to relieve the pressure on the other DCs, the retailer want-
ed to get the new site up and running quickly.
A little help from its friends
Given the project’s complexity, that wouldn’t be easy. But
the Children’s Place had a couple of advantages going into
the planning phase. First, it didn’t have to start from
scratch. Having built three DCs previously, it had plenty of
experience to draw on. And with each project, the retailer
had learned new ways to streamline its operations—
knowledge it could use in designing the new facility.
Second, the company would have some help. The
Children’s Place brought in systems integrator Dematic to
help it design the facility’s material handling system.
Because the two had worked together in the past, Dematic
was already familiar with its client’s operations. “The Fort
Payne distribution center is the fourth facility where
Dematic and the Children’s Place have worked together,
and they fully understand our throughput requirements,”
says Don Whiteford, director of engineering for Children’s
Place.
The system Dematic designed relies heavily on state-of-
the-art automated equipment, much of it supplied by
Dematic itself. The centerpiece of the operation is its con-
veyor system: 50,000 linear feet—more than nine miles—of
what Whiteford calls “the latest and greatest in conveyors.”
The material handling system also includes four high-speed
sortation units that can handle 180 cases per minute, a
2,600-store-location put-to-light order fulfillment system,
and a warehouse control system to operate and monitor all
the equipment.
As it turned out, the retailer was able to meet the ambitious timeline it had set for itself. The Children’s Place started clearing the land at the green field site in October 2006,
the equipment was installed in February of the following
year, and the center opened in July 2007.
In ’n out
Under the new process, the automated equipment takes
over the minute inbound merchandise arrives at the facility. When an ocean container is delivered to the DC, it’s
backed right up to a receiving line, where automated conveyor systems supplied by Dematic are used for unloading.
As the cases are inducted into the system, their labels
(which contain vendor-specific identifying information)
are read, which allows the warehouse control system (WCS)
to track their movement throughout the DC. The WCS
(Dematic’s SortDirector system) also coordinates the high-speed routing of the merchandise through the DC in real
time. The cases are either cross-docked to shipping or conveyed to the racking area for store distribution.
Forty percent of the volume handled at the facility is
cross-docked. These items—full cases—never even touch
the ground. As soon as they arrive, they’re conveyed to a
high-speed sliding-shoe sorter, which diverts them to a
label print and apply (LPA) system that slaps outbound
shipping labels on the cases. Once labeled, the cases proceed
to the shipping sorter for routing down one of 42 lanes.
The rest of the cases are conveyed to the DC’s 60,000-pal-
let-location rack system for store distribution either as full-case or less-than-full-case orders. When full cases are needed for shipping, the DC’s four dedicated “slapper” lines
whisk them through the LPA system for labeling and
straight on to shipping.
Less-than-full-case orders are consolidated by the DC’s
put-to-light modules. The Fort Payne DC is the first
Children’s Place facility to use a put-to-light system, in
which items needed for orders are brought to the store locations, rather than the other way around (as is the case with
pick-to-light systems). Put to light was chosen over pick-to-
