Sara Lee Sock Company, manufacturer of Hanes, Champion, and private label socks, and the largest supplier of athletic and casual socks to mass merchants and discount retailers, engaged The Progress Group to help them assemble a comprehensive facility plan to retrofit an existing distribution facility to support their business growth. The company operates a distribution center located in North Carolina. The DC handles domestic and foreign-sourced products that ship to customer stores and distribution centers nationwide.
|
|
 |
The Task: Develop plans for growth – but conserve capital through innovative use of the parts that are working...
The Progress Group was given the assignment to develop a cost-effective plan that would allow the existing facility to grow volume significantly and reduce warehouse labor, space, and inventory carrying costs. The DC was near the breaking point in operational capacity. By using a unique material-handling methodology, they supported some market segments very well, but struggled to effectively serve all of the customer base. This was made more difficult by extreme seasonal peak inventories.
The Progress Group and Sara Lee staff and management developed a set of new processes to better align the operation with customer service requirements. A consistently successful management and supervisory team considered non-traditional options in seeking creative solutions to deal with the large off-site inventories. We designed a process and layout that successfully integrates off-site storage requirements with improved material flow and reduced handling steps within the old facility, but could be implemented at a fraction of the capital cost of the other alternatives.
...And implementation plans in sync with business plans...
Phased capital investment to match business growth will retain the high ROIC that Sara Lee demands of its operating units. Crafting a tailored solution to the need to double throughput capacity through innovative process improvements as an alternative to abandoning an older, but still-viable facility and a productive workforce is one of the ways The Progress Group helps make clients winners.
|
|
