15/04/2010
By Scott Thompson
Mulberry has deployed Manhattan SCALE: Supply Chain Architected for Logistics Execution at its distribution centre in Chilcompton, Somerset. This has resulted in improved inventory control, more efficient picking and better utilisation of warehouse space.
To cope with the increase in demand for its leather goods, and to manage multi-channel orders, Mulberry needed to move away from a manual paper-based system. "Following the deployment of Manhattan's system we have a much more efficient warehouse. Over the Christmas period we were able to employ temporary staff to fulfil internet orders for the first time because the training of staff on the technology-supported picking process took just 15 minutes rather than the four months it took previously in the manual environment. Without Manhattan we simply would not have been able to process anywhere close to the quantity of orders we were able to fulfil. Looking ahead, we have forecast that by this time next year we will have doubled the amount of goods relative to what we are processing at the DC today. We would not be able to handle this growth without the new software," says Richard Cunningham, IT director at Mulberry.
According to Humphrey Henry, warehouse manager at the Chilcompton DC: "New stock arrives quarterly and each SKU is allocated to a pre-defined bay. Under our old system, the early arrival of a large order might mean that a bay would sit empty until the next quarterly delivery or be filled with a product that arrived out of sequence. We were suffering problems with stock location, wasted space and an overall lack of visibility."
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