Scalable Warehouse Solutions Prepare Fashion and Consumer Goods Businesses for Peak Periods
The key to a consistently efficient warehouse is being prepared for anything, whether a forecastable seasonal surge or an unpredictable rush of business. Is your facility prepared for a sudden surge in demand? Can your material handling systems support that, or will they struggle with a rapid fluctuation in volume? Your automation choices can make all the difference.
While it may seem counterintuitive, designing your warehouse specifically for your peak seasons is not the solution here. It can lead to wasted resources, budget, technology, and personnel. Instead of overbuilding, today's smart warehouses design their automation systems to handle their typical throughput, while also making certain they have the ability to scale those processes up and down as needed. This is the most cost-effective way to plan and prepare for periods of heavy demand, whenever they may arise.
TGW Logistics and our clients have experienced great success with this approach. Instead of overloading you on equipment and technology, TGW Logistics designs your warehouse solutions to address your specific needs. We understand that these needs can change throughout the year and throughout the life of your business. That’s why flexible solutions are the industry gold standard.
A Case Study in Warehouse Flexibility
Take consumer favorite Victoria’s Secret. At certain times during the year, such as around the holidays, demand for the lingerie, beauty, and clothing company spikes. To account for these periods, TGW Logistics implemented a dual-mode system in Victoria’s Secret’s facilities. Throughout the year, Victoria’s Secret’s warehouse utilizes our FlashPick smart order fulfillment system. With this goods-to-person automation solution, shuttles retrieve cartons or totes from a storage area and transport them to picking stations, where employees pick the goods for shipping, and the shuttle returns the storage receptacles to their origin.
During periods of peak demand, when efficiency and accuracy are most imperative, Victoria’s Secret implements an additional feature: Pick-to-light systems use illumination to automatically direct workers to specific storage locations after orders are received. With this person-to-goods automation, employees are able to consult digital displays that show the quantity of items required and press a button to complete the task.
Tactics for Peak Preparation
Resources such as the National Retail Federation outline increased spending periods for U.S. consumers, and the Census Bureau publishes key economic indicators, but not every sales peak is as predictable as the back-to-school season or the lead-up to Christmas. Investing in flexible solutions allows businesses to stay prepared for peak periods—even the surprising ones—without overbuilding. Here are our best tips to prime your warehouse to handle peaks in demand.
Increased demand requires more inventory on site, ready to ship out to consumers. There are several ways warehouse solutions can help you store the inventory you’ll need during peak seasons. Automated inbound operation systems streamline and speed up the process of receiving, processing, and storing incoming goods, while automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) optimize space, increase accuracy, and decrease dependency on human labor to retrieve and return storage receptacles.
FlashPick makes it possible to store mixed-SKU totes to maximize the amount that can be transported by shuttle at one time. While this may slightly reduce your throughput as pickers manually select the correct items from totes, it considerably increases your storage capabilities.
Along with TGW Logistics equipment and software comes Lifetime Support Services to keep your technology running smoothly and your automation plan aligned with your business needs. Proactive auditing by our field services team will address existing or anticipated pain points ahead of a peak warehouse period. Preventative maintenance, professional cleaning, and testing of ramped-up processes will help you avoid slowdowns and disruptions. Our pros will also help maintain facility compliance with all OSHA guidelines.
Flexible staffing models can position you to handle the influx of volume in your busiest times, but only if your staff is properly trained. Say you need to hire additional pickers or turn a packing workstation into a picking workstation. Planning ahead is vital so that workers know what is required of them to execute changes to the existing material handling sequence.
Industry Focus: Fashion Logistics & Consumer Goods Logistics
Even the most experienced trend forecaster can’t predict every style or product that will take the world by storm. The one sure thing in fashion logistics and consumer goods logistics is that certain products will surge in popularity before demand eventually slows back down. That’s why the most forward-thinking warehouses in this industry plan for flexibility and easy adjustments for peak seasons.
Instead of waiting for the next monthly issue of their favorite fashion magazine to find out what’s going to be hot, today’s trend followers consult immediately available sources like social media influencers and celebrity red carpet photos. Trends and consumer moods shift rapidly, and businesses must be prepared to respond. An unplanned viral moment can lead to a deluge of orders that brands can only capitalize on if they’re prepared to scale up their existing processes. Implementing scalable, flexible warehouse automation solutions supports the agility that fashion and consumer goods companies need to consistently meet their customers’ changing needs and whims.
Warehouse Solutions That Move With Demand
TGW Logistics’ approach to equipping businesses for these sometimes unpredictable spikes in demand isn’t to design a warehouse automation system that handles your peak throughput 100% of the time. Instead of loading your facility up with underutilized automation and wasted resources, we build out a system that efficiently processes your average volume and can be either scaled up or flexed up during those periods when faster handling is necessary.
Our modular systems offer flexibility across sale channels, which is imperative for warehouses handling ecommerce and retail orders. This channel-agnostic setup allows for in-the-moment decision-making and no-stress changes. An automation that was handling ecommerce and retail orders yesterday can be reprogrammed to only handle ecommerce today, should that hot new item go viral.
Additionally, our software is designed to make scaling operations up and down a simple matter. It’s also easy to prioritize or deprioritize certain orders in the case that one of your sales channels experiences a boom. Ahead of peak periods, your support team can help you update the configuration of your warehouse management system to optimize new flow patterns and speeds.
Stay Primed for Peak Periods
TGW Logistics builds peak readiness into our warehouse solutions, enabling our clients to remain dynamic and responsive to market and consumer needs. Our field services not only support the sustained quality of your equipment, but we can also help you ready your facility for periods of high demand and recommend new configurations.
Industry leaders turn to TGW Logistics for easily implemented inventory ramp-up strategies, as well as scalable warehouse automation designs that offer maximum flexibility. With flexible systems in place, your business will be primed to capitalize on every peak period.
Peak season is coming—will your warehouse be ready? Talk to TGW Logistics about warehouse solutions designed to flex when it matters most.
TGW Logistics is a foundation-owned company headquartered in Austria and a global leader in warehouse automation and warehouse logistics. As a trusted systems integrator with more than 50 years of experience, we deliver end-to-end services: designing, implementing, and maintaining fulfillment centers powered by mechatronics, robotics, and advanced software solutions. With over 4,500 employees spanning Europe, Asia, and North America, we combine expertise, innovation, and a customer-centric dedication to help keep your business growing. With TGW Logistics, it's possible to transform your warehouse logistics into a competitive advantage.
