Case Study: Casual Clothing Retailer Saves $42,000 Per Year In Equipment And Process Time In Their Distribution Center!

A large casual-wear clothing retailer with over 3000 stores was looking for a way to improve their Distribution Center operations. Employees unloading trucks were processing up to 400 cartons per hour on inbound receiving lines. Each receiving line supported multiple dock doors, and had multiple stationary tabletop printers on the line. The receiving process involved verification of the received items, and then the printing and hand applying of labels that were used for routing and storage within the Distribution Center. Previous analysis showed an automatic print & apply solution would not be feasible due to workflow and conveyor constraints.

A Fastrax analysis of the current operation revealed the process was very good, but resources were being wasted. While each receiving line had multiple printers in use, no more than one-half of the receiving lines were being used simultaneously.