A Pronovias UK C.qxd
Transcription
A Pronovias UK C.qxd
A Pronovias UK C.qxd 6/11/06 15:49 Página 30 A WAREHOUSE Exquisiteness in its handling, functionality, professionalism and organization: these are the identity signs of the Pronovias logistics centre in Barcelona, in which a modern warehouse has been built specialized in one of the most delicate garments on the market: the wedding dress. A wedding dress is something which the most delicate of care seems somehow insufficient. A garment on which dozens of hours are spent from its design to its confection, and which will only be used once, demands the greatest of care. When an article with these special qualities has to be shipped a great distance, to another continent, and has to be sent to thousands of sales outlets throughout the world, its logistics becomes a key element, not only be- 30 BestPractices IN WHITE cause of the article's value chain itself, but also because of the very image and prestige of the company. This is the case of Pronovias, a group of companies specialised in the confection of dresses and accessories for brides. Under the name of the company with most renown, six companies are devoted to ensuring that each bride is the most beautiful woman on her wedding day. The warehouse and the logistics have a great deal to do with this goal. Consolidating the warehouse and the business In order to fulfil this goal, the business group has built a logistics centre made up of two buildings, of which the newest, which acts as the main warehouse, came into operation in December 2005. The reason for creating this complex arose from the need to combine in a single location all the production of the Pronovias Group. Until it was opened, the operations were carried out in two other buildings, one annex in front of the current one and another some distance away. The problem was that certain operations, such as the cutting, reception and storage of raw materials, were divided between those two annexes, with all the inconveniences arising from a situation like this. When the opportunity to purchase the current building came about, owned previously by a cosmetics laboratory, the company took advantage of this to group all the production activities in the same centre and in addition to build a warehouse nearby with the aim of having more capacity for dresses. "This increase in space is in accordance with the plans for growth of the company over the next three years. We had outgrown the previous building. In addition, we also wanted to introduce new technologies", says Pere Guirao, industrial manager of Pronovias. BestPractices 31 A Pronovias UK C.qxd 6/11/06 15:49 Página 32 The warehouse is integrated into the production operations of the company. The building purchased is devoted to production operations and dispatches. The car park is located in the basement. The ground floor is one metre above street level and is devoted to dispatches. In this floor there is a reception bay and a dock. There is also an automated sorter for hung garments. Dresses and accessories Above the dispatch floor there is another floor devoted to the storage of accessories, comprising basically of packages. Accessories are understood as items of clothing for brides such as veils, frilly petticoats and corsets, among others, along with certain products to be sent to shops, such as publicity. This warehouse shares the floor with the canteen, which serves this building and the annex warehouse. Above this level is the first floor which is used for finishing. All the manufactured products arrive here, both those coming from Spain, and those made in China, which is the main supplier of the Pronovias Group. The floor immediately above (the second floor) is the area for cutting, which is done with all the products made in Spain. The penultimate floor, the third, is divided into two activities: the raw materials warehouse, which is in charge of feeding the cutting area on the floor below, and a multi-use room, destined to uses related with the design and the creation of products. The last floor has a photographic studio in addition to other activities. Hanging garments The recently opened warehouse is an annex to the above described building and is dedicated to dresses. Specifically, it has a capacity to house 80,000 hung garments. According to Guirao, "it is designed to deal with the peaks in demand which we experience throughout the year, but it must also be capable of covering the growth forecast for the next three years". The property consists of a concrete building and an internal structure comprising of girders and mezzanines. Hence, no building work was needed to form the floors and excellent ventilation was also achieved. "The fundamental requirements we requested in the design of the warehouse were that very little natural light should enter –as the colour of the dresses in stock can be affected, particularly with light-sensitive fabrics– and that there was a constant renewal of air", says the industrial manager of Pronovias. The product is divided between four floors and an underground level. The latter is equipped with conventional static hangers. In floors 0 and 1, the hangers are of a live storage type, with rails along which they move, and in floors 2 and 3, again, static ones are used. In order to provide support for the entire warehouse there is a system of guide rails along which the hangers with the dresses slide, and there is also an automated transport system with baskets or carts in which the garments are deposited to be sent to the different floors. This warehouse communicates with the other building only through floor 0 (dispatches) and floor 1 (finishing). The basement and the second and third floors are static. That is, although the garments arrive to the hanging areas by means of rails along which special hangers fitted with wheels slide, once they reach these areas the dresses must be taken down and hung again in the static bar designed for this. Thus, each rail runs parallel to two static hangers in such a manner that the goods can be moved easily to a place next to their end location. A Pronovias UK C.qxd 6/11/06 15:49 Página 34 AN INTERNATIONAL DRESS The origins of Pronovias go back to 1922, when this family company started a shop in Barcelona specialised in lacework, embroidery and silk weaving. The brides of Catalan high society were attired by El Suizo, as the shop was called back then. In the nineteen-sixties the Pronovias brand was formed, a pioneer in Spain in launching a prêt-à-porter collection of wedding dresses and in opening the first shop dedicated entirely to this business. In the next 35 years the company extended its reach across Spain, Europe, Latin America and North America. The