French fashion brand for men Celio has more than 1,000 shops in France as well as in Spain, Belgium and Italy and also an e-retail channel. With a turnover of some 570 million Euros as of 2012, it decided to merge its distribution centres in Villetaneuse, Chambly and Croissy Beaubourg at its Amblainville location. That year a large distribution centre was established with 30,000 sq m and five huge warehouse areas.
For the new Amblainville DC Celio enlisted KNAPP to design an end-to-end system to handle the firm’s three large physical streams – goods-in for new models of folded garments and the replenishment of both folded and hanging garment areas, and three sales networks: store deliveries in France; abroad; and online mail order.
KNAPP provided a system with an OSR shuttle at its heart.
With two rack lines and 20 levels, it provides space for 22,400 containers with a load capacity of up to 35 kg.
They opted for picking to light, and some 800 items per hour can be processed at eight Pick-it-Easy work stations.
The Split Tray Sorter functions as the main artery of the system automatically filling orders. Workers feed articles to the Split Tray Sorter at eight work stations. The sorter then drops the articles through a flap to the carton below in one of 680 outlets.
The sorter has a two-part tray element, so two articles can be placed in a tray if necessary and KNAPP’s KiSoft software can handle the articles individually.
A separate warehouse hall area with 6,000 sq m is available for processing hanging garments. This area is equipped with modern, modular trolley technology by Dürkopp Fördertechnik. The trolley system can handle more than 50,000 items per hour.
Celio reckons the system has raised the quality of delivery while at the same time reducing transit times. It gives greater flexibility for volume variations, reduced costs per item as well as a decidedly improved error rate of only 3 in 1,000 items. Celio is set to expand to deliver some 31 million items per year.
