Improving the Multi-Brand Channel Distribution of a Fashion Retailer

Tiago Silva, Teresa Pereira, Luís Pinto Ferreira, F. J. G. Silva

Keywords: Improvement; Layout; Logistics; Picking; Productivity; Supply Flows

The number of clients and the quantity ordered is exponentially growing on fashion retailer multibrand channel, inducing the need for improving the channel’s distribution process, making possible to satisfy the customers’ orders in the shortest time and in a cost-effective way, fulfilling the delivery term agreed with the market.
The mapping of the supply flow process, the space occupation and the spaghetti dash diagram of four current distribution process activities were studied, together with the productivity calculation, the cycle time, the takt time and the service level designed to prepare a system to evaluate the company performance. The ABC and SWOT customers’ analyses, as well as the previously referred studies, allowed develop the improvement proposal, characterized by (a) layout changing, (b) supply flow improvement, (c) application of gravitational carriers as well as more ergonomic transport ways and (d) the use of computer applications developed in Visual Basic language for the distribution process.
Based on this proposal, it is possible to increase the amount sorted out by distributor in an eight hours shift in 294 articles (11,23%), reducing the cycle time from 0,015 minutes/article to 0,013 minutes/article (13,33%), which results in the segregation of articles in the available time for the next collections. Having a space occupation reduction of 47 m2 in average by collection (1,39%), a reduction of 1 498 468 meters (23,34%) in the average distance per collection, a reduction of five employees (12,82%) in average per collection, and an increase of 535 boxes (11,30%) of the finished product storage capacity.
The total investment needed is 23 754,42 €, but the payback time will be just six months, obtaining a cumulative profit of 84 504,23 € until the end of the fall/winter 2020 collection.

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