“Buying and trying on, if it doesn’t fit, then return it” is probably the mindset of many customers when buying clothes online. This poses a challenge for fashion businesses as they have to perform many tasks in each step from picking up the items, sending them, processing returns, and reclassifying items on the shelves. Trends change rapidly; if you slow down, you will be out of season or out of breath. Fast fashion urgently needs faster logistics!
A multi-channel fashion retail brand, with 768 stores in 65 countries, always demands a high level of stock availability, efficient and quick processing of returns, in order to ensure customers have the best shopping experience and stay ahead of fashion trends.
In order to achieve fast, accurate and efficient product selection and realize the long-term development of its own brand, the company decided to implement an autonomous robots system after considering the goods-to-person solution in the market.
Pain point analysis
Most consumers are accustomed to placing orders online, and returning or exchanging clothes if they don’t fit after trying them on. Therefore, the fast fashion retail industry is characterized by a high chargeback rate. In the UK, the company’s e-commerce return rate is around 25%. In Germany and other EU countries, the return rate is much higher. In order to guarantee high product availability, it is necessary to expedite the processing of return orders.
During the peak order period, the workload of order picking is heavy and the burden of manual work is heavy. At present, under the condition of increasingly tight labor resources, it is even more difficult to deal with sales demand. The company is committed to breaking through tradition and seeking smarter and more efficient logistics solutions.
Solution
In 2018, the company launched a “goods to person” pilot at its warehouse. The project introduced 6 mobile robots, covering a warehouse area of about 8,000 square feet. In the test, the processing speed and accuracy of the goods far exceeded expectations.
Following the success of the pilot project, in the first half of 2020, 40 mobile robots were reintroduced in the outlet to handle all women’s clothing selections and returns from retail, e-commerce to wholesale. In addition, the company plans to continue to expand its robot “fleet” and will deploy 20 mobile robots to warehouses in Belgium to promote the simultaneous automation and intelligent transformation of warehouses across the country.
The project covers an area of over 8,000 square feet. In order to facilitate the work of robots, 1,000 movable shelves and 12 picking stations are arranged in the warehouse. At the same time, set up indicator lights and PTL distribution walls to guide employees to work to ensure accurate picking and delivery.
Program effectiveness
1. Double the operating efficiency
After the introduction of the mobile robot system, the return processing efficiency is 3 to 3.5 times higher than before, from 100 pieces per hour to 300 to 350 pieces per hour. Compared with the previous manual work, the picking efficiency has doubled.
2. Dramatically improve inventory utilization
Nearly 99% of returned products can be processed and put back on the shelves within 1 day, and most of them can be redistributed within 1 hour, ensuring a high degree of product circulation.
3. Ensure accuracy and reduce labor costs
In the human-machine collaboration mode, workers guide picking, scanning and putting on shelves according to the indicator lights, and the accuracy rate of the work is as high as 99%. It saves the time for workers to search for goods in the field, and reduces the burden of manual work.
The transformation of warehousing automation has greatly reduced operating costs and reduced our dependence on labor. We don't need to recruit too many employees in order to cope with the operating pressure of business peaks, so as to adjust the employee structure and salary investment to a reasonable ratio, which is conducive to the long-term development of the enterprise. The project requires little infrastructure modification and can be quickly replicated and expanded to the entire site.
Contact us to learn more and receive advice on the most suitable robot AMR and intelligent intralogistics solution. For fashion businesses, our solution helps you integrate robots into warehouse operations, transitioning to a smart warehouse model, improving operational efficiency, streamlining inhouse logistics, and reducing labor costs.
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