Improving performance in luxury-goods warehouses: a lean based approach

Purpose – Nowadays, the capability to overcome the traditional tradeoffs among costs, quality and time has become a must in «high margins» business too. In this respect, lean principles have emerged as new managerial paradigms capable to boost operational performance and to fulfill customers’ needs in a more thorough way. Unfortunately, howto decline these paradigms into operating processes remains a challenging task: a universal framework does not exist and lean principles must be re-interpreted, dependently on the system under analysis. This paper belongs to this stream of research, as it shows how lean can be effectively tailored to the needs of the luxury fashion industry. Design/methodology/approach –The analysis was performed through a case study concerning a lean project, carried out in the central warehouse of a famous Italian fashion firm. Aiming to optimize operations, to rationalize flows and to increase flexibility, the adopted methodology followed five well-established steps: (i)analysis of the «As Is Scenario», (ii)critical assessment(iii)solutions generation, (iv)validation,(v) implementation and results assessment. Findings –The analysis brought to light many critical issues, thus envisaging ample room for improvement. Several solutions concerning packaging, picking, space allocation and deliveries were devised and implemented as pilot projects, with outstanding preliminary results. Originality Value– Lean in the luxury fashion industry can be certainly considered as the innovative element of the paper. Indeed, lean principles are relatively new to this sector because, as for all «high margins» businesses, the focus on operational costs has been traditionally considered as a marginal issue.