100,000 totes for automated warehouse

George Utz UK, a manufacturer of multi-use plastic containers to the supply chain industry has secured a major deal for more than 100,000 bespoke totes for JD Fashion’s state of the art automated warehouse in Rochdale.

In 2012, the ambitious JD Fashion, one of the best known brands on the high street, moved into its new 616,000 sq ft warehouse at Kingsway, to consolidate its distribution centres from nearby Heywood and Peterlee in County Durham.

Since then JD acquired the Millets and Blacks outdoor brands and the DC has had to rapidly accommodate seasonal clothing and footwear, but also the outsize items including tents, canoes and skis.

During the Christmas 2014 peak 2000 staff were dealing with a stock holding of 10 million items and were dispatching almost 350,000 items to 800 stores and thousands of online customers on a daily basis as part of a 24/7 operation.

During the build up to Christmas JD began reconfiguring the facility and had already included an additional 250,000 sq ft of mezzanine space for inter-store storage. Construction is now underway to build another three floor mezzanine during 2015 to bring the available floor space up to more than one million sq ft in what will be one of Europe’s largest automated DCs.

Matthew Kieras, JD’s finance manager for distribution at Kingsway, said: “My role is looking at efficiencies in terms of planning and reporting and helping to future proof Kingsway as a truly consolidated facility where we have added a large element of automation.”

He plans to rapidly expand the dispatch area from eight to 60 automated chutes, to accommodate the demand. This will increase to 90 chutes in the future as the business continues its upward trajectory.

Additional automation requires a high-level of standardisation and JD Fashion has already taken delivery of 50,000 plastic totes from George Utz UK, with an additional 60,000 to complete the order and replace the re-used supplier cardboard boxes that are non-standard and not strong enough to withstand the rigours of the supply chain.

The Attached Lid containers (ALC) are made to comply with the JD automation and conveyors at Kingsway and stack uniformly both in the warehouse and as optimised loads as they are dispatched to High Streets across the UK. In addition, George Utz has increased the depth of the standard tote to accommodate the more outsize items such as large walking boots.

“This has been a big change for us and has enabled the uniform size loading of vehicles and overall greater efficiency. We went out to a number of suppliers, but because Utz had worked with us before they had the edge because they understood the business and the automation requirement. They were able to design a slightly higher tote – 400 cm high, instead of the standard 375 – to accommodate some of the bigger items. They also came in at a very competitive price,” said Matthew.

As more robust plastic takes precedence over cardboard at Kingsway, JD Fashions plans to expand the drive for automation efficiency, a move that will save the company at least £0.5 million per year on cardboard.

“This is a big change for us and will mean greater efficiencies once we are 100 per cent plastic and take delivery of the remaining totes from Utz,” he added.

Matthew’s next priority is to look at the click and collect deliveries to stores which currently uses sacks to ship items. He plans to replace these with different coloured totes that stack better and make greater use of truck space and therefore improve payload efficiency.

Carsten Diekmann, general manager of George Utz UK, which is doubling its own turnover in the next five years, said: “JD Fashion is a long-standing client which has overcome the growing pains of its acquisitions by integrating greater automation into its processes. Necessity is the mother of invention and the company has looked to suppliers including George Utz to assist in the transition. We have been able to assist on this occasion and we look forward to working more closely with JD in the future.”