up [traditional] retail on demand or e-commerce or both.
They wanted to be able to route orders to meet service
[goals] and facilitate their growth.”
BURSTING AT THE SEAMS
Journeys has grown considerably in the last 17 years, especially as omnichannel business trends have taken hold. In
2002, the Lebanon warehouse and DC served 800 retail
stores, processing 17 million units annually. Today, the
facility serves 1,500 retail stores, processing more than 30
million units annually, with a growing e-commerce business. Such explosive growth was difficult enough for the
footwear, clothing, and accessories company to keep up
with during regular business times; peak seasonal demands,
such as the back-to-school and Christmas holiday seasons,
were even more challenging. Like many retailers, the company struggled to get orders out the same day they were
received during peak periods, constrained by a system
designed to handle considerably less volume.
At the same time, Journeys faced growing competition
for workers in the local area. As its business grew, Journeys,
like so many other retailers, found itself under pressure
to attract and retain the best employees. Expanding and
upgrading the Lebanon warehouse and DC was a necessary
step in addressing both the capacity and talent challenges.
“[Journeys] wanted to be more competitive in operating costs and cycle time to market, but they also wanted
to become an employer of choice in their geography,”
Davidson explains. “They wanted to address how associates
engage [with] the site as well as the technology they integrate with.”
The retailer decided to partner with Fortna, which had
designed and implemented Journeys’ existing warehouse
system in 2002, for a facility upgrade and expansion that
would meet the company’s growth expectations over the
next 10 years. The project, which was completed in 2018,
added 200,000 square feet of space, increased automation
throughout the warehouse, and completely revamped the
workspace, including office space and break facilities, to
create a more welcoming and comfortable environment for
workers.
PUTTING NEW PROCESSES IN PLACE
Working with Fortna, Journeys redesigned its receiving
area to include 21 additional dock doors and the ability to
accommodate automation in receiving in the years ahead.
The changes allow Journeys to cross-dock up to 20 percent
of receipts as well as pre-pack cartons, speeding throughput. Additional storage capacity throughout the building—
in the form of various types of racking—allows workers to
do more floor-level picking, speeding fulfillment.
Journeys also made big changes to its fulfillment process, automating manual processes and upgrading existing
automation to handle a larger workload. One of the biggest
changes was that Journeys went from a discrete picking system to a batch picking method for its e-commerce orders;
multiline orders are now funneled to a put-to-light wall,
where they are then individually sorted into the final order.
This streamlines fulfillment and reduces worker travel time
throughout the facility.
“Instead of having to take the one box from the shoe area
to the clothes areas, we’re able to pick all of the shoes of that
type and route them to a put wall and do a secondary sort
into the final order,” says Matt Bommer, Fortna’s business
analysts manager, who worked on the Journeys project. “It
makes your picking and packing more efficient.”
Fortna’s WES solution makes all of this possible. The
WES monitors and controls the flow of orders through the
