Retailer chooses conveyor and sortation upgrade over replacement

Men’s Wearhouse is a retailer of men’s clothing with offices in Houston, Texas. Amid company growth and increased e-commerce business, the company’s distribution centers were experiencing issues with reliability and productivity. The company struggled with aging infrastructure, increasingly stringent regulations and escalating operations and energy costs. By updating conveyors and sortation system controls in multiple facilities, the company was able to satisfy business needs while saving more than $200,000 per year.

In years past, the company had tried to improve visibility into product movement by installing an RFID tracking system. However, the system proved ineffective due to the RFID tags’ electrical sensitivity and the abundance of static electricity generated in garment sortation. During the conveyor and sortation upgrade, the company eliminated the RFID system while maintaining accurate handling of individual garments.

Instead of completely replacing the existing systems, the company partnered with a control system integrator (Patti Engineering, a certified member of the Control System Integrators Association, pattieng.com; controlsys.org) and worked to retain the best aspects of current systems. The projects included upgrading controls for the tuxedo sorter, which contains hundreds of lanes that sort coats, pants, shirts, vests and accessories. Replacing controls and replacing the RFID readers with encoders in the tuxedo and shipping sorters created more accurate, reliable and efficient systems.

The company avoided a large capital expenditure by retrofitting instead of replacing equipment, resulting in huge savings. According to Dave Stevens, senior vice president of distribution/logistics at the Men’s Wearhouse, the retrofit resulted in savings of approximately $200,000 annually in reduced maintenance costs, reduced licensing costs and higher uptime on the equipment.

“The return on investment was less than one year,” says Stevens. “We have enjoyed a very successful partnership with the integrator during the past 10 years. I can rely on them for both strategic modifications and tactical emergencies.”

The new system reduced unnecessary complexity and dramatically simplified operations without having to replace expensive equipment. Ease of diagnostics and component reliability decreased downtime, provided flexibility, simplified maintenance, increased reliability, and aided the company in overall efficiency.