SSI Schäfer makes V&D fit for the future

Flexible and designed for high throughputs

Based on V&D's requirements, SSI Schaefer developed a logistics system that is designed for both fashion items and non-food goods and enables efficient delivery to the stores as well as to end customers. "Centralization has enabled us to halve the number of kilometers driven to supply our stores," says Theo Heemskerk, Director Supply Chain at V&D, citing a key advantage. Above all, however, the new concept also offered the opportunity to align logistics more flexibly with the new requirements resulting from the increasing number of fashion collections, needs-based delivery to the individual stores and the rapidly growing e-commerce business.

The ceiling-mounted, 15-kilometer-long overhead conveyor system consists of manual and automatic sections. The dynamic hanging goods buffer has 102,000 storage locations.

The flat-packed goods delivered in cartons are temporarily stored in the conventional pallet warehouse and transported on call to the infeed station for the five ergonomic sorting stations for flat-packed goods. After the obligatory barcode scan, the cartons are automatically transported to the correct picking station via the conveyor system. Each of these goods-to-person picking stations achieves a throughput of up to 1,400 items per hour.

Maximum storage and picking capacity in the AKL

The performance of the installed automated small parts warehouse (AKL) with almost 40,000 storage locations in five aisles is also truly impressive. The Schäfer Miniload Crane (SMC) with a maximum load capacity of 25 kilograms, a length of 55 meters and double-deep storage with two masts, manages up to 180 double cycles per hour. It supplies 1,622 flow channels for pick-to-light picking on the first floor as well as a pick-to-tote workstation on the first floor for ergonomic picking according to the goods-to-person principle. The light-controlled picking guidance system enables optimum freedom of movement and ensures high picking performance of 440 picks per hour on average with high quality, even in continuous operation.

In the Schäfer Carousel System (SCS), all order totes from the various picking areas finally come together. In order to be able to combine all the containers from a delivery, they travel on a carousel until the last order container for the store has been picked. In the dispatch area, the order totes are finally stacked on trolleys and prepared for collection together with the hanging garments. As a compaction and dispatch buffer, the SCS has a capacity of 4,329 storage locations and can be expanded with additional modules or aisles at short notice if required.

Further expanding multi-channel offering

In general, V&D works according to the "Flow-Through (FT)" delivery principle for initial deliveries of goods and "Put-Away (PA)" for individual repeat orders from stores, which is standard in the fashion industry. "Productivity has increased enormously in all processes. After a good two and a half years in operation, we are now in a position to further improve the runtime and throughput in order to be able to process at least part of the e-commerce business, which grew by 31% last year, here in the future. We are currently still working with a service provider for this," says Theo Heemskerk. The retailer is further expanding its multi-channel services for customers to support growth. Since mid-October, customers have been able to check online whether a desired item is also in stock at their local store and then reserve it if they wish.

"With the new distribution center, V&D has created a flexible and future-proof logistics solution for the changing business, order and article structures. The system can process various order types such as e-commerce and retail and different products from the growing range of articles quickly and efficiently. The solution is characterized by highly efficient processes despite the sometimes considerable fluctuations in daily and seasonal workloads. In addition, the system can be expanded as required and can be repeatedly adapted and supplemented with additional technologies," adds Franz Stöger, Director Sales, SSI Schaefer in Graz.

Contact:SSI Schäfer A-8051 Graz Tel.: 00 43 / 3 16 60 96-0 E-Mail: [email protected] www.ssi-schaefer.com