Mountain Warehouse's success with IMI's warehouse productivity system

Mountain Warehouse is a leading retailer of outdoor clothing and equipment.

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Home » Mountain Warehouse – Customer case

Formed in 1997 with 370 stores across Europe, USA, Canada and New Zealand with a promise of more stores to come. Mountain Warehouse are a true multi-channel retailer with a thriving e-commerce proposition too.

I’ve been impressed by IMI's warehouse productivity system from the get-go. The values of Mountain Warehouse can be seen in our deployment of IMI's system. We want employees to be treated fairly, to feel valued and engaged whilst providing the best possible service to our customers. Knowing how well one is doing at work and receiving feedback for a job well done is exactly what we want, IMI enables us to do this. From a commercial perspective, Vitesse has proven to be excellent value for money, and we plan to do more with IMI as we invest in our global Supply Chain.
Matt Trigger
Global Supply Chain Director, Mountain Warehouse
Couple hiking in rocky landscape

A high‑performance 24/7 distribution centre powering the UK & Ireland

The UK and Ireland is served from a central Distribution Centre in Peterborough, Handling the wide range of products sold in store from apparel to tents to outdoor furniture. The DC has a mezzanine floor, driven conveyors and pallet racking and is open 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. In all, the operation amounts to 438,000 sq ft (40 691.5315 m2). There are 250 core employees with a management team that is 54 strong carrying out goods in, putaway, replenishment, pick, pack and QC duties all to serve customers, often on a same day basis. The site despatches in excess of 20 million units per annum, which stretches beyond 20,000 SKU’s.

IMI's warehouse productivity system is providing managers with actionable insights in near real time enabling them to be proactive and take steps to make a positive impact.

As a result of the varying nature of products being handled and the volatility of retail and e-commerce sales there is a recognised need to ensure colleagues are trained in multiple departments to create the flexibility to respond when demand calls.

Clearly, it takes more effort to handle a large cubic product than it would a small product. If this is done with a degree of regularity, assessing individual levels of output and performance, using the traditional method of UPH (units per hour) would be inherently unfair.

This is what sets IMI warehouse productivity system apart. Using X, Y and Z co-ordinates the system has an accurate map of the operation thus can calculate the distances being travelled whilst also recognising, with the Z axis, when employees are required to stoop or stretch to reach products.

Mountain-Warehouse-London-Covent-Garden_98fbcc28ebaa64778d94ffa260a8d163

IMI’s warehouse productivity system is providing managers with actionable insights in near real time enabling them to be proactive and take steps to make a positive impact.

This granularity is what makes things fair. Travel typically makes up 40-50% of the time taken to complete a pick task – it’s too big a number and has too great an influence on task times to not be properly measured. IMI’s warehouse productivity system has been in situ in the Peterborough DC since 2021 and forms part of the daily toolkit – operational managers are encouraged to evaluate the performance of their teams and individuals within them using the system.

IMI’s warehouse productivity system is providing managers with actionable insights in near real time enabling them to be proactive and take steps to make a positive impact.

By measuring the efficiency of individuals against target task times and then utilisation, which is time off system driven tasks, the system is providing the opportunity for granular analysis of performance, to either reduce costs or increase capacity, or both.

Employees in the operation know they will be fairly evaluated, and the risk of unintended bias is reduced when managers are guided by empirical data.

Vitesse provides same day performance results across the entire operation. We can establish quickly if we have a cost problem in any particular area whilst it is happening - these insights enable operational managers to identify their priorities, take proactive steps and make a difference. We also use Vitesse to tell us who our most consistent performers are so we can recognise them and encourage them to continue contributing to the success of the operation - a real engagement tool.
Matt Trigger
Global Supply Chain Director, Mountain Warehouse

What has IMI's warehouse productivity system delivered:

  • Cost savings – from a double digit high in the early days to regularly returning 5% per annum.
  • Morale Boosting - increased engagement on site with employees as a result of improved recognition – personal insights are given to employees about their performance and contribution levels.
  • Reduced Administrative and Clerical hours previously reliant on Excel spreadsheets to create reports.
  • Operational visibility is significantly enhanced, data turned into information, in near real time.
  • Reduced pick travel by using Location ‘heat maps’ to relocate stock into optimal positions.
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