WAREHOUSING
Warehousing
This is the common name to describe all the activities that can be done inside a warehouse or distribution center, which can be only storage or many more operations on the goods, as described in the following sections. We have a deep experience of managing fashion warehouses with management at piece level and cross-docking.
Pick & Pack
If the items stored in the logistic warehouse are managed at piece level it is requested to perform the activity of pick & pack. This activity has to be driven by a warehouse management system (WMS) who support the picking list creation, and the items are picked first from their locations (UC) and then packed in the packing stations. It is also possible to perform the pick & pack operation at the same time, through the RF scanners; in this situation the operator goes to the different locations of the warehouse driven from a picking mission, usually printed with a smart path to save time; it picks the items, scan the barcodes with RF scanners and put inside the box. When the box is full it can be closed with a function that confirms the quantities packed, and the box is ready to be weighted and moved to the shipping area.
KPI – Key Performance Indicator
A Key Performance Indicator is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives. Organizations use KPIs at multiple levels to evaluate their success at reaching targets. We use KPI to monitor the performances of the warehouse operators in every different activity with two targets: supply the services requested from our clients effectively, supervise the achievement of the targeted productivity and with it the efficiency of the logistics warehouse.
Cross-docking
The cross-docking practice can be adopted with the target of gathering together goods coming from different suppliers in different parts of the world, and saving costs avoiding to do more times the pick & pack or other warehouse operations. We have different customers who prepare the merchandise for the final retail store or franchisee in the main hub, transfer them to the secondary hubs (the warehouse closer to the final customer, for example, the Asia hub). In the Asia hub, the final boxes are grouped together with the merchandise produced in Asia and shipped to the final customer or retail store. The warehouse service is counted on the base of the boxes handled (and not at piece level), meanwhile, the storage fee on the base of the CBM stored.
Stock Carton Box
Stocking items in carton boxes are a good alternative to the steel stable structure. It is much cheaper and ensures the good conditions of the items stocked inside, but cannot hold up heavy items. It is suitable for fashion apparel and allows the logistic team to keep flexibility in the warehouse operations. Indeed, the stocking boxes can be assembled and disassembled based on the needs and moved quite easily in different areas of the logistics site.
Stock Shelf
The loading units arranged on steel stable structure create a better image of the warehouse storage but request higher investment and reduce the flexibility. We can arrange both a cheap and flexible structure and a pricier and more stable one, always with the target of satisfying the client’s requirements.
Stock GOH
The garments on hangers request specific management in all the steps of the warehousing operations. They are moved around the warehouse with moving racks for garments on hangers and stored on shelf with horizontal bars, specially created to accommodate thousands of hanging garments throughout the time of the stop in the logistics site, before the picking for the packaging and shipping.
Customized Shipments
We can satisfy any kind of customization related to packaging a shipment of goods from the logistics warehouse: the items can be packed in boxes of any size, with different levels of safety precaution, the boxes can be closes with plastic wrap, plastic strapping, heat-welded and so on. The garments on hangers can be packed flat or in special cartons with the support for the hangers: this method increases the volume of the shipment but it is suggested for garments with high value, to avoid crumpling them or even worse damage them.
High density storage
In case we have to manage products by pallet and with a limited number of SKUs, we use to equip the logistics site with shelves for pallets. There are different kinds of shelves to compact pallets: some of them move through rails, pushed by an electronic system; others are stable but they have electronic mechanisms or inclination that allows stocking with high density.
Tidiness
Tidiness is not just a name or an adjective to describe a person, but it is a way of working, the image of a company! We deeply believe that working in a tidy manner and keeping the logistics site in order, and with everything in its place, gives a high added value to the warehouse operations and to the service we provide to our customers. That’s why we care a lot about the tidiness, we have internal SOPs that set the rules for every operation, we train our staff regularly until they reach the service level expected.
VAS – Value Added Services
Value-Added Services are part of the standard operations in China. Starting from the import and ending with the export there is a lot of compulsory VAS to perform to comply with the law, and another part which can be requested from our clients: price removal, price labeling, hangtag replacement, adding labels for a specific country, sew labels, change care labels, CIQ compliance labeling, etc. We are pleased to be able to offer all these kinds of Value-Added Services.
