CVL Think | Plan | Do

The Background

Woolworths had developed a number of additional sales channels within their MCR offering.

The company's growth of orders necessitated a review of the fulfilment operations to ensure that the additional volumes could be supported.

The Head of Physical Operations at Woolworths asked CVL to review the physical operations, identify quick wins to increase volume throughput, and identify the key changes to be made in the future.

"With the growth of MCR our physical capability was likely to be stretched, so CVL identified short term wins to extend our capacity."
Sharon Thomas, Operational Head of Physical Distribution
 

The CVL Solution

CVL conducted a review of various elements of Woolworths' sites, including capacity, reserve, the pick and pack process, and despatch.

CVL identified that Woolworths' two fulfilment centres were failing to utilise a new WMS effectively or in synchronicity with each other.

CVL also found that the new system had been incorrectly configured for Woolworths' requirements, and worked to rectify this situation.

The Benefits

Woolworths gained a clear understanding of the problems that were impacting the operation's capacity and throughputs. A number of quick win fixes were implemented overnight and created an immediate positive effect.

As a result of CVL's work, Woolworths are now able to fulfil all of the orders they receive and were able to catch up on the backlog of orders that had accumulated.

Woolworths now have a clear outlook on the weaknesses of their fulfilment process and the improvements that it is likely to require in the long term.