FETTLE READS the warehouse management system, time and attendance and other systems a site already runs, and turns their data into insight managers can act on. Picture Perfect Data says it gives operators tighter control of productivity and cost. The platform is already live in UK warehouses.

It also captures work done off-system, a common blind spot. At warehouses where Picture Perfect Data has worked, systems recorded labour utilisation as low as 42%, rising to 65% once that work was counted. At another site, 572 hours were lost in a single week between people clocking on and starting their first task. At a third, grouping pick work to cut out avoidable travel lifted pick efficiency by around 37%, without touching the WMS.

The solution is billed per week per operator on the warehouse floor on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Fettle’s command view answers the four questions that determine how well a warehouse is running: will today’s orders go out on time and in full, are people being used effectively, are stock and the building set up to work efficiently, and is the operation delivering at the right cost and margin. Managers can drill from each answer into the detail behind it. Because AI is only as good as its data, Fettle standardises and checks each warehouse’s data before the AI reads it. A tool called Albie lets managers ask questions in plain English and see the evidence behind each answer. The decision stays with the operator.

Steve Coleman, founder and chief executive of Picture Perfect Data, said: “This is sophisticated technology, but it shouldn’t feel sophisticated to use. The benchmark we set ourselves was the iPhone: you shouldn’t need a manual or a data analyst sitting beside you. What surprises me is how many sophisticated businesses still rely on people pulling data together in spreadsheets, or lean towards over-complexity.”

Implementation is quick. The Picture Perfect Data team spends four days on site in the first week, integrating Fettle with the WMS and other systems and learning how the operation runs, and operational views are configured to the warehouse within four weeks. No core systems are replaced, and each customer’s data remains its own.

Picture Perfect Data was founded in 2016 by Coleman after 28 years at motor parts distributor Andrew Page, where he latterly served as IT director.