Chinese Labels setup
Every product imported in China has to show a product label with all the mandatory information in compliance with the law. This special label is usually known as Compliant Chinese Label or CIQ label, from the authority who controlled the inflow and outflow of products to and from China (China Inspection and Quarantine). In particular, the CIQ department was responsible to manage the initial inspection of the products before the customs clearance, in the import of goods.
CIQ stands for China Inspection and Quarantine and operated directly under AQSIQ, The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, one of the major quality management institutes in China.
The label’s Chinese name is合格证, that means CERTIFICATE OF QUALITY.
To read more about the Chinese label setup go to the article “China Products Labelling – Compliant Chinese Label”
Consumable Management
Consumables are paramount in the warehouse and it is a must-have always under control of their inventory and set re-order points. To do that it is advised to use some systems that analyze the weekly consume and match it with the time necessary to receive the replenishment. This information together with other few parameters allows the warehouse staff to keep impeccably under control of the consumable stock.
Visual Tools Management
Visual tools or visual merchandising are tools and furniture used to promote new collections in the retail stores or to create the new windows. We got the chance of developing this new warehousing service for one of our most important customers and we discover that this is a very specific service, nothing to do with the warehousing service. These tools and furniture are often very fragile; the warehouse operators need to manage them with high attention. They are often disassembled; thus, it is important to be careful with all the different components and do not miss any of them in the packaging. Last but not least, we had to learn how to create the packaging: all the boxes have customized measurements; some of the packagings requires wood cases and hermetic closure. The inside part needs to be secured and stabilized with bubble wrap, carton beehive, angle brackets, and other specific materials.
Security
All our warehouses are equipped with surveillance cameras, records saved on the server, external surveillance of the warehouse 24h, security guards at the gate, internal surveillance at the customer’s request. Personnel control in & out with RX scanners on warehouses with valuable merchandise.
Equipment
We deal with many local suppliers to purchase new and second hands warehouse equipment and consumables. We are expert in looking for the best price and the correct quality in a wide market that tent to increase regularly the price on a yearly base or even more frequently. Our strength is the knowledge of this market and being able to bring the discussion on the right side, reduce the minimum order quantities or use it as an advantage to get a cheaper price.
Customs Clearances
Normally, the Chinese importer will gather the documents necessary for importing goods and provide them to Chinese Customs agents. The necessary standard documents are usually the bill of lading, invoice, shipping list, customs declaration, insurance policy, and sales contract as well as more specialized documents such as an import quota certificate for general commodities (where applicable), import license (where applicable), inspection certificate and other safety or quality licenses. The documents may vary by product. /As pointed out the importer has to be a Chinese company, so every logistics company has a partnership with the function of Customs Brokers, while very few logistics providers have the power to get the Customs Broker licenses.
However, we put our company in front and we have to guarantee to our clients that every customs clearance is performed and completed with the best possible result. We evaluate our Customs Broker partner within KPI, we analyze critical points and imperfect operations, and we revise the SOP on the base of new experiences and the law’s changes.
Worldwide Shipments
We have gained many years of experience in international shipping, especially from Shanghai airport and the main port of Yangshan.
The port of Shanghai is the largest, busiest port in the world and accounts for the vast majority of container ship traffic. In 2010, Shanghai passed the previous largest port, the ports in Singapore to take the top spot.
Shipping has its own units of measurement. They judge size and volume using: – TEU – Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit – the rough measure of how many containers a port or ship can hold – Tonnes – A metric ton or 1,000 KG or 2,200 lbs.
The Yangshan Deep Water Port handled in 2018 40.2 million TEUs, 600 Million Tonnes.
Transportation
We can offer all kinds of transportations services through a few reliable and selected partners: air freight, sea freight, road and rail, intermodal and multimodal transportations. The advantages we offer is a deep analysis of the needs of the customer, the drawing of the best possible flow based on the principles of speed and affordability, the strict supervision of the operations until we can be sure that every transportation is completed smoothly, the evaluation of the KPI in-time delivery.
Free Trade Zone
We have many years of experience in the management of logistics sites located within the customs areas of Shanghai. /The bonded areas can be more or less flexible, but they are united by some standard procedures that must always be completed as they are mandatory and absolutely important to respect in order to avoid problems with local Customs.
