VF Europe: Fashion logistics with the right fit
From the VF Europe site in Prague (Czech Republic) retailers all over Europe are supplied with apparel and other products of well-known brands such as Wrangler, Lee, HIS, Tommy Hilfinger and North Face. The warehouse in Prague, with a carton handling system from Vanderlande Industries, was originally built in 2003/2004 and extended in 2005 and 2007.
The core component of the system is a shelf rack system with three levels. Vanderlande supplied the carton handling system with the PLC controls and an upper level Material Flow Controller. In the goods receiving area, goods are unloaded with three telescopic conveyors. All incoming cartons are merged and then sorted into 5 outfeeds with a capacity of 1,100 cartons / hour. After sorting, cartons are manually palletised or placed in roll cages and manually stored in pre-buffer storage. From the pre-buffer cartons are manually placed on a 50 m long belt conveyor. From there cartons are distributed to the three rack levels. Three destination outfeeds per rack level are available to store the cartons.
Picked goods are transported from the rack system via 9 infeed conveyors. Cartons are merged and transported to the packing area on the ground floor. After packing/labelling cartons are either transported to one of two shrink wrappers or to a carton strapper. Thereafter cartons are weighed and transported to the shipping sorter. The capacity in outbound sortation is 1,600 cartons / hour. Due to the considerable savings achieved at the Prague site in comparison to other still existing distribution centres (Germany, Italy), the system has already been modified/extended several times to accommodate VF Europe’s growth.
