Page 305 - DMGT546_INTERNATIONAL_TRADE_PROCEDURE_AND_DOCUMENTATION

International Trade Procedures and Documentation

Notes ‘Vanderlande Industries showed good understanding of our business requirements. Their
solution gave us the best overall Return-On-Investment,’ says Catherine McDermott,
Distribution Director at Argos.
‘We were impressed by Vanderlande Industries’ rigorous approach and by the creativity
they showed in finding new ways to deliver smooth, efficient processes,‘ comments Mark
Jones, Distribution Development Project Manager at Argos. ‘They clearly have a lot of
expertise in the distribution sector and this really showed in the quality of their proposal.’

The goods-to-man ODS order picking solution is undoubtedly the highlight of the
operation. It is faster, has more built-in error proofing and uses space, capital and labour
more efficiently than any currently available alternative.
Picking is coordinated and several totes of the same product may be circulating at any
time, allowing many orders requiring that item to be picked simultaneously. When a new
product tote arrives at an order picking station, a screen shows product details and indicates
how many are to be placed in which order totes. The operator picks the appropriate
number of items from the storage tote and places them in the order totes. To increase
speed and accuracy, a display is illuminated below each order tote requiring that product,
indicating the order number and how many of that product is required.
Efficiency is further increased by Dynamic Routing.
The company is able to continuously determine the most efficient sequence for feeding
totes to each order picking station, based on the workload at each station, product
requirements around the system and the urgency with which particular products are
needed.

This significantly increases throughput per operator, with a resulting substantial reduction
in the need for floorspace, capital investment, recruitment and training.

Argos also tackled reverse logistics at Barton. “Reverse flows are a commonly neglected
area of the retail supply chain. There is a lot of non-value added handling involved which
consumes valuable supply chain capacity. We took the opportunity to co-locate our damaged
returns operation to Barton and automate some of the processes. That has given us benefits
in terms of improved inbound transportation and helped smooth some of the heavily
seasonal work patterns in the distribution centre,” says Ms. McDermott.

The benefits
Argos has significantly reduced operational costs, freeing up resources at busy regional
distribution centres. Managing direct imports in bulk yields greater savings and ensures
continuity of supply.

“Barton provides a focal point for the growing flow of direct imports. This has helped us
to remove much of the manually intensive handling. It also provides a way of handling
the slow moving tail of products generated by the growth of choice within the business,”
says Ms. McDermott.

The ODS solution requires 40% less floorspace than a zone picking solution with a similar
throughput. “The very high productivity achieved with ODS is leading to substantial
savings in operating costs,” comments Mr. Jones. “For our business, it really is a big
improvement on alternative systems and gives us a lot of flexibility to adapt to new
throughput profiles as the business develops”.

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