We have been also a pioneer of the first domestic operations in the Yangshan Pilot Free Trade zone at the beginning of 2016, when the customs liberalized this type of operations, obviously always under their supervision.
Shops Inventory Management
Even though nowadays the stores can be managed and kept under control remotely by the POS, it is important to accomplish frequent stock-taking activities. The stores’ managers and shop assistants may manage in the best way, or may not, so it is a must verify regularly their job. And to make the stock-taking official and are reliable, the HQ should send a supervisor, who could be an employee not involved with the store management.
Reverse Logistics
Reverse Logistics is one important step of the logistics processes, and it is more and more critical considering that the sales volume is not stable and more difficult to forecast than in the past. Furthermore, the returns are increased from relaxed customer return policies, the shift to online E-commerce which allows returning easily and without reasons.
The situation described above impose to retailers to think about possible solutions: few of them are willing to destroy the old stock; the majority prefers a return to the logistic warehouse, with the hope of selling the old stock in a second time in the outlets or to a company who purchases big stocks.
Since we always support the needs of the customers and we are aligned with the market demands, we developed tools and experience in managing the reverse logistics flows, from the retail stores to the warehouse. We can offer storage with different features and costs, which reflects in more or less velocity when is requested the outbound.
Logistics Contract
The logistics contract is the first important step before starting the cooperation with a 3PL or 4PL.
There are 2 points that every company should understand and remember very well:
the legal department or the company’s lawyer writes the contract focusing on the legal clauses, without being aware of the crucial points related to the logistics operations; thus it is important that the lawyer is driven from a logistics expert.
it is important to point out clearly all the operative procedures, service tariffs with a detailed explanation of how to apply them, what is included and not included in the service. Once the contract is signed and the operations start, all the grey areas of the contract will become a pretext to disagree and having unpleasant discussions.
Specialized in Start-up
We are expert in start-up, in creating from zero the right environment to provide the logistics services.
One of our best performances was the Lingang start-up: without advanced notice, our business had a peak point and we had to open a new warehouse. At the beginning of April, the 3,000 square meters warehouse was empty and rough, after 2 months ready and full of our customer’s cargos.
We set up in time record the office with the server room, the warehouse office, lucid resin floor, 40 tables to host the more than 50 operators who could check more than 8,000 pieces per day, an ironing corner for the reparations, a corner to host suppliers, shelves for garments on hangers, 3 machines for fabrics control, X-ray for shoes needles (requirement to export to Japan), 1 packing tables area.
Another start-up was the warehouse in Yangshan Pilot Free Trade Zone
We set up the office with the server room, lucid resin floor, shelves for garments on hangers, stocking boxes for flat garments, quality control tables, packing tables area. We supply all the necessary consumables for the operations.
We wrote all the procedure to perform the inbound and outbound operations in compliance with the Shanghai Customs requirements. We supervised the first months of operations and handed the warehouse to our customer; indeed, its target was the insourcing of the logistic platform.
Warehouse design and layout
With our team of architects and engineers, we are able to design the warehouse layout and running an effective distribution center operation.
In order to produce the perfect and efficient design, we need to understand well the kind of products to store, the physical characteristics of the building, the paramount equipment that is as important as the building itself because they cannot miss, the flow and rotation of the goods, the personnel and warehouse organization.
The target is always to create a logistics site that maintains flexibility in the operations, minimize congestion and interference with a smooth flow, minimize the walking time of personnel, uses conveyors or other tools for the transport of the products, and offer adequate accumulation and storage space on docks.
Without the proper layout and design of your distribution center, no matter if it is large or small square footage; you will be facing capacity issues, a decrease in productivity and storage inadequacies.
For over 3 years we have drawn luxury retails stores for one of our clients, gaining extensive and valuable experience in this niche segment.
Furthermore, even if it is not our core business, many of our customers requested to design the layout and rendering of their private luxury villas, some of them requested us to follow the design and construction of some hotels and resorts.
Warehouse Research
Every time there is the need for opening a new logistics warehouse we perform accurate research of warehouse space. Firstly we study the correct location based on the logistics and supply chain flow, then we start to contact all the landlords of the area, especially the one who can offer space in logistics parks.
When we have clear the list of the sites available we do a first selection and we start to visit all the selected warehouses.
The final steps of the process are the price negotiation, contract length negotiation, the draft of the contract, the final contract.