Clothing retailer Carhartt has learned some hard-won lessons from its growing pains, as the provider of durable pants and jackets for tradesmen expanded rapidly over the past decade, company executives said on a panel Monday at the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) show.The company sold its goods for many years through a wide network of mom and pop stores, but has recently grown to add powerful channels such as omnichannel, online, and partnerships with major retailers such as Tractor Supply Co. and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Delivering inventory to those re-sellers proved far more complex than simply maximizing sales volume from its single distribution center, so Carhartt turned to third party logistics provider (3PL) DHL Supply Chain.Through that relationship, Carhartt soon expanded from using just one building to a network of six warehouses, said Tony Gariety, Carhartt’s vice president, distribution and logistics. Managing that broad new network made its inventory planning process change from a game of checkers to chess, he says. But it also enabled Carhartt to add new tools such as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) to its increasingly large DCs. In turn, that technology allowed it to quickly double volume by minimizing two important variables in the fulfillment process: footprints and fingerprints, he said.As it adapted to tracking a wider array of logistics statistics, Carhartt also refined its approach to handling hot growth. “We’re not trying to do the same with less; we’re trying to do more with the same,” Gariety says.
