Business Challenge

Sports Authority became the largest full-line sporting goods retailer in the United States in 2003. The company operates nearly 460 retail stores in 45 U.S.A. states, serviced by six distribution centers. While these centers have always adequately served the stores in their regions, the Sports Authority determined that the paper-based method of hand-filling orders was inefficient and could be improved through the use of more advanced technology.

"We have a high volume of merchandise that flows through our distribution centers, on the order of 70,000 cartons each day," notes Rob Gleave, Vice President of Architecture, Planning and Design for The Sports Authority, "this merchandise runs the gamut from small packaged goods to garments on hangers to large items like weightlifting equipment. We felt that with a high-speed, fully-automated picking and sortation system we could achieve the efficiencies we were seeking."

In March 2004, work began on a pilot project built around three different, yet interrelated picking and sorting systems: Put To Light, or PTL, a light and scanner-based technology that supports high-speed carton packing; Goods On Hangers, or GOH, an automated garment management concept that rapidly scans, counts and sorts individual garments; and an automated conveyor system that sorts and delivers merchandise to various in-warehouse "shipping lanes" for loading to trucks bound for individual stores.

While each of the three systems was completely computerized, their hardware and software platforms were discrete and in many ways incompatible. Altogether nearly 80 different databases were involved; in order for the systems to work together, The Sports Authority needed a way to coordinate and enable data flows between the various platforms.