The Children's Place

The Children’s Place is a growing, publicly traded, specialty retailer of clothing and accessories for children from newborn to twelve years of age. They operate approximately 375 stores in 42 states and are growing at a rate of nearly 30% each year.

The challenge: maximize efficiency

Due to rapid expansion in TCP’s retail sector, the establishment of childrensplace.com and monthly product introductions, TCP experienced increased volumes that weren’t being handled efficiently with their distribution practices. TCP partnered with Dematic to design, integrate and implement a material handling system that would meet these challenges.   

The solution: over 100 units per minute

Dematic worked with TCP to develop a retail apparel distribution system capable of handling cartons of varying sizes that would achieve a throughput rate of over 100 units per minute.  Upon consideration of the application requirements, Dematic developed a multi-functional concept allowing TCP to perform two distribution functions within the same infrastructure: crossdocking as well as staging, full- and splitcase picking, packing, sorting, and shipping. Primary and secondary sorters are used to facilitate crossdocking, palletizing and split case replenishment. Zone routing and pick-to-light are used for split-case order fulfillment.  

The results are in

Partnering with Dematic has given TCP the tools to accommodate record growth and increase productivity, accuracy and efficiency in their distribution processes. According to Sal Pepitone, VP Operations and Distribution, TCP, "Automating the distribution process has allowed us to do seven times the volume that we did before."