LT Apparel Scales to 150,000 Units per Day with AS/RS + tSort

About LT Apparel

Leading Manufacturer of Childrenswear

LT Apparel Group is a New York-based, family-owned company founded in 1958, known for design, manufacture, and distribution of the highest quality children’s clothing. Its portfolio of brands includes adidas kids, Carhartt kids, and its own brand, French Toast, the leader in children’s school wear.

The Challenge

Scaling Fulfillment for Rapid Growth

LT Apparel was seeking a warehousing partnership to support their business growth. They needed support to modernize their processes and further increase throughput capacity in their Browns Summit, NC facility. LT Apparel has an aggressive goal of supporting 150,000 units per day at peak season. They wanted to simplify their distribution methods within the DC while also bringing 3PL business in-house and accommodating 10,000 additional SKU’s. All of these factors necessitated the need to expand their automated systems to support increased storage capacity and order volume growth.

LT Apparel was also looking for both short-term and long-term process optimization opportunities to improve product and order flow while building flexibility and capacity within their DC. They had already made a significant investment in automation in recent years and were looking for a new partner. Therefore, LT Apparel decided to partner with KPI Solutions to support further optimization and justification of their Browns Summit, NC DC.

Business goals included:

• Enabling order volume growth by bringing in SKUs from a 3PL
• Increasing order throughput with faster product turns
• Building system flexibility to support peak order volume
• Reducing reliance on labor
• Flexible design to support changes to order volumes, flows, etc.

The Solution

AutoStore AS/RS + Tompkins Robotics tSort

Our partner, KPI Solutions worked with LT Apparel to evaluate their current-state processes and identify bottlenecks, while designing short and long-term operational strategies. KPI Solutions evaluated various order fulfillment methodologies, from conventional to automated storage options ranging from low to significant capital investment. Any chosen technology needed to support increased volume and meet a tight timeline for implementation before peak.

Through the evaluation of alternative solutions, the companies agreed to blend two robotic technologies: an expansion of the AutoStore AS/RS for automated storage and picking, along with Tompkins Robotics tSort for robotic sortation of picked goods. This solution provided expanded capacity in a smaller footprint with flexible storage for a rotating assortment of SKUs.

Solution Highlights: 

The Value

Scalable Capacity, Speed, and Flexibility

• Increased average volume from 30,000 items to up to 150,000 items during peak season
• Productivity surged, with units per labor hour more than tripling
• Reduced chargebacks related to order errors by 80%

• Additional storage capacity in their existing facility footprint

• Increased order throughput enabled order volume growth and ability to more easily meet peak demand
• Additional SKUs from new business units can be added to inventory
• Optimized processes throughout the facility led to increased order fulfillment speed
• Flexibility to bring 3PL volume in-house, expanding their revenue stream
• Reduced labor reliance