Case Study: Sears Distribution Center: Printronix Solution Improved Bar Code Scan Rate By 48 Percent

Profile
Sears Roebuck & Co., headquartered in Chicago, Ill., provided its first catalog to U.S. consumers in 1888. Today, Sears operates 863 mall-based retail stores offering home-related products. Additional innovative ways to reach consumers have come from its new Great Indoors stores and the launch of Sears.com. Not only has Sears been on the forefront of consumer engagement, they also utilize innovative supply-chain techniques, such as a high-speed scanner sorter systems to move merchandise quickly to the consumer and reduce overall costs in the supply chain. Sears has more than 3 million SKUs, 5,000 ship points and 13 distribution centers; handles more than 35 million boxes; has more than 4,000 trading partners; and issues approximately 30 million purchase orders annually. Any bar code failure in the supply chain can mean a rejected item, manual recovery steps, time delay, loss in productivity, a disappointed customer or, ultimately, loss of business.

Situation
Sears needed an integrated total solution to meet its retail distribution bar-code labeling needs. To be effective, the solution had to perform three critical tasks: improve inventory within its international goods receiving and labeling process; leverage technology to improve operations and streamline costs in its supply chain; and enhance supply-chain efficiency between Sears and its vendors.