Sam’s Beauty doubles its throughput with software barriers

Sam’s Beauty, a hair and beauty supplier dedicated to beauty enthusiasts all over the world, experienced several years of growth and needed to increase its warehouse order fulfillment shipping volume. Its existing pick, pack and ship processes were manual. And, its order picking was paper-based, using totes.

“As business grew, our manifesting stations became a bottleneck during peak times. Packing and manifesting couldn’t keep up with our e-commerce order volume,” says Jin Park, operation improvement director at Sam’s Beauty. “We would have to continue to add more headcount to cover our growth. This led us to begin to investigate automation options.”

After reviewing three systems integrators, Sam’s Beauty chose a warehouse automation designer and integrator, due to its Real-time Distribution Software (RDS), which has a pre-developed pack and ship automation module.

“[The designer and integrator was] knowledgeable and able to help our team define and understand the process improvements required, resulting in our ability to more than double shipments, while increasing the pack-and-ship area productivity,” Jin says.

The RDS warehouse execution and control system (WES-WCS) has removed several manual touches from Sam’s Beauty’s operation, eliminating two minutes of labor costs from every order shipment.

In addition, the new pack-and-ship solution includes an in-motion carton weight capture scale, a dimensioner and a print-and-apply label applicator that’s integrated into an automated pack-and-ship conveyor system.

The system doubled order fulfillment throughput with reduced staff. Sam’s is now processing more than 3,000 orders per day, two times greater than pre-Covid-19 volume surges. This rise in processing has occurred with two to three fewer operators in the pack-and-ship area, too, allowing Sam’s to reallocate three employees to other warehouse work activities instead.

Due to Covid-19, Sam’s had to close its retail stores, and it experienced a dramatic spike in e-commerce orders. “We were suddenly receiving what were historically peak season volumes every day,” Jin says. “At the same time, we lost some of our DC workforce, due to Covid-19 fears, and had to use our office staff in the DC to meet the surge in e-commerce orders. The solution was the easiest process for our staff to operate, it is very intuitive, so training is minimal, and we were able to meet the order demand.”

The leaner, lower touch pack process reduced the chance of a pick sheet falling off or being attached to a packed carton. Due to the improved pack process, along with automated labeling and validation, labeling and manifesting errors have been eliminated. And, labor has decreased, customer satisfaction has risen and quality control labor has been diminished.

Numina Group
(630) 343-2600