Skincare Company Boosts Productivity 100% with Custom Warehouse
An Omaha, Nebraska, skincare company - providing professional-grade skincare products to hundreds of thousands of customers in their retail stores and online - needed to expand to support explosive growth.
In 2004, Lovely Skin was a startup company, selling skincare and cosmetics online. By 2009, the business exploded in popularity and quickly outgrew its location.
They were looking for a 7,000 sq ft facility to house their products, while building a warehouse environment that supported efficiency and future growth. In addition to their online business, Lovely Skin planned to consolidate its off-site record storage and open a retail business in the new building.
The company had a particular vision and lengthy wish list for the new facility. It took almost seven months of working together to create the perfect configuration.
INITIAL CHALLENGE
"When we started looking at our fulfillment operations, the employees were carrying product around in the bottom of their shirts and moving 30- to 40-pound boxes by hand,” said Steve Loveless, Territory Manager. “Not only was this inefficient, it was unsafe.”
OUR SOLUTION
While meeting to plan the warehouse move, we took the retailer to many of our other projects, so they could envision what was possible. Soon, their vision revolved around a two-level, 1,500 sq ft shelving-supported catwalk mezzanine.
By the time installation began, the project expanded to include a vertical package lift, UNEX Span-Track carton flow, gravity-fed conveyor, Lyon workbenches and sorting tables, products totes, shelf storage bins and wire decking. Riekes also built locking wire partitions to secure medical record storage for compliance.
THE RESULTS
Riekes delivered an efficient, cost-effective solution. Lovely Skin now has 2.5 times more storage space and houses more than 7,000 SKUs in its warehouse. As Lovely Skin grows, so does the partnership. Lovely Skin asked Riekes to design a second stage of renovations to support their continued growth.