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Supply
Chain by the Numbers |
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- Oct. 6, 2016 -
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What Companies Did What at CSCMP 2016? New Jersey Hiking Diesel Taxes Big Time; Interest in Highly Automated DCs Growing; NRF has Bullish Forecast for 2016 Holiday Spend |
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55 |
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80%
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That's how much a company called Symbotic claims its highly automated case picking system can reduce DC labor costs, as SCDigest reported this week. That as the Wall Street Journal reported last week that Target stores is deploying the system at a new DC in California, rather than using its usual facility design. The system uses robots to depalletize incoming receipts, which are then conveyed to a high density storage system called "The Box," which uses shuttles to put away and pick carton at high rates of speed. Special software then combines with more robots to build the "perfect" outbound pallet. What is especially interesting is that the Symbotic system was developed by Rick Cohen, CEO of C&S Wholesale Grocers, to automate that company's own DC operations, but is now marketing the solution to other retailers and wholesalers. There are other providers out there providing similar systems, and though the costs are steep, interest does seem to be growing. See Interest in Near Fully Automated Distribution Centers. |
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3.6% |
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That is the level of growth the National Retail Federation forecast this week for total holiday season retail sales in 2016, up from 3% in 2015. If accurate, that rise would be slightly higher than the post-recession average of 3.4% since 2009 (the numbers all include the effects of inflation). However, at this same point last year NRF predicted growth of 3.7%, when 3% turned out to be the real number. Separately, the International Council of Shopping Centers forecast a 3.3% spending increase at physical stores, compared with a 2.2% gain in sales last year. The NRF also projected that non-store sales, including purchases made on-line but also through other channels such as catalog, will increase between 7% and 10% to as much as $117 billion. Of course, on-line only sales have been increasing 15% or so year over year for many quarters in a row, and we would expect that trend to continue in the holiday season. An NRF executive also noted that lower prices lately have allowed shoppers to spend less on the same goods, presenting a challenge for retailers who must sell more merchandise to show an increase in sales. |
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