How a Leading Retailer Unlocked Growth with Unified Omnichannel Fulfillment

Industry

Retail

Discover how a leading American fashion retailer unified store replenishment and e-commerce fulfillment with the Exotec Skypod® system, doubling throughput, optimizing inventory, and scaling with ease to meet shifting consumer demands.

Company Background

For several decades, our customer has been a cornerstone in the American retail landscape, overseeing one of the nation’s most prominent fashion department store chains. With a vast network encompassing over 200 stores, this retail giant has provided unparalleled shopping experiences to millions of customers nationwide.

The Challenge

In an increasingly competitive retail landscape, our customer recognized the need for streamlined performance and flexibility within their warehouse operations to service apparel and footwear orders. Key to addressing this challenge was the implementation of an automated storage and retrieval system. This system needed to not only relieve pickers from labor-intensive and time-consuming manual tasks, but also achieve the momentous task of handling store replenishment and e-Commerce order fulfillment within a unified system.

The cornerstone of this transformation was flexibility. The need to quickly respond to the changing dynamics of the retail industry was paramount, especially in the face of evolving customer preferences and market trends. This was especially crucial considering the vast and ever-changing array of SKUs that the company managed and the various peak seasons it encountered throughout the year.

The Skypod System Solution

Robots	Picking Stations	Replenishment Stations	Storage Bins	Bins/Hour	Rack Height	System Footprint
49	5	1	105,490	999	32.4 ft (9.9 m)	58,520 ft² (5,430 m²)

Key Results

System capable of handling case and each picking for store replenishment and e-Commerce order fulfillment results in inventory optimization, maximized storage space, and significant reductions in operational costs
System architecture capable of seamlessly adding up to 49 robots, resulting in a near doubling of throughput to 1,993 bins per hour in a matter of minutes
Double deep storage with storage racks maximizing full height of warehouse enables high-density storage of thousands of SKUs
Five picking stations capable of cycling up to 999 bins per hour with five operators enabled shift of pickers to more value-add tasks such as specialty wrapping