Patagonia drastically reduces both its labor requirements and picking error rate

Patagonia is one of the best known names in the US, selling rugged clothing and accessories for extreme sport lovers as well as other gear and sportswear. In recent years the catalogue and web business has grown quite significantly.  Especially during peak season, several thousand orders a day move through this channel. The process for handling direct to consumers was manual and unwieldy, resulting in orders being shipped to the wrong address, unmet delivery promises and high returns costs.

To convey the packages, Patagonia chose the Dematic C-L100 conveyor because of its distinctive features. Dematic implemented this modular conveyor system and a sorter in only five days without disrupting on-going operations. The first results were quickly visible: All of the products can now be handled by the conveyor; labor requirements have been reduced from three full-time equivalents (FTE) to one-half FTE.  Furthermore, returns have almost completely disappeared.

To find out more about the special features of the Dematic C-L100 and its benefits for Patagonia click here.