Spotlight Group Holdings – Spotlight & Anaconda

Australian-owned Spotlight Group Holdings has stores throughout Australia, New Zealand and Asia and employs more than 6,700 staff. It’s the parent company to both Spotlight – Australia’s largest fabric, crafts, party supplies and home interiors super-store and Anaconda – Australia’s largest outdoor adventure and sports store.

Project statistics

Project challenge

The Spotlight Group warehouse pickers were travelling long distances to pick up empty pallets, which would be required multiple times over the course of a shift. The challenge was implementing a system to streamline all picking, sorting and routing in-house to better control ‘dock-to-dock,’ quality, delivery and cost.

Location

Australia, New Zealand & Asia

Requirements

The company needed to better manage its time and improve efficiencies throughout its warehouse operations. They needed to reduce wasted travel time of picking staff, centralise their stock storage and predetermine inventory needs.

Approach

A 12-month Lean program was implemented, including a new warehouse management system and upskilling of staff around Lean logistics methodologies.

Result

A Lean strategy involving structured planning, training and a collaborative team effort led to Spotlight and Anaconda warehouse operations saving over $3.15 million annually following their 12-month logistics program with Vative. The program gave a return on investment for Spotlight of 937%.

Solution

12-month Lean program was implemented, including a new warehouse management system and upskilling staff around Lean logistics methodologies. In addition to several smaller projects, three major projects produced substantial results through lower costs, improved processes and increased efficiency.

Completion

26 full-time employees participated in the Vative Lean logistics certified training program. It involved a number of formal project teams who implemented major Lean improvement projects centred on 5S (Sort, Set, Shine, Standardise Sustain), warehouse material flow and the introduction of standardised processes.

A new warehouse management system was introduced, and the Anaconda warehouse integrated with Spotlight’s warehouse.

“Spotlight management and the teams fully embraced the changes and have maintained the new processes after two years. They are still achieving their annual savings and are looking at an additional project soon.” – Hendrik Van Der Zweep, Project Facilitator, Vative.