West Marine sees $3 million in annualized savings following SCA’s DC operation turnaround

In the midst of its peak season, West Marine— a global boating supply retailer — needed to quickly stabilize its South Carolina DC operation to meet its productivity projections.

Working directly with leadership and the DC operation team, SCA immediately assessed West Marine’s building throughput, store replenishment, ecommerce and pro fulfillment. SCA focused its turnaround on West Marine’s order- flow, pick-accuracy and on-time delivery, in addition to the safety of West Marine’s DC workers and its people strategy.

Recognizing it needed support in implementing the turnaround plan, West Marine asked SCA to assume the day-to-day responsibilities of its DC operation and help source, interview and hire a new site director and senior team. For the remainder of 2018, provided leadership and mentorship and worked on implementing its people strategy.

Converting West Marine’s highest performing temporary workers to full-time associates, SCA built out the company’s frontline leadership by hiring and promoting team leads and supervisors. SCA also provided performance management training, weekly individual KPI reporting and a new hire rating and selection process. For further support, SCA developed a full labour planning model to manage labour by activity level and shift using targeted productivity rates and the latest volume forecasts.

During this time, it was clear West Marine also needed to concentrate on its warehouse catalogue fulfillment (WCF) to ensure it could meet its daily ecommerce demands plus its forecasts, so it asked SCA to run a KAIZEN event in early 2020. Using current and future state gap analysis, WCF flow mapping and resourcing, SCA worked with the team to apply LEAN concepts to improve West Marine’s communication, production and workflow. In addition to other notable metrics, West Marine achieved more than $600,000 savings in its year-over-year labour costs from this intensive four-day event.

Creating lasting change in a DC requires commitment and collaboration. The organization’s drive to improve its DC’s processes, procedures and performance was clear at all levels of the organization — from its Board of Directors and senior executives across the organization, right through to DC leadership and floor associates.