Urban Outfitters serves highly defined customer niches from its specialty retail stores, web sites and catalogues. It offers differentiated collections of fashion apparel, accessories and home goods in its store locations including Urban Outfitters, targeting the 18 to 26 age group, and Anthropologie, aimed at women in the 30 to 45 age group. Besides retail and direct-to-consumer channels, the company also has a wholesale division, which distributes Free People, bdg, and Leifsdottir labels to more than 1,000 stores worldwide. With our continued growth and increasing sales straining our network, we decided to transform our supply chain processes with a long-term solution that could support operations across all of Urban Outfitters multiple channels, said Ken McKinney, executive director of Logistics, Urban Outfitters. We needed the capacity to handle high volumes, increase process efficiency, improve supply chain visibility and obtain meaningful performance measures.
The company moved the fulfilment and call centre activities of its direct and wholesale channels to a facility in Trenton, South Carolina in the US and implemented Manhattan Associates Warehouse Management solution (WMS) from the Manhattan SCOPE Distribution Management solution suite to optimise its distribution network. To support Urban Outfitters European retail operations, which include shops in the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Germany and Sweden, Warehouse Management was also implemented in its London-based retail distribution centre. In addition, the company plans to implement WMS in two additional U.S. retail facilities in Gap, Pennsylvania and Reno, Nevada, by the summer of 2011.
Urban Outfitters obtained a significant return on its investment with Manhattan SCOPE solutions, continued McKinney. We achieved increased productivity and supply chain visibility along with improved collaboration with trading partners and product flow.
Since implementation, Urban Outfitters has experienced benefits, including 35 per cent reduction in total labour, 80 per cent reduction in manifesting and invoicing processes, 66 per cent reduction in turn time through receiving - from 3 days to less than 24 hours - and a 60 per cent rise in put-away efficiency. The company benefited from the Supply Chain Intelligence solution as well - using the solutions dashboard view and detailed reports to measure and analyse supply chain performance.
We had no idea how valuable the Supply Chain Intelligence solution would be to our business, said McKinney. Its analysis capabilities and detailed reports were a nice surprise.
Manhattan Associates' Warehouse Management solution is designed for optimal collaboration and communication with an extensive network of suppliers and partners. Slotting Optimisation scientifically determines the best picking profile for a distribution centre, enabling timely, intelligent decisions as ordering trends change.
The Manhattan SCOPE portfolio is developed on a Supply Chain Process Platform that facilitates the communication of cross-suite applications to address specific supply chain requirements for the goals of each Manhattan customer. Manhattan SCOPE solutions are designed to seamlessly optimise day-to-day processes from one common interface, in real time.
About Manhattan Associates, Inc.
Manhattan Associates continues to deliver on its 20-year heritage of providing global supply chain excellence to more than 1,200 customers worldwide that consider supply chain optimisation core to their strategic market leadership. The company's supply chain solutions include: Manhattan SCOPE, a portfolio of software solutions and technology that leverages a Supply Chain Process Platform to help organisations optimise their supply chains from planning through execution; Manhattan SCALE, a portfolio of distribution management and transportation management solutions built on Microsoft. NET technology; and Manhattan Carrier, a suite of supply chain solutions specifically addressing the needs of the motor carrier industry.
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