York, Pa., Facility will be First of Its Kind for High SKU Counts

HILLIARD, Ohio—A new and highly innovative e-commerce fulfillment center is coming to York, Pa. When it goes live and starts receiving and shipping goods in late summer 2015, it will do so with VARGO®’s COFE® warehouse execution system (WES).

One of the largest third-party logistics providers in North America contracted with VARGO® to design and build a warehouse execution system for a client that is one of the country’s largest retailers. The fulfillment center will be a full turnkey facility for this large retailer’s growing direct-to-consumer business east of the Mississippi River. VARGO® has installed its COFE® technology in other fulfillment centers that ship mostly apparel, but this project demonstrates how COFE® can be adapted and scaled for a variety of goods and large volume.

“COFE® will be driving the entire facility, making it the first waveless distribution center for higher SKU counts,” said Art Eldred, client executive for system sales at VARGO®.

“We have been working with them on their e-commerce for a while,” said Eldred of VARGO®’s relationship with the third-party logistics (3PL) provider. “When this opportunity came about, they felt the solution that VARGO® presented was the best product for their client.”

VARGO®’s COFE® warehouse execution system is the first to include automated wave planning for continuous order fulfillment in distribution centers. COFE® is a customizable program that controls all of the processes inside a distribution center, from material handling equipment to the devices, people and processes.

The 3PL’s retail client is experiencing phenomenal growth on its e-commerce side, and the retailer needed an East Coast facility to meet the growing demands of its increasing business. The 3PL supports this retailer’s supply chain requirements throughout the product lifecycle, from kitting and product packaging all the way through liquidation and recycling. After researching the best warehouse execution system, knowing the facility would handle all of the retailer’s business in the eastern half of the United States, the 3PL chose VARGO®.

The facility will process more than 60,000 SKUs with a daily order volume of between 100,000 and 150,000 orders. It could have a seasonal volume of 350,000 to 450,000 orders a day.

The COFE® system that VARGO® is supplying is customized to meet the demands of the higher SKU count. It also is customized to handle a larger assortment of merchandise, from apparel to general merchandise, including cosmetics, electronics, games and small household appliances.

Construction is under way on the York, Pa., fulfillment center. If the schedule stays on track, the facility will open this summer and begin receiving products in July and shipping products in August.