UAE Food Distributor Doubles Order Picking and Shipping Speed with FirstBit ERP

When your business deals with expensive and perishable goods, the financial stability and liquidity of the entire company depend heavily on how effectively inventory is managed.

Although Suma Gourmet had been using commercial software before 2018, inventory management remained a weak point in its operations. The company lacked streamlined warehouse workflows, struggled to manage product expiration dates, and frequently encountered unrecorded surplus inventory. In addition, product costing was performed manually, making the process prone to human error.

The company needed to transition to a modern automation system that would not only eliminate errors but also improve overall business efficiency.

Before implementing the solution, First Bit specialists conducted a thorough analysis of the client's business processes and developed a structured approach to identifying the root causes of existing problems.

Before switching to FirstBit ERP, the company's workflow operated as follows. After receiving goods from suppliers, warehouse employees weighed and sorted the products. Any surplus inventory was not recorded and was often simply discarded.

Furthermore, because sorting was performed manually, products with different expiration dates were frequently mixed together. When shipping meat to customers, warehouse employees selected the products they considered most suitable and dispatched them. This disrupted workflows across key departments. Management struggled to analyze and plan orders, while the sales team lacked clarity on which products should be prioritized for sale.

Following the analysis, First Bit decided to integrate the supplier database with automated invoice generation, reorganize the warehouse, and equip it with smart scales and barcode scanners. Management also gained a convenient, user-friendly tool for analyzing key performance indicators and planning future operations.

The workflow after implementing the new solution is as follows. A Suma Gourmet employee creates a purchase order directly in the system and sends it to the supplier. Once the goods arrive and are received, the warehouse manager weighs each individual item separately.

The system records accurate information for each product, including its weight, cost, and expiration date. It also prints an individual barcode label indicating the product's storage location.

When a customer places an order, the system records the relevant dates and locations, analyzes available inventory, selects the most suitable products, and adds the order to the processing queue. Warehouse employees only need to pick the items from their designated storage locations and generate an invoice. If unsold products are approaching their expiration dates, the system issues an alert to move them into refrigerated storage.

At the end of each day, the system organizes all collected data and automatically generates management reports on gross profit, inventory balances, and completed orders.

Alongside warehouse automation, Suma Gourmet implemented First Bit's Payroll module. In addition to providing a user-friendly interface for managing accountable expenses and payments, the solution efficiently handles Value Added Tax (VAT), which was introduced in the UAE in early 2018.

The company also developed a mobile application for field sales representatives, automating sales operations. The centralized ecosystem now enables any company representative to quickly create and complete orders during customer visits.

FirstBit ERP opens up new growth opportunities for Suma Gourmet, enabling the company to expand into e-commerce. With its advanced and well-organized inventory management system, the company can now serve not only large corporate clients but also individual B2C customers, with business processes fully automated.