Project Background

Shortly after becoming a publicly-traded company, Carter’s needed more space and a more efficient operation to handle this increase in volume. A building had already been acquired in Stockbridge, GA when Carter’s partnered with Peach State to design the DC. Carter’s had several different business drivers affecting the DC design effort including a planning horizon of 2007 and high volume fluctuations due to seasonality of large cube fleece products. Carter’s had also added Wal-Mart as a customer and expanded their footprint with Target.

Project Objectives

• Increase throughput to support more than twice current revenue over the next five years
• Decrease DC handling expenses by ~35%
• Establish capability in Stockbridge DC to support Wal-Mart, Target, and fleece business
• Identify and implement process improvements in fulfillment operations
• Acquire and leverage new WMS capability

Solution Benefits

• The case pick by label to conveyor approach proposed for Wal-Mart and Target is an efficient operation limiting operator travel and ergonomic effort while still allowing store level picks.
• Picking fleece and sleepwear orders with an automated pick and pass method eliminates non-value added touches of broken cases and increases efficiencies in VAS.
• The sortation sub-system supports flexible sortation by customer, delivery method, or delivery date as well as delivering orders with VAS requirements to the mezzanine.