Pick-to-light improves productivity for Delta Galil

For Delta Galil Industries, a global manufacturer and supplier of apparel for men, women and children, increasing accuracy and capacity was a must to keep up with increasing customer demands.

“Our pickers were doing 2,000 picks per day with paper,” explains Steven Seidman, vice president of supply chain at Delta Galil. “We were auditing 100% of the orders due to 97% pick accuracy. We desperately needed to increase capacity and accuracy without increasing the footprint of the distribution center.”

Delta has manufacturing and distribution facilities on four continents, serving retail giants such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart and J.C. Penney, and leading fashion brands including Victoria’s Secret, Calvin Klein, Nike, Hugo Boss and Pierre Cardin.

And with more than 40 million items shipping a year from its Willamsport, Pa., DC, a new system was critical. Delta tossed out its paper picking system and implemented a warehouse control system
with pick-to-light and productivity management that could be scaled for future applications (AL Systems, http://www.alsystems.com). Dynamic picking was a key requirement, as Delta needed to accommodate multiple pickers in a zone at one time. The system also provides associates with the ability to simultaneously pick orders for multiple customers in a given zone.

Since implementing the system, Delta more than doubled productivity and significantly reduced the number of pickers required to fill orders. Delta’s new minimum requirement for pickers is 3,500 picks per day at 99.5% accuracy. The system generates reports that measure productivity and accuracy rates by picker and zone. However, associates now average more than 4,000 picks at 99.95% accuracy and audit less than 7% of the orders. “We achieved payback on our implementation in about 13 months,” says Seidman. “We were expecting an 18-month ROI, but did much better due to the dramatic increase in productivity and accuracy.”