4 LCTOctober 2008

Company Profile

Irving Scott reports

ACS - GARMENT HIRE SERVICESWITH A POLYMARK DIFFERENCEWhen you have been

fighting the slingsand arrows of high

street trading for a quarterof a century and business isnot proceeding in an upwarddirection, what steps do youtake?Obviously there is more than

one answer to this question andthe Freedman family, thentrading as Gilt Edged menswearfrom a single outlet inSaltmarket, Glasgow, decided inthe early 1990s that hiring kiltsand the whole range oftraditional Scottish formal wear,was the route to take.Five years later the kilt hire

business had expanded toinclude wholesaling the kiltproducts to other retailers and amove upmarket into top qualitykilts and formal wear proved theold adage that quality sells. Thenew and thriving hire businesswas named ACS Clothing andin 1999 the business moved to anew warehouse facility onQueenslie Industrial Estate,Glasgow.The business success which

ACS Clothing createddemonstrated the ability of theFreedmans to cope with thestresses and strains of thatinitiative. The explosive growthwhich followed was a businessmanagement problem of adifferent order and followingthe first year’s trading whencontracts to supply Debenhams,Burtons and GreenwoodsMenswear were secured, theACS Clothing results showedfantastic growth and marketpenetration.Five years of strong growth

followed the first year’ssuccesses until ACS wassupplying upwards of a 1,000retailers across the country andin the process had become theworld’s largest kilt hirecompany. Growth on this scalenecessitated a move to largerpremises and the move toGlasgow Business Park wascompleted in 2005. Theoriginal 26,000 square footfloor space was extended to animpressive 100,000 square feetin 2007. Already operating onthree levels within thedistribution centre, the newACS facility will nowincorporate a further mezzaninefloor to give increased storagecapacity to meet continuinghigh demand in this service-ledbusiness.Space is one thing, the stock

to fill it is quite another. ACSnow has over 100,000 assortedsets of formal wear outfitscovering jackets, trousers, kiltsand waistcoats. In addition, theinsatiable demands fromfashion conscious groomsmeans that to accessorise thisvast collection of what might betermed the ‘basics’, ACS alsostocks and hires out more than300,000 ties, bow ties, ruches,cummerbunds, gloves, cravats,top hats, as well as dress shoesfor both Highland and formalwear. Just in case you thoughtthat grey was the only colourfor morning dress ties, thecompany stocks 34 differentcolours of ties and matchingruches as well as seven differentsatin colours for matching bowties and hankies!Control of this vast array of

stock, which is moving at therate of close to 2,000 garmentsets per day to customers upand down the country, is onlypossible by a fully featuredorder processing system whichis now www-linked. Thatmeans that customers have thefacility to track their own ordersfrom the moment of acceptanceby ACS until the actualdespatch from the distributioncentre has been completed. Theorder processing systemcontrols all order input andtracks the assembly of eachcustomer order until it isassembled and placed in thestorage racks in the despatcharea.The garment bags are

designed to hold all the itemsrequired and are ‘wrapped andpacked’ delivery-readyconsignments which couldcontain, when complete, jacket,waistcoat, trousers or kilt, shirt,tie, cuff-links, shoes, hose(socks), ceremonial Skean Dhu,sporran and chain, and atraditional leather belt withbuckle in chromium finish. Abar code label is inserted intothe label pocket of the garmentbag and transferred from theorder make-up area by singlepin conveyor system to theprimary single-hanger sortersystem located on the secondlevel of the recently openedbuilding extension. As can beseen clearly in the illustrationsthe bar code location is alwaysin the same position so thatsubsequent automatic reading atselected control points withinthe sortation system is trouble-free.Before looking at the

organisation and control of thefinished good despatches the‘front-end’ of the system needssome explanation. ACS is agarment hire business dealing inquality Highland as well astraditional, formal wedding andevening wear apparel, forgentlemen and children. Onreturn from hire, the ACSsystem resembles a standarddrycleaning operation in that allgarments including ties andaccessories, as well as suits andkilts, must be inspected forstaining and soiling, prior toacceptance back to storage forsubsequent hires.Garments are sorted

according to condition for wet-washing, drycleaning orlaundering and all are treated toa steam spray for de-odouring.Drycleaning is via two percmachines one of 35kg, capacityand the other of 25kg. Severalhigh capacity American-builtwashing machines cater for thelaundry load.There is considerable

emphasis on quality of pressingof the newly cleaned garmentsand shirts and a Veit steamtunnel is used, as well as aMacpi, semi-automatic trouserpress. Trousers are conveyor-fedfrom the Macpi presser at herstation, before beingredelivered, by the conveyor, toan ‘off-take’ operator forpassage to the two Sankoshatrouser baggers at the end of thelines. All items are bar codelabelled using a Polymarkmarking system and poly-sleeved, prior to storage in theappropriate racks.

