, the warehouse came under more pressure. More orders, more products, and a larger workforce made it harder to rely on manual processes.

In 2021, Montirex implemented Descartes Peoplevox™ to address several operational challenges, including inventory accuracy, warehouse efficiency, and labor costs.

According to Iain Ratcliffe, Head of Operations at Montirex: “Peoplevox was a game changer for us. Inventory accuracy, lack of floor efficiency, and staffing overheads were reduced significantly.”

Looking back, Iain believes growing businesses should invest in a warehouse management system (WMS) sooner rather than later: “When you start to experience significant growth, anything with paper can really hold you back. When we implemented Peoplevox, things started moving much more quickly, and many of those inaccuracies and inefficiencies started to disappear.”

One of the clearest indicators of Montirex’s growth has been the increase in warehouse throughput. Before implementing Peoplevox, the business was picking around 2,500 units per week. Today, that figure has increased to approximately 20,000 units per week.

Even as picking volumes continued to rise, the team was able to maintain control of daily operations. As Iain says: “We wouldn’t be able to perform at this level without a system like Peoplevox.”

Like many ecommerce retailers, Montirex experiences significant spikes in demand during Black Friday and Cyber Week. According to Iain: “Our Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays can bring around six weeks of trade into a single week.”

During those peak weeks, the warehouse needs to process far more orders without slowing down. For Montirex, Peoplevox provides the stability needed to perform during the busiest weeks of the year.

For Iain, one of the biggest benefits of Peoplevox is having everything in one place. Instead of relying on spreadsheets or disconnected processes, the team can see orders, workflows, staffing, and warehouse performance in real time.

As Iain explains: “The first big change you’ll see when you implement Peoplevox are that all your orders are in one place. You can start to look at your workflows, see what people are picking by hour, and see what people are dispatching by hour.”

Managers can quickly check order progress, dispatch performance, and other operational metrics to keep the warehouse running smoothly.

Peoplevox also gives Montirex a clearer view of workforce performance, helping managers plan staffing more effectively.

According to Iain: “Peoplevox allows you to manage staffing costs significantly better, operate different shifts, and monitor what people are doing.” Access to dashboards and productivity metrics helps the team balance performance with budget control.

One of the biggest operational challenges during peak periods is training temporary staff quickly enough to support demand. During Cyber Week, the warehouse team grows rapidly to keep up with demand. As Iain explains: “During peak Cyber periods, we’ve brought in around 100 additional staff on top of our core team of just 20 or 30.”

For teams relying on paper-based processes, onboarding large numbers of new employees can be difficult and time-consuming. According to Iain, the difference with Peoplevox is dramatic: “If I had to compare training new staff on paper-based systems versus Peoplevox, it’s almost incomparable.”

The platform enables Montirex to get new team members productive in a remarkably short period of time. “To train those extra people within Peoplevox takes around 60 minutes.”

Beyond picking and dispatch, Peoplevox helps Montirex streamline several critical warehouse processes. For Danny Lark, Senior Application Support Analyst, one of the biggest benefits is inventory management through automated cycle counting: “We can tell the system to count a location every 60 days, and it automatically creates a job for the warehouse team.” That means the team spends less time creating counting tasks and more time keeping inventory accurate.

Peoplevox also simplifies putaway operations by directing warehouse staff to the appropriate locations automatically. As Danny explains: “It removes the thinking side of the putaway process. Staff are directed to the right location based on predefined criteria, which makes things easier for everyone.”

Returns processing has also become more efficient through automation and system integration. “When a return arrives, we can scan the label and immediately see the return in Peoplevox. It updates our systems and makes the refund process simple and automated.”

After several years of using Peoplevox, Iain says the system has consistently supported Montirex’s growth. He also highlights the quality of the support team: “The support is really, really good. We have 24/7 access to the support team if we need it, which is actually quite rare.”

After using multiple warehouse management systems throughout his career, Iain considers Peoplevox one of the strongest solutions available: “I’ve used Peoplevox at a number of different retailers for about 12 years. It gives me everything I need, whether it’s for basic day-to-day tasks or more advanced requirements.”

Asked whether he would recommend Peoplevox, Iain doesn’t hesitate: