COFE® became Santa’s best helper, made sure presents arrived on time

VARGO®, a leading provider of material-handling system integration, warehouse execution software and equipment solutions for major e-fulfillment and distribution centers, helped its retail clients rack up PEAK week records in the of shopping week that followed Thanksgiving.

According to figures released recently by the National Retail Federation, online and other non-store sales after the first two weeks of holiday shopping in 2015 increased 10.3 percent, unadjusted, year-over-year.

VARGO®’s customers, meanwhile, were flowing right through PEAK with ease.

The Columbus-based distribution center specialists recently compiled post-holiday numbers from its top four retail clients whose fulfillment centers are driven by VARGO®’s Continuous Order Fulfillment Engine (COFE®). COFE® is a dynamic warehouse execution software that has been implemented in many leading fulfillment centers to drive the intelligent warehouse processes by utilizing pull-based/lean manufacturing principles. The software manages e-commerce and omnichannel fulfillment solutions, making true lean distribution possible.

In just one week, from Nov. 26 through Dec. 4, the top four COFE®-driven retailers reported these combined numbers from their fulfillment centers:

• 6.8 million: the total number of units processed in one week in all four fulfillment centers combined
• 2.25 million: the number of orders that distribution center workers packed in one week
• 102,000: the number of distinct SKUs that distribution center workers picked each day

By contrast, warehouses run by traditional warehouse systems would have recorded numbers that were about 60 percent to 70 percent of the results achieved in a COFE®-driven facility, according to VARGO®.

“Typically, COFE®-driven sites achieve results that are 30 percent to 40 percent more efficient than the results a warehouse with a more traditional warehouse execution system might achieve,” said Bart Cera, chief operating officer at VARGO®.

According to the National Retail Federation, retailers across the country prepared for the increase in online sales for months.

This past holiday season marks the first year that American Eagle Outfitter Inc.’s distribution center in Hazle Township Pennsylvania filled both customer orders as well as store-replenishment orders — known as omnichannel fulfillment. The supply chain engineering power of COFE® made history when American Eagle’s facility went live on June 15 as the only omnichannel fulfillment center using one engine, one inventory and one workforce.