year 2000 marked a new milestone in the history of the company with the startup of a modern logistics centre in El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona). The objective of this centre is to provide a complete service to the 3,200 sales outlets distributed throughout the world in which the articles of the company are sold, either in its own shops (120), franchises or through specialized and multi- brand outlets. The company, which in 2005 invoiced 126 million euros, has a workforce of 650 employees and enjoys a market share of 40% in Spain and 5% in the world. The Pronovias Group encompasses several brands, such as Pronovias itself, San Patrick, La Sposa, Atelier Diagonal, White One and SP Collections, for which prestigious international designers lend their services, such as, Valentino, Manuel Mota, Lorenzo Caprile and Hannibal Laguna, among others. A Pronovias UK C.qxd 6/11/06 15:50 Página 36 STATIC AND LIVE STORAGE Floors 1 and 2 are equipped with live storage, that is, the rails along which the hangers move serve as racks and the garments are hung here are in their storage position - and so there is no need to transfer them to another static hanger. Unlike the static area, it is not necessary for an operator to handle the dresses in the aisle. Instead, the employee extracts the entire row of hangers and chooses those needed. Consequently, the storage capacity is higher as the rows can be positioned closer to each other. TECHNICAL DETAILS Floor length: 54 m Floor width: 52.9 m Length of static hangers: 1 of 6.56 m, 1 of 13.97 m and 1 of 67.5 m along each aisle. Working to order "The reason for choosing a specific location or system depends on the delivery conditions. We know to a very high percentage the destination of the garment when this enters the warehouse. Basically we work to order", explains Guirao. Despite this way of working –very close to just in time–, it is necessary to keep products in the warehouse for some time. "When an item arrives, it is automatically assigned. All items which have to be delivered within 15 days are assigned to the corresponding clients on arrival and, as a consequence, to the different dispatch routes. Those which exceed this time go to stock", says the industrial manager of Pronovias. The live storage is distributed by dispatch routes; it is chaotic and uses the live storage floors. The stock area is the one made up of static floors. When it is decided on which day to send the dispatch, the garments in the live area are pulled out of each row of dresses, and taken to a sorter, which is in charge of separating them by client. The items in the static area must be carefully taken down again and passed to the live storage rails. Quality control and storage The warehouse distributes the products around the world, with the exception of the dresses made in China for the United States –these are sent directly without The dresses are dispatched to the live and static floors by means of a semi-automated sorter 36 BestPractices Length of live hangers: 3,000 m Number of static racks: 52 static double hangers and 9 single hangers per floor Number of live racks: 325 Number of aisles: 22 per static floor Load levels: 1 load level for each of the 5 floors of the structure Total capacity: 80,000 hanging garments passing through the Barcelona installations. Around 150,000 dress units manufactured in China arrive to Spain a year, which in boxes represents an average of 100 a day, stored on pallets of eight boxes each. When the product leaves China by airplane, specifically from Hong Kong, a packing list is received in the Spanish offices and is entered into the computer system. Once the goods arrive at customs, an initial check is made against the list. Later, when the goods reach the installations of Pronovias, an exhaustive check is performed on the dispatch received. This process ensures the traceability of the product and the company knows when it will reach the facilities: this is key: "Our standard delivery service is between six and eight weeks, from when the client chooses the dress in the shop to when it is finally delivered to her. A proper follow-up of the sale trends and a precise forecast of demand allow us to offer short-term delivery times", says Guirao. The goods are received, packaged in boxes, in floor 0 of the production building. An initial check on the products against the packing list is carried out in order to confirm that the dispatch is correct. Then, the garment is taken up to the finishing floor by means of a mechanical chain system. Here all the dresses are submitted to a rigorous quality control check and, once this is passed, they are ironed, individually packaged and labelled. The registration operation in the warehouse computer system automatically generates the good's assignment and, in consequence, the classification of the product once the packaging is complete. This classification, performed prior to being entered into warehouse, enables the dresses to be stored in the areas designed to this effect. The physical dispatch to the live or static floor is carried out with the aid of a semi-automated sorter, which groups the dresses in function of their destination in the warehouse. The goods are taken out by means of an overhead system (rails along which the hangers with wheels move). Location of the goods We are now working on the integration of a WMS for the computerised management of the warehouse; at present there are fixed locations for every model. When doing the picking, the operator is guided by a handheld terminal which is sent instructions by radio frequency. The products for each route, as they are pre-classified, are extracted directly by pushing them along the rail or by passing them from the static hanger to this rail and moving them to the area with an automated sorter of 30 exits with two stages, that is, more than one order can be prepared in each. Interspersed between are separators with the details of the client and the dresses are packed in special bags of four. The special macro-bags are hung inside the vehicles. For dispatches to countries to which it is not possible to send the dresses stored hung due to their distance, for example to Japan or Australia, the dresses are stored in boxes in floor 0 of the production building and later loaded into lorries. "We distribute the orders over the week. Deliveries are made to some countries once every seven days –in the case of Spain, every two–, while to others it is every 15 days", notes Guirao. When the order is prepared, the shop is informed, along with its contents and the approximate date when they will receive it, in function of the contract they have with the logistics operator. I BestPractices 37