UK board sportswear brand Animal has invested in a new warehouse management system to manage its warehouse operations, and says it is already seeing faster, more accurate picking and lower labour costs.
The company, which has evolved to become an omnichannel business with three streams – wholesale, retail and e-commerce – is uding Indigo WMS software, integrated with an Infor ERP solution.
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“Our business has completely transformed as a result of the internet becoming a mainstream shopping channel,” says James Runciman, DC operations manager at Animal. “We’ve gone from being a wholesale business with a B2C retail division, to a full omnichannel operation selling 24/7.
“We work with a single pool of stock and one set of pick faces to serve every channel, which has been enhanced with a pick and drop zone for e-commerce orders. Since introducing Indigo, the number of units we can pick per hour has risen by 50% and all the instructions are sent directly to the picker’s mobile device.”
From a single site near Animal’s headquarters in Poole, the warehouse handles tens of thousands of orders a week spanning 14,000 individual SKUs ranging from clothing to surfboard covers. The company says the biggest challenge the business faces in running an omnichannel warehouse is being able to cope with sudden changes in volume.
“In our wholesale business we know we have a set number of orders to dispatch for a given date, but with e-commerce and retail, a single special offer like a Black Friday promotion can generate thousands of orders to process. Using Indigo means we can work very efficiently and when we do need to bring in extra workers, they can be up to speed in a couple of hours because the software is so easy to use,” says Runciman.
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By GlobalDataAccounting for around 10% of total sales, Animal’s direct e-commerce business is not its major focus. Instead, the company has invested in developing a close network of wholesale partners and brick-and-mortar stores.
The company said it plans to work with Indigo to improve the integration of reverse logistics processes with back office systems and invest in a greater number of fulfilment stations. This will enable an even larger number of orders to be accurately processed each day.
