Asics America boosts inventory accuracy via distribution center drones
The U.S. division of Japan-based athletic apparel manufacturer/retailer Asics is flying drones every night – inside one of its supply chain facilities.
Asics America Corp. is running Corvus One autonomous inventory drones inside its Byhalia, Miss., distribution center. The company says nightly flights have increased counting frequency 6x in two of the building's highest-risk storage areas, which are now counted monthly and reports recovering misplaced inventory roughly 60% faster since the system was installed.
In one three-month stretch the drones surfaced 26 misplaced cases holding more than 200 pairs of shoes that would otherwise have stayed unavailable to customers until the next scheduled physical count. In addition, Asics says it has redirected about 200 monthly work hours previously spent counting inventory into inventory research and exception resolution.
How it works
The distribution facility holds close to 3 million units, 2.3 million pairs of footwear and 700,000 pieces of apparel and accessories, across roughly 44,000 SKUs, all managed by a Manhattan Associates warehouse management system. It fills e-commerce orders and ships to wholesale accounts, as well as Asics full price and outlet retail stores.
Corvus One drones count inventory in the singles area, where returned and single pair product gets stored and picked, and case reserve. Asics schedules seven flights a night, starting around 7 p.m. Under the previous cycle count policy, inventory in both of these areas was counted twice a year.
The very narrow aisles the drones fly in are less than six feet wide, and the drones navigate them using onboard computer vision and spatial reasoning. In both areas the drones read every UPC and count the boxes in each location. In the singles area, returns mean the same SKU can show up several times in one location, so a UPC read on its own can get attached to the wrong box. Counting the boxes gives Asics a physical total to check the scans against.
The following morning an inventory associate reviews each flight and resolves most discrepancies from a desk, working off the video and images the drones capture of every location.
"If a unit went missing, we might not find it for six months," said Kyle Koestler, senior director of distribution and transportation at Asics America Corp. "That could be the last pair in the building for an order we've already taken, and then the customer gets a cancellation. With Corvus One, we’re cycle counting on a monthly basis so we can surface any errors sooner and ensure customer orders are delivered on time."
Health and wellness retailer GNC also counts inventory in distribution facilities using Corvus One drones.
[READ MORE: GNC streamlines inventory management with drones]
Benefits
Before implementing Corvus One drones, Asics held back 12 to 15 units out of every 100 because the tail of the inventory chain carried fulfillment risk. Product at the bottom of that tail never showed up in online marketplaces, which required liquidation at a steep discount. Asics now publishes the full feed and sells that previously discounted product at full price.
In addition, the facility is Silver certified on the LEED green building certification system and draws about half its power from an on-site solar array. Asics counts the Corvus One deployment among the programs supporting its sustainability goals.
"A footwear distribution center carrying tens of thousands of SKUs across every channel is one of the more complex inventory environments in the industry," said Mohammed Kabir, CEO and co-founder of Corvus Robotics. "Operators like ASICS keep those buildings accurate, and that has always taken a lot of manual counting. Corvus One takes that work on autonomously, in the areas that see the most handling and tend to produce the most discrepancies, so orders ship on time and product sells at full price.”
