To solve the age-old problem of keeping track of inventory inside a bustling DC, men’s accessories company Randa implemented a distinctly modern solution: RFID.
How do you keep track of the literally tens of millions of items—belts, neckties, wallets, and the like—flowing through your distribution facilities each year? That was the question faced by Randa Logistics, the fulfillment arm of Illinois-based Randa Accessories, which describes itself as the world’s largest men’s accessories company.
Like many businesses, Randa Logistics was sometimes challenged with determining precisely where products were located inside its facilities and how much inventory was on hand at any given moment. The problem became particularly acute during peak seasons, as volume and activity ramped up.
The company’s fulfillment center in Reno, Nev., is a case in point. During peak periods, the facility often ran short on storage space, forcing forklift drivers to find any available spot on the warehouse floor to store pallets until they could be loaded onto trucks. Trouble was, dropping a pallet outside a defined storage location made it tough to track—a problem that was only magnified when pallets for a specific order were stored in separate locations. On top of that, pallets were sometimes misplaced, resulting in hours of wasted manpower searching for missing pallets in the cavernous, 525,000-square-foot facility.
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Source: Getting by with a little help from RFID – DC Velocity