Productive from Day One. 20 Smart Reel Racks® — optimizing receiving, issuing, and stocktaking in one shot.

1. Over-reliance on experienced staff
Warehouse locations were memorized only by veteran workers. New employees had to perform multiple checks — visual inspection, part number confirmation, and QR scanning — making onboarding slow and error-prone.

2. Oversized warehouse (320㎡)

Fixed shelving couldn't accommodate varying reel sizes and quantities, leading to massive dead space across the 320㎡ warehouse.

3. Stocktaking meant searching, not counting

Inventory data only recorded "warehouse" as a location. Every time staff changed, workers had to physically search for parts — driving up labor hours with every transition.

 Smart Reel Rack® links rack number and slot data directly to inventory output — transforming stocktaking from searching into simply counting. 

JFE Shoji Electronics evaluated three storage options — Standard Shelf, Tower-Type, and Smart Reel Rack® — and recommended the optimal configuration for this customer.

The deciding factors were the synergy between Smart Reel Rack® and the X-ray component counter, along with the following advantages uniquely suited to global EMS operations:

Key reasons for selection:

LED-guided picking — standardizes operations regardless of experience level

Free-location flexibility — reclaimed 257㎡ for production use

Maintenance-free design — far lower operational burden than alternatives

Scalable across sites — once integrated, rollout to other factories requires virtually no additional development cost

 The factory is now planning to relocate Smart Reel Rack units from the warehouse to the SMT production line itself — reducing stock points from 2 to 1 and cutting material inventory further. 

Smart Reel Rack® is more than a storage solution — it's the foundation for reimagining how EMS operations manage logistics and inventory, end to end.