KODAMA improves inventory control by 80% with Katana
KODAMA produces custom-made luxury hanging loungers and uses Katana to integrate directly with QuickBooks Online and manage orders, inventory, and production. Within eight months of implementing Katana, their team drastically improved efficiency and boosted on-time sales order fulfillment.
With Katana, we can more effectively see and follow inventory levels, and have recipes and bills of materials (BOMs) for our manufactured products that let us follow the manufacturing status throughout the whole production cycle.
Richie Duncan, Founder of KODAMA
Within eight months of implementing Katana, KODAMA was able to improve inventory management efficiency by 80%
Katana integrates with KODAMA’s QuickBooks Online account, keeping their sales, production, and accounting in sync
With a live overview of their inventory and manufacturing operations, KODAMA increased on-time order fulfillment by 25%
About KODAMA
Based in the US, KODAMA manufactures hanging loungers inspired by natural geometry and dynamic motion. KODAMA’s founder, Richie Duncan, has been a designer and maker, starting with wooden blocks and Legos. When traveling the world to learn more about architecture and sustainable design, he was captivated by the shape of the zome. So much so that when he returned to the US, he founded KODAMA.
KODAMA boasts high-end design, expert craftsmanship, and excellent customer service, and fully customizable zomes. The zomes can be placed anywhere from personal backyards and hotels to offices and therapy rooms. And every KODAMA zome hangs safely from a single overhead point to create a smooth, gentle, and calming motion that soothes the vestibular system.
The challenge they faced
KODAMA uses QuickBooks Online for their accounting, and every other aspect of production is memorized by their team — far from an ideal solution. Because they have a large selection of customizable products, KODAMA’s team handles an endless amount of variants for each product. Despite the complexity of their production, their team lacked a proper system to help track orders, materials, and finished goods.
To give their production process more structure, they set out to look for software that would integrate easily with QuickBooks Online and offer excellent inventory management and production scheduling. More specifically, they needed software that would:
Give them a better overview of their inventory
Allow them to schedule production and manage their floor-level team
Integrate directly with their existing accounting platform — QuickBooks Online
The solution they found
If you work in the furniture industry, most of your assets and money are tied up in stock. As a result, inventory control and planning are essential when planning for growth. With Katana, KODAMA can see get a real-time overview of inventory levels in just a few clicks and manage made-to-order and made-to-stock workflows in one platform.
According to KODAMA’s founder, Richie, Katana was the end-to-end platform they were looking for, both in terms of functionality and its simple and easy-to-use interface.
I looked at a few other solutions but didn’t try them. Most of them seemed very labor-intensive and expensive. Katana had a much lower barrier to entry. It was still some work to get up and running, but I was able to gradually build my processes into Katana’s system over several months.
How Katana helped KODAMA get a live look at their inventory
KODAMA uses Katana to create bills of materials (BOMs) and set up all the stock-keeping units (SKUs) they need to track products at all stages of production. As KODAMA loungers are highly customizable, Katana’s BOMs allow them to efficiently plan and prioritize orders, keeping their sales, inventory, and production activities in sync.
To maximize efficiency, Katana automatically allocates finished goods and raw materials to open orders, ensuring their team meets deadlines to keep customers happy. Katana also integrates with QuickBooks Online to keep their accounting up to date without any extra admin work and manual data hauling. Within eight months of implementing Katana, KODAMA was able to:
Make material inventory management 80% more efficient
Improve production planning efficiency by 60%
Increase their on-time fulfillment rate by 25%
Furniture makers like KODAMA use Katana to keep track of production and sales order fulfillment. Katana is designed to manage a combination of made-to-order and made-to-stock workflows and integrates with all the e-commerce, accounting, CRM, and reporting tools you know and love for total visibility.
Learn more about Katana’s features and how they help manufacturers get a live look at their business.
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