This is faxed to Purchasing for authorisation. After Purchasing has agreed the delivery, the date and time is confirmed with the supplier or Transport Company. A copy of the booking form is sent by fax and e-mail to TwoWay – the company which does all our storage and distribution. We use both methods of communication to prevent any problems or delays if there is a fault with the computer system.
Each delivery comes with its own delivery note giving a breakdown of the products or stocks, the models and quantities. Our warehouse colleagues check the delivery against the delivery note. Any discrepancies are noted, signed by our colleague and countersigned by the delivery driver. TwoWay then complete a GRN (goods receipt note) and fax this with the delivery note to our stock control department who will then notify Purchasing if there any discrepancies. Two Way enters the goods on the computer system as both systems are linked to update the stock levels.
Our warehouse is situated in a distribution park in the North West with good motorway links. The park is secured and staffed 365 days a year. There is a regular patrol with dogs. The whole site is CCTV monitored and all vehicles require a permit before they can enter the main gate.
The warehouse itself is 7,500 sq metres and 75% of this space has racking. There are 10,900 racking spaces. 25% of the floor space is not racked. Normally about 99% of the racking space is filled with stock. This is because we normally buy in bulk and also need to take into account seasonal demand for our goods.
The warehouse is also secure. It has 24-hour CCTV recording, 24-hour ADT security monitoring, BT Redcare and a 24-hour fire sprinkler system monitored by the national fire services. The warehouse is open 24 hours from Sunday to Thursday but currently there are no night operations on Fridays or Saturdays.
We store all the fast-moving lines at the front of the warehouse as this saves travelling time for our warehouse colleagues. The goods are stored on pallets and moved by electric fork lift trucks. We use electric trucks because they create less pollution than other types.
Any packaging waste is placed in a large wheeler bin and taken outside where it is connected to a lift and lifted into a hopper. The hopper is then compacted (compressed) into a large skip. All waste goes to the landfill site except cardboard boxes which are recycled.
The stores send in their orders to Store Operations electronically each Friday. We then check and edit the orders against our main stock database. This is important because – for example – if every store ordered 10 ‘brand X’ DVD players and we only had 200 in the warehouse, we would have to allocate these fairly between the stores. The final list is a ‘stores pick list’ which is sent via our EPOS system to TwoWay.
TwoWay drivers deliver the goods from Tuesday to Friday, the following week. Each store has its own specific day and time for deliveries. This means they can be ready to receive the goods and store them safely in the stock room. Stores can also have ‘emergency’ deliveries outside these times for goods they need urgently.
The stores will know if any items have been changed from their original order because they will receive an electronic internal invoice for the items due before the delivery is made. The goods themselves are delivered with their own store ‘pick list’. The driver waits whilst the large units are checked. Colleagues do a ‘box count’ in the driver’s presence. If there is a discrepancy then the store colleagues will not accept and authorise the invoice on our computer system until they have changed any incorrect entries. This notifies our stock control office of the discrepancy so that it can then be investigated.
Marks and Spencer Distribution Channel
Marks & Spencer (M&S) is a high end retailer in the UK. In the former process, as items were sold each day, stock reduction was recorded. Like most retailers, those stock reductions drove replenishment from the distribution centre. M&S stock levels, however, were often inaccurate due to the following:
. Stock was not always counted when it was received
. Stock located on Mannequins was not able to be sold
. Shrinkage
Replenishing based on inaccurate stock levels resulted in inaccurate/wrong volumes on hand, and for a percentage of the items, zero stock of a specific size. Since then system thought they had stock on hand, the items would never be replenished. Sales were lost because items were not available for purchase.
In the new process, RFID tags are manufactured with a unique number programmed into the chip. Paxar manufactures a finished hang tag with the RFID transponder embedded. The tags are then sent to one of several Paxar Service Bureau facilities. When Service Bureau prints the UPC on the tag, an association is made between the product number and the unique chip number on the RFID transponder. This creates a database of UPC product matched with the unique RFID number. The database is forwarded to M&S from the Service Bureau facility. The tags are forwarded to the apparel manufacturer and attached to the
Individual garments.
When garments are received at the store from the manufacturer or DC, they pass through a doorway RFID reader in the back room. This process counts the items and places them in inventory. Each week, M&S employees take inventory of the entire store with an RFID reader mounted on a mobile cart.
RFID tags can be read while hanging at a 90 degree angle to the reader. The inventory process takes about 40 minutes, and there are 4500 items in an average M&S store. Inventory records from the weekly RFID inventory are compared to legacy inventory records. The RFID inventory is consistently lower than the legacy system, and therefore generates higher replenishment requirements. Stock is replenished based on the RFID inventory. This makes the:
- Sales increase at store level
- Reduction in number of orders placed by customer demand in store because the product desired is not available.
- Decrease in shrink.
In addition to RFID printer/encoders, supplies, Technology Investment Protection Program and guaranteed supplies, Paxar also has:
- . An in-house RFID lab to assist you in optimizing read rates and ranges through proper inlay selection and tag placement
- Free analysis of your store and DC to help you determine where RFID will best fit in your process flow; andProfessional systems integrators to design and implement RFID solutions.
