Inventory Management

Tommy Hilfiger Inc, a multi- billion dollar global apparel brand that is widely recognized remains the strongest in the industry. The company's apparel products are recognized throughout the world for their classics and timeless design. To keep pace with this expansion, TH USA’s distribution operations have undergone significant transformations. By 2004, distribution had grown from its humble beginnings from the trunk of Tommy Hilfiger’s car, to three distribution centers totaling almost one million square feet of space. One facility supported the Retail business unit, which includes the company’s own stores. The other two served the wholesale business unit, whose customers are mostly department-store and specialty-store chains.
With three buildings located within a three-mile radius, problems began to crop up. Functions were being duplicated, and inefficiencies were growing more evident.The Retail and Wholesale DCs were not only physically separate, but they also had separate Warehouse Management Systems. In addition, the fact that there was little room for expansion in the Retail DC to accommodate the robust sales growth of the retail stores led key personnel in operations, facilities, IT, and logistics to rethink the existing distribution plan. The plan to consolidate all the warehouses took affect which allowed production to follow as planned. Different types of procedures are used to keep the flow of a warehouse going, a system called the sortation systems, which is used to automatically route items to their next destination through a conveyor network, with little or no human intervention is constantly used throughout the warehouse. A combined receiving/shipping system to receive, sort, and palletize inbound cartons while simultaneously sorting and loading outbound orders picking sortation system to route replenishment totes through pick zones in multilevel pick modules linked to a network of packing stations; and a shipping-carton sortation system supported by a two-level-high, pallet flow-rack pick module to process and sort wholesale shipments. An automated unit sorter is also used to address the need for more retail picking capacity.TH USA’s host computer communicates the quantity of each stock-keeping unit (SKU) required for each store to the unit sorter’s control system. Meanwhile, the WMS directs cartons with the required items to the sorter’s induction station. An inductor scans the cartons’ bar codes and places individual items on passing trays perforated with tiny holes. Next, photo eyes look down through the holes at reflectors. If any reflectors are not seen (because something is covering the holes), the system knows that it has detected an item. Based on the scan at the induction station, it also knows what is on the tray and assigns it for delivery to the appropriate store’s drop station.With its projected capacity of 10,000-plus units per hour and an average of just 12 workers required to induct and pack orders, the unit sorter was a perfect fit for a high-throughput operation confined to a limited space.