Huge spikes in demand created by big single-day retailing events, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, are putting retail supply chains under enormous stress. Dematic has found a solution that counters ‘mega peaks’ with ‘super flexibility’.
Last November an imported US retailing phenomenon dubbed Black Friday sent shock waves through UK retail supply chains. In a single day IMRG, the UK industry association for online retail, estimated £810 million was spent online by British shoppers, creating what can only be described as a ‘mega spike’ in demand.
The one-off day of slashed prices clearly hit the mark for many consumers looking for a bargain, but it resulted in a huge fulfilment challenge for British retailers, with many failing to hit customer delivery expectations. This year even larger peaks are predicted. Research conducted by eDigitalResearch finds that four times as many shoppers are planning to place online orders this Black Friday compared to 2014.
The repercussions of big single-day retail events for the warehouse and fulfilment operation are enormous. A radical rethink is required and Dematic believes it has the answer.
Innovative new sorter technology in the form of Dematic’s MonaLisa overhead pouch sortation system offers a super flexible and highly scalable, dynamic buffering solution based on a hanging pouch design. Developed for the fashion retail sector, but with significant operational benefits for a much wider range of applications, Monalisa is perfect for omni-channel retailers, enabling the carriage of both hanging and flat product in a single pouch for order assembly.
Dave Bull explains how the MonaLisa pouch sortation system lends itself to solving a number of discrete problems encountered by omni-channel retailers when looking to perform highly efficient batch picking processes – in particular, how it delivers ‘super flexibility’. “The critical benefit of a pouch sorter is that it enables ecommerce retailers to perform a batch pick, and because in a batch picking process density of picking is greatly increased – as it reduces the distances travelled by pickers – much higher pick rates are achieved, often presenting a 200 – 300% improvement on traditional methods,” he says. “But in addition, you can easily vary the batch sizes, which creates flexibility.
“It allows you to smooth out and manage your order picking process in the distribution centre. Importantly, the system supports a manual process too, so you can run manual picking alongside the batch picking operation – the software allows you to do both types of pick. Critically, for events like Black Friday, this enables human intervention for added ‘super flexibility’,” says Bull.
In effect, the operation is simple. Batch picked items are delivered to ergonomically designed high-speed induction stations where individual items are scanned by an operative and slipped into a hanging pouch. The fast overhead sortation system allows items to be stored in pouches within dynamic picking loops, buffering them until they are called off automatically by the warehouse management system for specific orders, and then delivering items in discrete order sequence to the packing stations for efficient packing and despatch.
The demand for pouch sorter technology is growing fast with a number of installations completed or underway at some of the biggest omni-channel retailers, both here in the UK and in Germany.
