1CASE STUDY | FASHION RETAILER (USA)

CASE STUDY

FASHION RETAILER (USA)

With the number of retail stores growing and continued expansion of products sold through the retail channel, this international fashion retailer faced a capacity squeeze in its main store replenishment distribution center. The short-term solution was to shift some low-density product to alternate sites, but a longer-term solution was required.

FASHION RETAILER USES SWISSLOG CYCLONECARRIER TO INCREASE STORAGE DENSITY AND ENABLE HIGHER THROUGHPUTS

THE CUSTOMER

“The business has changed since we madethe move to automation and will continue to change. CycloneCarrier gives us the density, performance and operational flexibility to adapt to the changes occurring today—and those coming in the future.”

- Director of Supply Chain Engineering

International Fashion Retailerand Facility Services

2 CASE STUDY | FASHION RETAILER (USA)

THE CHALLENGEChoosing the Right Automation Technology “Our main challenge was capacity and we saw automation as a solution to that challenge,” said the director of supply chain engineering and facility services at the company. “At the same time, we determined automating our picking processes could enable us to increase throughput by 50% compared to manual picking or our Bombay sortation system. That combination made for a very solid business case for automation.”

The company identified two goods-to-person technologies that could meet its dual objectives of density and throughput: AutoStore and AS/RS shuttle systems. After analyzing proposals for both technologies from multiple companies, they chose the Swisslog CycloneCarrier, a small-load AS/RS shuttle system with high throughput and storage capacity.

THE SOLUTIONConfiguring the System To support the company’s throughput and storage needs, Swisslog configured a four-aisle, 16-level CycloneCarrier system with inboundand outbound elevators on each aisle. Thesystem stores approximately 50,000 totes andis connected to the goods-to-person pickingcenter located on the warehouse mezzanine bya 7,000-foot conveyor system.

The picking center was designed with four looped aisles with the ability to support 11 pick stations per aisle. The pick stations are designed to enable pickers to work on 15 stores simultaneously and each station can support up to eight totes in buffer. The Swisslog user

One of the advantages of the CycloneCarrier was its ability to support complex picking processes in which bins are dynamically routed to multiple pickers within the pick center without returning to the automation system. In AutoStore, and some other shuttle systems, the bins would have to be returned to the system before being delivered to another picker.

“To support efficient store replenishment, our pick stations needed to be larger and more sophisticated than you might see in a typical e-commerce application,” the director said.“We wanted to locate the pick center on themezzanine with the ability to dynamically routtotes within the pick center and the SwisslogCycloneCarrier was the solution that madethis possible.”

interface presents pictures and descriptions of the products to be picked and put-to-light technology guide pickers in building cartons.

“We were pleased with the CycloneCarrier configuration and how it addressed our specific processes and needs,” said the director. “We got the system we needed.”

The Secret Sauce According to the director, the “secret sauce” that keeps product flowing is the dynamic routing of work to pickers provided by Swisslog SynQ software.

“Replenishment requirements aren’t evenly balanced across all of our stores,” the director explained, “so the challenge becomes how do you balance work across all of your pickers so one isn’t backlogged while another is idle? We worked with Swisslog to implement dynamic routing of totes to evenly distribute work across all available pickers. The system is able to recognize what pickers need work and dynamically re-route totes to that picker before they become idle to enable consistent levels of productivity.”

3 CASE STUDY | FASHION RETAILER (USA)

www.swisslog.com

THE RESULTAdapting to Change The retail environment has changed considerably since the need for the system was first identified. E-commerce sales have grown significantly and some of that growth has come at the expense of in-store sales. The pandemic acceleratedthat change and today the distribution centeris supporting fewer stores with smaller, more frequent replenishments.

“CycloneCarrier has helped us continue to adapt to changing conditions as we balance inventory between channels and support a changing mix of products,” said the director. “We have the storage capacity we need and the efficiencies we realize in some processes has alleviated challenges created by the tight labor market. "

He also explained how the intuitive design of the pick stations simplifies onboarding, ensuring accuracy from day one and shortening the time to productivity for new associates.

“The business has changed since we made the move to automation and will continue to change,” the director concluded. “CycloneCarrier gives us the density, performance and operational flexibility to adapt to the changes occurring today—and those coming in the future.”

4 aisles

64 shuttles

50,000 totes

44 pick stations

660 put-to-light locations

7,000-foot case conveyor

SynQ software

FACTS AND FIGURES AT A GLANCE