At Burlington Coat Factory, the discount retailer with $3 billion in sales, it takes more than one type of distribution center to service 365 stores in 42 states—especially since the company is still committed to aggressive growth after 34 years of doing business.

"Distribution is absolutely critical to the success of our company," says Dave Sanford, Burlington's vice president of distribution. "When we can get the product into our stores in a timely fashion, we're getting ourselves a competitive advantage in the marketplace."

To maintain that advantage, Burlington has evolved from operating a single DC at the company's headquarters in Burlington, N.J., to a distribution network with four facilities. "While these are distinct facilities, we set up this network so that any facility can ship to any of the 350 stores," says Sanford.

• The 650,000-square-foot facility in Burlington is a full-purpose distribution center that handles every type of product sold in the chain's stores. That includes handling and sorting flat goods that are processed in a tote and merchandised on a shelf along with goods on hangers. It also includes crossdocking of cases and cartons that can go directly from suppliers to stores.
• A 300,000-square-foot leased facility in Bristol, Pa., handles baby products, but is also outfitted to crossdock inventory for its apparel and accessories divisions during busy periods.
• A highly-automated 650,000-square-foot facility in Edgewater, N.J., (see system layout below) handles flat merchandise and goods on hangers, crossdocking some inventory. The DC also sorts and holds opportunistic end-of-season buys that Burlington stores for sale in six to nine months. Edgewater is designed to leverage electronic data interchange (EDI), advance ship notifications (ASNs) and print-and-apply technology.
• A recently opened 440,000-square-foot crossdock facility in San Bernadino, Calif., handles domestic product manufactured on the West Coast along with apparel and accessories sourced from the Far East.

Both Edgewater and San Bernadino were designed with input from a systems integrator (Worldsource Integration, 630-795-1100) and Burlington's operations personnel.

The latter was particularly important, says Sanford. "One of the things we've learned over the years is that design, technology and best practices are all important. But it's front line managers and operators that make them work," says Sanford. "One of the best things we've done is to develop a team of young professionals who came out of the distribution center and moved into facilities planning and project management."

Sanford says that approach to facilities planning is reflected in the evolution of the buildings. Edgewater, for instance, is a well-engineered facility with flaws. San Bernadino, on the other hand, is a barebones facility that works very well at what it was designed to do. "With input from our front line supervisors we were able to optimize it for crossdocking and cut away the fat," says Sanford.

One good example: Burlington implemented camera-based data collection systems rather than traditional bar code scanning devices on the recommendation of the project management team. "Today, the camera is very competitive with scanners from a cost standpoint," says Sanford. "But our project managers believe that the technology holds more promise for the future than scanning."

Moving from a company with distribution centers to a distribution network was an evolution for Burlington Coat Factory.

It was also a necessity. At one point, efficient handling and distribution was going to be key to the retailer's continued growth. "We went through a series of small leased buildings in the early 90s to keep up with growth," says Sanford. "In the late 90s, we started to define ourselves around distribution."

At that point, the retailer decided to redefine its approach. That began with a new look at the basics of inbound and outbound logistics, along with understanding how existing systems could interface with materials handling equipment to efficiently move product.

That look led to the introduction of EDI, ASNs and print-and-apply technology. With those in place, suppliers could pack by store and ensure the unimpeded flow of merchandise through the distribution facilities and out to the stores.

The next step was to look at the expansion of the distribution network beyond the East Coast. That resulted in the new San Bernadino facility.

The job of efficient distribution, however, is not complete. "One of our greatest challenges is to broaden the scope of our visibility from the vendor to the store," says Sanford. "What we're trying to do now is to give our merchants visibility into how their product moves through our supply chain. And we're trying to gain some degree of predictability in the supply chain to better manage our inventories from vendor to the stores."

Those jobs will be ongoing. "We've evolved into a very effective organization," says Sanford. "But it's been the result of understanding what has to happen in each of the work areas. That's a process that will continue."