Astro Lighting

Astro Lighting, one of the UK’s leading premium decorative lighting manufacturers, partnered with Slimstock to free up over £1 million in working capital, reduce inventory by over 20% and improve service levels while supporting a strategic shift towards larger hospitality and project-based opportunities.

From luxury hotels to high-end residential developments, Astro Lighting’s products illuminate spaces across the world. Renowned for its timeless aesthetic and commitment to quality, the manufacturer combines elegant design with exceptional performance, helping its customers create inspiring environments.

Tom Rice, Operations Director at Astro Lighting, explains: “Our focus on design, engineering and attention to detail is what sets us apart. Our customers trust us to deliver products that not only look exceptional but perform exceptionally well throughout their lifetime.”

Industry challenges

For Astro Lighting, the challenge was not simply maintaining product availability amidst an increasingly volatile supply chain climate. The business was also navigating a strategic shift towards hospitality and project-based work, where demand can be significantly larger and less predictable than its ecommerce channels.

“Historically, we have experienced periods of good and bad inventory performance. Supply chain planning was heavily reliant on spreadsheets and manual processes, which made it increasingly difficult to support larger project opportunities while maintaining the right balance between availability, working capital and customer service,” adds Tom.

Results and impact

As supply chain complexity increased, Astro Lighting needed planning processes that could keep pace with larger, less predictable project demand without undermining day-to-day product availability. Slimstock provided the visibility and control required to turn inventory planning into a more strategic capability.

By adopting Slimstock’s advanced platform to underpin its sales and operations planning (S&OP) process, Astro Lighting continues to deliver strong performance improvements:

• Freeing up over £1 million in working capital to reinvest into the business, reducing inventory levels by more than 20%.
• Achieving an 11% increase in product availability, delivering sustained service level improvements across the assortment.
• Protecting margins despite ongoing supply chain and cost pressures.

Tom explains, “The goal was to improve inventory levels, optimise working capital invested in stock and improve service levels. We’ve had two years of above KPI inventory performance. Unlocking more than £1 million in working capital has been the headline result, but what makes that achievement even more valuable is that we’ve done it while improving service levels.”

Solutions

Rapid time-to-value

Astro recognised that achieving long-term success would depend on strong collaboration, effective change management and ensuring teams had confidence in the data underpinning their decisions. From the outset, Astro Lighting worked closely with Slimstock to establish the foundations for a successful rollout, with a particular focus on data quality, user adoption and process alignment.

Within months, Astro Lighting’s teams were already leveraging the platform to make more informed inventory decisions, helping create the foundation for the long-term improvements that followed.

“The collaboration between Astro Lighting and Slimstock has been excellent. The training, support and regular touchpoints helped the team quickly build confidence in the system ensured we could start seeing value from the platform very early in the journey,” states Tom.

Balancing growth, risk and working capital

By using Slimstock to underpin its sales and operations planning (S&OP) process, the business established a single, trusted view of demand, helping improve alignment between sales, operations and finance teams.

The platform has also played a key role in supporting Astro’s move towards larger project opportunities. By helping distinguish between project and non-project demand, the business can better anticipate large demand spikes, identify repeat project purchasing patterns and make more strategic inventory decisions.

Tom states, “Slimstock is now the cornerstone of our S&OP process. By providing greater visibility of evolving demand, project opportunities and potential risks, we can build a stronger business case for future inventory investments, helping us support growth while carefully protect margin and working capital.”

Driving better decisions through automation

Within 3 months of implementation, the business had refined its product classification strategy, creating a clearer understanding of which products were driving demand, revenue and customer value. This enabled planners to make faster, more informed inventory decisions while ensuring stock policies remained aligned with the wider business priorities.

Automation has also significantly reduced the administrative burden placed on the planning team. Rather than spending hours extracting data, maintaining spreadsheets and manually reviewing thousands of product lines, planners can now focus their time on higher-value activities, including collaborating with suppliers and supporting customer conversations.

Tom highlights; “What was once a highly manual process is now far more automated, allowing us to make decisions faster and with greater confidence. We’ve achieved an 11% improvement in product availability, something that has been pivotal in helping us build stronger relationships and become ‘stickier’ with some of our international clients.”

Next steps

Having successfully reduced working capital tied up in stock, improved service levels and created a more data-driven approach to inventory planning, Astro Lighting is well positioned for its next phase of growth. With Slimstock embedded at the heart of its planning processes, the business has the confidence to support larger project opportunities while continuing to deliver the premium customer experience for which it is renowned.

“We have a real belief in the output of Slimstock. It gives us the confidence to support the day-to-day needs of the business while also helping us plan for larger project opportunities. Knowing we can effectively manage both is hugely important as we continue to grow,” concludes Tom.