ted by the supplier.
After the boxes’ contents are verified as correct, they are
placed into storage. Because Gerry Weber brands are coordinated collections of apparel, articles only get shipped out
to stores when all items in the clothing line are in stock at
the warehouse. Since articles in a collection may be made
by different suppliers and don’t always
arrive at the same time, inventory turnaround can take up to six weeks.
Once all items in the collection are
available, warehouse workers will select
orders for the Gerry Weber stores. Fiege,
which uses parcel carriers like DHL, UPS,
and DPD to handle the deliveries, makes
store replenishment shipments every day
except Sunday. The company has set up
packaging tables with RFID interrogators
to read the tags on outbound goods and confirm the accuracy of store orders before the merchandise leaves the DC.
ORDER SELECTION ISSUES
As for the results to date, the use of RFID has revved up
throughput in both inbound and outbound processing in
addition to boosting order accuracy. Since the RFID initiative was launched, Mangelmans says, inbound processing
of goods is 25 percent quicker than in the past and outbound processing is 15 percent quicker.
Improved visibility and throughput notwithstanding,
RFID deployment has not been without issues. In particular, Mangelmans says that when order selectors go to
retrieve items, there’s a “media break” or disruption in the
automatic transfer of information to the DC’s computer
system. That’s because an RFID reader can’t distinguish the
signal for an individual clothing item from the surrounding
signals. So if the worker wants to retrieve a particular size
garment from a box, he or she can’t use an RFID reader to
determine whether the item is on the top, middle, or bottom of the carton.
At present, in order to make sure the right item is picked
from a mixed carton of goods, the worker must take the
additional step of scanning the bar code on the garment’s
hang tag (the tag containing information on the item’s
style, size, and color). The scanned information is then
relayed back to the warehouse management system (WMS)
for confirmation.
In Mangelmans’ view, the solution to that problem would
be to use a sorter to remove garments from the box during
inbound processing. That way, individual items could be
placed into automated storage and then later retrieved
based on the RFID tag.
Despite the current need for manual scanning during
picking, Mangelmans believes that the increased throughput afforded by item-level tagging justifies the use of RFID
technology. That technology has given us “transparency on
the supply chain,” he says. ;
As for the tagging process, Gerry Weber’s suppliers in
Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Asia affix the passive RFID tags
to garments. Because it oversees its clothing production,
von Grone says, Gerry Weber was able to get the suppliers
to take part in the program. He added that only licensed
products, such as sunglasses, bags, and jewelry, need to be
tagged upon arrival at the store.
Avery Dennison furnishes the chips,
which are embedded in the clothing-care
label attached to the article. Avery
Dennison maintains printing centers near
the suppliers’ factories to produce the
tags, each of which has a unique identification number.
The tagged goods arrive in trucks at the
Fiege distribution center in Ibbenbüren,
Germany, near the Dutch border. The
site, which measures more than 1. 45 million square feet, is
a multitenant facility, with nearly 161,500 square feet
assigned to Gerry Weber.
Once the boxes are offloaded from the truck, they’re
placed into one of three tunnels, which are equipped with
antennas to read the tags. To make sure the correct items
are in the box, the tag readings are matched against information supplied in the advance shipment notice transmit-
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