Sortation is at the heart ofthe ACS storage anddistribution system and theinstallation of a Polymark,Gartner Sortation system,designed and installed byPolymark UK Ltd., using acombination of pin-conveyorsand slick rail storage in early2008, has contributed to asignificant improvement inservice delivery levels as wellas improving pick accuracy andhelping to efficiently managecompleted orders at thedespatch area. Dealing withdistribution across the countryto any number of customers justin time to meet promised ‘big-day’ timings is part of the ACSsales armoury and the PolymarkGartner installation has takenACS service to a new, higherlevel.Once a customer order is

‘made-up’ and stored awaitingdespatch, the system moves thegarment bags in sequence, toany one of 32 storage rails inthe despatch loading area. Eachof the 32 pin-conveyor storagerails has a length of 13 metresand can hold up to 260completed garment bags, at50mm spacing. The maximumcapacity of the ACS, PolymarkGartner system is 8,320garment bags at any one time. Itis significant that theconstruction of the storage andtravel rails on the system isdesigned to cater for a 6kg loadin each garment bag. The 32storage rails must therefore becapable of supporting theweight of all the bags in thatlocation - which can be as muchas 1560kgs (6kgs x 260 fullbags) without inducing stress-load, deformation.The Polymark Gartner

System is a suspended systemwhere the rails are ‘hung’ fromthe heavy-duty steel joists of theceiling above and this in turnhas been designed for the nextwave of expansion at ACS whena mezzanine floor will beconstructed above the despatchstorage area ceiling level, torelease more storage andsortation space. The suspendedmethod of construction alsomeans that the entire floor areaunder the Polymark GartnerSystem is free of obstructionsfrom support stanchions andother engineering structures.One-pass sortation for each

route on the planned deliverydate is the usual sequencewithin the system. For companytruck routes or external deliverytrucks which include morethan 23 delivery stops fordifferent customers, a two-pass sort is introduced. Inthis case, after the secondsortation pass, thegarment bags would be inthe delivery order asdetermined by the ACSorder processing systemand the garment bagstransferred via a clip andpin conveyor to a truckloading area where the bagsare contained in a routeholding area consistingof 19 slick railswhere thebags are heldin deliverysort ordersequencer e a d y

for transfer to the appropriatetruck.Richard Freedman is the son

of the founder of Gilt EdgedMenswear and managingdirector of ACS. Freedman hasbeen the driving force of theACS expansion and for thedevelopment of the kilt andformal wear hire business.He comments, “We have

made significant savings in thenumber of staff which wereformerly required to carry outthe selection and despatch ofthe completed garment bags fordespatch. As you have seen,

there are only two or three ofour staff engaged in thedespatch of the orders and thisis a very good saving in bothcost and time. Additionally, itallows us the flexibility toaccept a change in a customerorder request at any time upuntil 15.00 hours on thepromised despatch day.“Our company here in

Baillieston is only here as yousee it today because we believe

first and foremost in completecustomer service. Everyinvestment which we have madehas been to deliver bettercustomer service. The PolymarkGartner system achieves ourstated aims in this regard andwe now know that any plannedexpansion of our business willnot be hamstrung by therestrictions imposed by an out-dated storage and despatchsystem.”

Assembled, bagged, bar-coded, ticketed,sorted and stored ready to ship

The Gartner despatch assembly stations –1600 garment bags awaiting today’sdespatch via truck to customers

Stock in storage on racks – eightfixtures high – total capacity100,000 hanging garments

Some of the hundreds of kiltsawaiting selection for the nextHighland Fling

Tony Burns, Operations manager, andmaster of sortation and stock controlsystems in the ACS warehouse

RIGHT: Theend of theincoming

stockprocessing

lines

Bagging the trousers atthe end of the cleaning process using twosemi-automatic Sankosha bagging/ticketing machines