Levi Strauss & Co has collaborated with TGW Logistic Group to design, engineer and implement its 1.6 million square-foot highly automated omnichannel distribution center that would be capable of serving all distribution channels from a single location.
The project is split into two phases. In the first phase, scheduled to go live by April, 2024, Levi Strauss aims to achieve a throughput of up to 33 million units per year. In the second phase of the project, additional storage capacity and picking work stations will grow that number to 55 million annually.
At point of receipt, Levi Strauss receives cartons from its international production sites, as well as returned items. After inspection and repackaging, returned goods are placed into an empty mixed container that is then stored in an eight-aisle shuttle system with more than 170,000 storage locations. Up to 70% of the incoming cartons will be reused later as order cartons, saving money and reducing waste. An innovative robotic system by TGW automatically repacks the cartons into totes.
New items move from receiving to storage in either an automatic mini-load warehouse or in a shuttle warehouse with a total of 1.3 million storage locations. The mini-load facility has two functions: it’s both the supply storage for the shuttle system and the buffer storage for ready-to-ship cartons, which are directly forwarded to the shipping area via a cross-docking process.
