Efficient Omnichannel Processing Increases Capacity of TFG Limited <br>in South Africa 

The project

A key focus for TFG is rapid response throughout their supply chain. Their top priority is fast, efficient transport to both stores and e-Commerce to enable an optimal customer shopping experience. To ensure optimal availability of their product range at their point of sale, TFG operates several distribution centers (DCs) across South Africa.

The state-of-the-art Riverfields DC was commissioned in September 2024 and is part of a multi-phase supply chain optimization initiative that targets the continued increase of the site’s capacity to centralize the stock for both store and e-Commerce fulfillment.

TFG needed to significantly strengthen their central fulfillment and distribution capabilities in closer proximity to their biggest market in Gauteng and, above all, optimize operations by implementing consolidated processing. The Riverfields facility enables the strategy to consolidate 13 smaller distribution centers to 7 to meet continuously growing demands for speed and efficiency.

The solution

With an impressive footprint of 75,000 sqm, the integration of advanced software and state-of-the-art technologies allows for automated order consolidation of over 22 brands. This increases the centralized processing of all e-Commerce orders targeting 70% central fulfillment. Rapid demand response capabilities enhance the availability of individual clothing sizes in the stores. In addition, order fulfillment costs are significantly reduced through a reduction in parcels per order, which also improves the customer experience with fewer “doorbell” rings. Centralization of both store fulfillment and e-Commerce further adds opportunities through shared transport networks for both click-and-collect deliveries and home deliveries. The new supply chain and intralogistics design support the development of resilient, flexible scenarios for supplying retail in response to changing requirements and thus facilitate all strategic sales initiatives.

Increased efficiency and accuracy

In dispatch, orders are differentiated by order type, order volume and shipping destination to ensure maximum efficiency and accuracy. For larger orders, items are sorted according to the “put-to-store” model and directly distributed to the respective points of sale. Smaller B2C orders are manually picked in a new 4-story shelving system with 190,000 picking bays. To further increase efficiency, especially during promotional periods and seasonal peaks, a put-wall system was implemented to support batch picking and the consolidation of multi-order processing. The advantages of this system are its modularity and scalability. It can be flexibly adapted to different product sizes and order profiles without much effort.

Success and future outlook

The Riverfields DC has enabled additional marketplace opportunities for TFG’s Bash division. The operational requirements to support this sales channel have already been taken into consideration within the distribution center expansion design.