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Voiteq - Driving Warehouse Efficiency
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 About Internacionale
Founded over 25 years ago, Scottish retailer Internacionale now has 150 stores across the UK, from Aberdeen to Slough and, of these, 90 are under the Au Naturale homeware fascia, 30 are under the ladies fashion chain Internacionale, and the rest combine both fascias in one unit. The company, which has just enjoyed its most profitable year, continues an aggressive expansion plan, adding at least 20 stores to its estate year on year.
Internacionale is a chain of ladies "teen to twenties" high street fashion shops. Au Naturale is a chain of home interiors stores based in the high street and retail parks throughout the UK. Their warehouse operatives are picking up to 1.5million units a week to supports its 150 stores across the UK.
The Challenge
Successful retail is about getting the right products to the right store at the right time. Internacionale needed to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the replenishment of store stock. But the most accurate stock replenishment solution in the world is no good if warehouse processes cannot ensure stores receive the required deliveries on time.
With sales increasing year on year and store numbers expanding, Internacionale needed a more efficient and effective approach to warehouse management. The average weekly paper pick was up to 0.5m units which involved 140-200 people in the supply chain over two shifts, a slick warehouse operation was vital if they were to continue their expansion.
The traditional paper based picking notes created by the replenishment process created significant inefficiency within the warehouse. The incumbent paper based picking system was too slow and failed to deliver acceptable accuracy and service levels to the shops. Another problem was a lack of operational transparency. When the early shift commenced at 6am there was no visibility of how big the day's pick was.
As a result, managing the picking staff effectively was a major challenge, especially at peak times. The company also required five data processing staff, firstly to manually print and sort the picking lists and then to consolidate the 50,000 pieces of paper back from the warehouse and input the resultant information back into their incumbent WMS to update the company's stock position.
"Managing the warehouse staff across the three different flavours of picking plus replenishing and putting away newly delivered goods was a major challenge, especially at peak times."
Isabel McCabe,
IT Controller, Internacionale
The solution
The company needed to keep their existing ProLogic CIMS WMS solution so VoiteQ installed their VoiceMan middleware which allowed picking information to pass seamlessly between CIMS and the VoiceMan system and vice versa. VoiceMan then sent pick assignments to the pickers via their Talkman voice terminals. An automatic import/export routine provided the picking assignments and updated CIMS with the results.
A staged implementation was carried out across the two warehouses, creating 5 main tasks to allow different types of picking to take place for the two fascias. Both fascias use a standard picking/replenishment task, along with a cross-docking task - 70% of stock is cross-docked due to the rapid change in fashion. In addition they have a specific 'pallet build' task - allowing both standard and cross-docked stock to be prepared for delivery to the 150 stores.
The Talkman terminals, manufactured by Vocollect, provide hands free, eyes free radio frequency mobile data collection. Worn on the belt, Talkman utilises speech recognition and synthesis technologies to provide the pickers with real time communication to the replenishment system. As picks are made, workers can confirm their actions with a few words. Pickers are able to pick cases, packs, hanging garments, packed garments, accessories and individual items such as jewellery by voice.
VoiteQ developed an interface between CIMS and Talkman, so replenishment information is now automatically converted to voice. The process is far quicker than the previous system which enables Internacionale to effectively plan the warehouse activity.
Indeed, at 6am, the warehouse managers now have complete visibility of the size of the pick, down to pack level. Throughout the shift, the real time link between Talkman and CIMS ensures not only that stock levels are updated in real time but also the pickers know how much stock is still required to be picked.
The Results:
Since implementing Talkman, accuracy has improved from around 90% to over 99%, and productivity is up by 29%. Due to the inefficiencies in their previous warehouse operation they have dramatically improved availability from as low as 60% to over 99%. Internacionale achieved a return on investment well within a year, based on productivity improvements alone. They have also reduced the five data processing staff to two and the company's ability to manage its warehouse operations without overtime.
Internacionale has now been able to reduce two shifts to one (18 hours to 11 hours). "Warehouse operations now start at 6am and are completely finished by 5pm, with the three jobs (pick, replenish and put away) now run concurrently," Isabel McCabe confirms. With pickers incentivised by a productivity based bonus scheme, the company has been amazed by the transformation in efficiency since the new technology was introduced. Following training by VoiteQ, staff were up and running with the Talkman units within a day and the business can now pick 1.5m items per week at busy times.
Indeed, warehouse staff far prefer the voice system since the removal of hard to read paper picking lists. As a result, the company is paying out productivity bonuses at the highest level every month.
The company can also introduce new staff to the warehouse within a day - far quicker than the previous three week, training and shadowing process required to understand the warehouse, layout and replenishment process.
"Internacionale has just produced its most profitable year to date - and a key component of that success is the transformation of the warehouse efficiency, productivity and cost."
Isabel McCabe,
IT Controller, Internacionale
VoiteQ
Tel: 0870 3000 480
www.voiteq.com
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