At Home in the wide World of Sports
At Hervis Sports their motto is “Get Movin’”. And moving is what logistics is all about. The Austrian sporting goods supplier has been making the most of Logwin’s expertise in logistics since the summer of 2009. From its warehouse in Vienna, Logwin ensures a regular supply of goods to over 150 Hervis stores in Austria and Eastern Europe.
Running, cycling, skating or climbing – the trend of getting involved in sport looks like it’s here to stay. And with the right equipment and an outfit to match, enjoyment is guaranteed. The specialist retail chain Hervis has a huge range of gear for sports enthusiasts, including sporting goods, fitness equipment and bicycles, as well as the latest clothing, shoes and accessories. There are over 50,000 products available at Hervis, including products bearing Hervis’s own brand as well as a wide range of items from well-known brand-name manufacturers. Hervis is the biggest sporting goods retailer in Austria and five other countries.
Vienna, the hub
To ensure that Hervis’s full range of products is always available in all its stores, the sporting goods company relies on flexible logistics. This involves taking a different approach to the processes used for its own products and those of other manufacturers. For Hervis’s own-branded products, Logwin has been operating a textile warehouse in Vienna since the beginning of this year. Around 140,000 cartons per year of sports clothing, shoes and accessories are stored here in an area of 3,500 square metres.
Logwin receives deliveries from Hervis suppliers and stores the goods using the Inconso warehouse management system. As soon as order details are received from a Hervis store, Logwin takes responsibility for store-specific commissioning and dispatch to each individual location. “We organise the flow of goods for Hervis in two main ways,” says Andreas Kerschner, Director Solutions Transport + Retail Networks International at Logwin. “Own-brand goods run entirely through our central warehouse, thirdparty brands are handled with the additional aid of cross docking.”
Up and away with cross docking
In the past, delivery of third-party goods to Hervis stores was carried out by suppliers directly. Now, working with Logwin, Hervis has begun to switch a number of its suppliers over to a cross docking system. Goods are pre-commissioned in cartons or on pallets, Logwin assigns them to individual stores and then combines the consignments with the regular deliveries of Hervis’s own-brand goods. After a quick stopover they leave the warehouse and make their way out as national and international freight. The advantage of combining goods in this way is a reduction in the total number of deliveries, relieving staff in the stores from some of the burden of taking deliveries.
In future the aim is to bring more suppliers on board with the cross docking system. “Since the project started with Hervis we have been constantly increasing our cross docking volume with various suppliers,” says Andreas Kerschner. “By the end of the year we’ll be heading towards a figure of over 100,000 cartons.” Logwin manages the distribution of sports clothing in Austria, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary via its retail network. A delivery is made to each Hervis store once a week. In future, Logwin will also handle clothing returns and stock transfers between Hervis’s stores and countries of operation, also known as lateral freight movements.
Keeping the wheels in motion
The second area that Logwin focuses on for Hervis is supplying bicycles and bicycle accessories. The logistics company imports bicycles into Austria from Europe and from Asia via ocean freight. Logwin manages the storage and distribution of the bicycles and cycling gear through its custom-designed warehouse in Fürnitz in the south of Austria.
- Markus Augeneder, Hervis Sports
Each week during the period from February to June, several thousand bicycles, accessories and pieces of fitness equipment are shipped from Fürnitz direct to Hervis stores in Austria and to decentralised ware houses in the five Eastern European countries where Hervis operates, from where the bicycles are distributed to stores nationally. In 2008 Hervis conducted an audit of its logistics. Logwin rated well in the tender process as a specialist in textile logistics with significant expertise in trade logistics. “We can bring this know-how to the Hervis project – it’s a clear win-win situation,” says Andreas Kerschner. Bicycles and large equipment were not originally part of the job. “When we were looking for a new logistics company for this part of our business at short notice, Logwin jumped right in and filled the gap,” explains Markus Augeneder, Director of Finance and Operations at HERVIS Sport- und Modegesellschaft m.b.H. Hervis is now continuing to further refine its existing logistics processes in close collaboration with Logwin.