Preston becomes home to Fashion Biz - Case Study

by Case Studies on 2011-06-15 08:13:49

Since establishing in 1997 Fashion Biz has continued to grow at a remarkable pace and the opening of the Preston Distribution Centre (DC) in New South Wales marks their place as the largest and fastest growing wholesaler to trade of corporate and promotional clothing in Australia.

Now with showrooms and warehouses across three countries including Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales,  Auckland, Christchurch and Nadi, the recent addition of the 13,000 square metre Preston facility allows further expansion and growth to this outstanding privately-owned clothing empire.

According to Mr Harish Raniga, General Manager, Fashion Biz, the new Preston DC was built to ensure that customers in the Northern States of Australia were receiving the same turnaround and delivery service as their Southern counterparts.

Fashion Biz selected the physical site at Preston due to its location to all major arterials that are required for northern state distribution. The facility is situated near the M5, M2 and M7, allowing ideal access routes for all road deliveries in to both New South Wales and Queensland.

The site also houses a large showroom above the offices so that customers can touch, feel and see the clothing, fabrics and colour ranges.

“As New South Wales has always had the largest customer base and covers 60% of our company sales, it was critical for the future growth of this company to improve the customer satisfaction levels in this state,” Mr Raniga said.

“We knew that it was time to build a new facility that would cater to the needs of our northern state-based clients and also allow for future expansion to the overall business,”

 “Unfortunately when we were shipping goods to the Northern States from our Victorian DC, were not able to guarantee short turnarounds on deliveries into New South Wales and Queensland, with most taking two days. With the establishment of the Preston facility, Fashion Biz can now guarantee one day turnaround for all of their Northern clients,” he said.

Preston Distribution Centre
The 13,000 square metre facility was developed in coordination with SSI Schaefer and has conveyor rack and flow rack, two tier narrow aisle high rise, wire guidance system serviced by Crown Stock picker trucks, each bay comprises of multi levels all wire decked to suit sprinkler requirements and product load requirements.

The Preston DC comprises of   14 double entry racks, each with 28 bays long and 12 levels high. The Schaefer racking has been designed to handle approximately 296,782 cartons and 216 pallets of Fashion Biz stock holdings at any given time. The racking is made up of 1180 square metres of LS600 with raised storage area, with a finished height of 3 metres. The LS600 racking, or Long Span racking, is designed to optimise individual storage requirements and create maximum storage capacity with minimum storage space. Fashion Biz can also now handle 1000 pallets in the main freight logistics in stock handling in the new facility.

SSI Schaefer worked with Fashion Biz to ensure that the facility was designed to maximise the ceiling height in the DC, building full ceiling height racking to guarantee Fashion Biz had cube utilisation in all parts of the site.

“SSI Schaefer racking is unique in that it is flexible and modular and can easily adapt and expand as our business does. When our needs change so can the racking and that is a tremendous benefit to this partnership,” Mr Raniga said.

”We were also very impressed with the capability to have the racking built to the full height of the ceiling and felt that this was also a major selling point when we selected SSI Schaefer as our warehouse partner. The racking is 12 metres in height ensuring maximum storage capabilities for the facility,”

SSI Schafer also designed two tier incline/decline conveyors servicing upper and lower tier with dual lane divert and accumulation for automatic order consolidation.

WMS helps pick accuracy
Fashion Biz selected a Manhattan Associates Warehouse Management System as a part of the Preston DC development. Whilst the system is still new, the staff have improved their pick and pack accuracy at a rapid rate. Staff can now pick their own products with the new system. With the WMS system staff are told where to pick their orders and what is needed in the order. The labelling and scanning system that is linked to the WMS ensures that there is very little paper work for the staff and picking and packing errors have dramatically reduced. On average each picker can pick 8 orders at one time where before they could only pick one order. The new system allows staff to manage multiple discreet picking which ultimately reduces errors in the pick area.

Mr Raniga added that the development of the Preston DC not only ensures faster delivery turnaround for the Northern States of Australia but ultimately improves customer satisfaction levels as well. The design of the new facility maximises cube space for daily stock holdings, and ensures that any future expansion or growth can be catered for in the design of the shelving and racking. The racking maximises the storage capacity of the site and the new WMS system allows faster and more efficient pick accuracy for the staff.

“Overall staff production levels have dramatically improved, our customers in the Northern States are happier and we have the capabilities to expand the facility as our business grows,”

“Fashion Biz is extremely proud of the design of the Preston DC and we believe that it has allowed us to streamline our operations and improve customer service and support. Looking back it is hard to imagine that Fashion Biz started out as a clothing manufacturer in Nadi, Fiji and is now one of the largest wholesalers of corporate clothing in Australia and New Zealand.” Mr Raniga said. 

Fashion Biz Special Design requirements
Part of the SSI Schaefer scope was that the Fashion Biz system had to be designed outside the typical design requirements as it needed to also include thermal induced loadings caused by fire. To satisfy these requirements SSI Schaefer undertook full scale testing as well as finite element analysis (FEA) to examine the thermal induced loading effects. Detailed reports were provided to satisfy occupancy certificate approvals. SSI Schaefer believes that this is the first of its kind in the industry.

BACKGROUND ON FASHION BIZ
Fashion Biz was established in Auckland in 1989 with a view to supplying garments to the local New Zealand market. The company originally imported woven shirts and polo shirts from Fiji. Around 1998, an office and distribution centre was established in Sydney, Australia to penetrate and supply the Australian market. By 2000, the majority of Biz Collection garments were being manufactured out of Asia. Fashion Biz has experienced rapid growth and is now one of the largest suppliers of apparel to the Australasian market. In 2007, the Australian head office and distribution centre was opened in Melbourne, Victoria. Today, Fashion Biz also has a showroom in Brisbane, Queensland, in addition to its large, modern showroom in Auckland.

Currently, Fashion Biz is 100 percent focused on the wholesale markets within Australia and New Zealand, with 3 distribution centres - Auckland in New Zealand, and Melbourne and Sydney in Australia.

The Australasian headquarters for Fashion Biz is in Auckland, New Zealand. Here the team of directors, management and the production team - together with valuable input from their Australian counterparts - continually strive to supply the market with new, innovative, quality garments at the best possible price. Of paramount importance is the quality of garments, maintaining stock levels, and ensuring the latest business infrastructure is in place to enable them to offer and guarantee the best service to their valued customers.