materialhandlingupdate
BY DAVID MALONEY, SENIOR EDITOR
You’re going to
like the way
they pick
In the tuxedo rental business, there’s no room for error.
At The Men’s Wearhouse, an array of specialized
conveyors ensure order fulfillment is fast and accurate.
HOW DO YOU COPE WITH THE CHALLENGE OF ASSEMbling up to 50,000 customized tuxedo rental orders a week? That
was the question facing managers at a DC run by The Men’s
Wearhouse in Pittston, Pa. During peak season, the facility, which
serves 193 stores in the Northeast and Midwest, processes a flood
of returned garments, which all have to be cleaned, inspected, and
stored, while workers simultaneously assemble thousands of new
customer orders. And, of course, all of this has to be done quickly and without any errors.
Founded in 1973, The Men’s Wearhouse is one of the nation’s
largest men’s apparel retailers, selling brand name and private-label suits, sport coats, shirts, and accessories. The company also
is a leading renter of formal wear. Orders for the company’s 1,200-plus retail stores are primarily
filled from a facility in Houston, while six other buildings, including the Pittston facility, handle
rentals. Those six buildings receive returned rental tuxes from the stores. They then clean and prepare the garments for picking into tux assemblies to fill new customer orders—or what The Men’s
Wearhouse calls “reservations.” The rental business experiences its peak demand in the spring, when
it provides tuxedos for proms and weddings.
For the Pittston DC, the answer to keeping up with the workload during peak season lay in an
automated system that features an array of specialized conveyors. The system installed in the
296,000-square-foot facility was designed by W&H Systems, a Carlstadt, N.J.-based warehouse
design and engineering consulting firm. Most of the conveyors are designed to transport garments
on hangers, known in the trade as “GOH.” The mix includes screw units, hanging conveyors, and
monorails, along with some flatbed belt and roller conveyors.
SMOOTH-FLOWING RETURNS
The process begins with stores returning their rented tuxes in Gaylord boxes, pallet-sized corrugated cartons used to transport bulk items. Upon the boxes’ receipt at the Pittston facility, workers
