The challenge: With a national network of 125 discount department stores, a requirement to deliver more than 20 million cartons a year, highly diverse products, peak volumes reaching double the weekly average, and a supply chain involving imports and locally sourced general merchandise, the challenge for Big W was to succeed in delivering to their company slogan "We sell for less."
Our solution: In close collaboration with Big W management, Dematic designed, implemented and ultimately extended two of the southern hemisphere’s largest general merchandise distribution centers.
With large volumes of imported merchandise, both systems feature extensive use of cross-docking. Containers are unloaded directly onto the cross-docking conveyors and merged with batched full- and split-case orders picked in multiple, three-tier, full-case pick modules. Cross-docked loads are either sorted as direct-to-store orders or to palletizing locations for induction into bulk reserve storage. Pick-to-light technology is used to increase productivity and accuracy in split-case picking.
Benefits for Big W:
- Lower costs through strategic location of distribution centers
- Reduced inventory holding and storage requirements
- Greater accuracy in split-case picking
- Faster order turnaround in peak periods
- Consolidation of orders to reduce direct-to-store deliveries
