Orchestrating a large-scale retail rollout involves more than simply placing an order for new fixtures and displays. Accurate scheduling and on-time production are key when coordinating deployment of new fixtures to perhaps thousands of locations within a tight timeframe.
Because you have to be confident displays and fixtures will perform as expected and be ready for your installation team without a hitch, you’re always on the lookout for better efficiencies and easier processes that ensure smoother and more successful rollouts.
You also need to know what you can do to improve the rollout process, especially if it calls for new retail fixtures. Larry Johnson, Engineering Manager at L.A. Darling, shares some best practices for working with a custom retail fixture manufacturer.
1.Understand the basic process
To work most effectively with a custom manufacturer of retail fixtures, you have to have a sense of their overall process. What key pieces of information do they need, and at what stage do they need it, in order to meet your performance goals and deadlines?
The specific steps may vary somewhat from one manufacturer to another, but L.A. Darling’s process has helped them deliver on countless successful rollouts over the years. Larry Johnson describes the basic steps:
- Initial fixture product sketch, including customer project parameters
- Price determination based on stated customer requirements and anticipated volume
- Functional, full-scale prototype, including multiple iterations as needed
- Production planning with delivery scheduling
- Procurement of materials and components for manufacturing
- Manufacturing and production process
- Packaging for shipment
- Logistics
- Customer service follow-through
L.A. Darling uses a reverse planning method to keep the focus on meeting the critical delivery date. “We do what we call project takeoffs,” says Johnson.
The team starts with packaging and logistics, then backs into the manufacturing time, and from there, to the time for material procurement, engineering, and prototyping. Johnson goes on to explain how L.A. Darling prepares for a large rollout.
2. Share key details
Details about the project scope and timing factor into the planning process, and accuracy is critical. The more you inform your manufacturer of accurate scheduling objectives and delivery needs, the more effectively they can meet your goals. Key details include:
Order size: Provide realistic order quantity estimates
Terms like “high volume” or “large order” depend on context: a 10,000-piece order for gondolas would not be considered high volume, but a 1,000-piece order of security cases could easily be considered high volume.
Timing: Make your deadlines known
Timing and delivery affect packaging requirements as well as scheduling the manufacturing. You’ll want to answer these questions:
- When will the campaign kick off?
- When do fixtures need to be operational, not just arriving at the stores?
- What pace of delivery will facilitate that timing?
- Will deliveries go to a single warehouse, to multiple warehouses, or to multiple store locations?
- And how many pieces to each destination?
Material specifications: Identify required materials and components
Availability issues for raw materials such as steel, glass, and plastics can affect lead times, design decisions, and production times, particularly for large production runs. Call out these specifications early in the process.
Other features: Specify add-on components
Add-on components, such as locks, should be specified during the planning stage. Identify types, needed keying structure, and who will handle the lock installation. A variety of options are possible, but decisions can affect production timing and delivery.
Take advantage of prototypes and pilot programs
Allow time in the schedule for pilot programs and prototypes and you’ll be rewarded by gaining application data from the field.
Prototypes give you the opportunity for testing and design input from the field. L.A. Darling uses a rapid prototyping process, and creates prototypes that are full-size, detailed, working units exactly like what ultimately will come off the production line.
You can rigorously test items like security cases in your facilities to simulate what could happen in the stores, and repeat the prototyping process until you’re satisfied with the results and performance.
“Pilot stores allow you to see how people react to the product and see if it’s getting the desired reaction from customers or providing the needed level of security,” says Johnson. “Often the customer will place the full intended number of units in 5-10 high-traffic, large-market sites to gather valuable shopper reactions and other data.”
L.A. Darling’s prototyping department coordinates the pilots, working with the customer engineering team. On occasion, L.A. Darling engineers may be dispatched to help set up the initial project.
3. Understand shipping and logistics
As the customer, you get to choose many elements of the shipping and logistics process. Every shipping decision you make affects how the manufacturer will package and prepare your order for shipment as well as timing.
Johnson says, “Knowing how many will go in each store will determine the pack. Am I packing one per box or five per pallet?” Be prepared with answers to key questions.
- What carrier or shipping method is best for you?
- Do you have your own fleet or will you use a preferred carrier?
- Will you use less-than-truckload (LTL) common carriers–or even FedEx?
Meeting a holiday weekend delivery deadline could be accomplished multiple ways, says Johnson. For example, L.A. Darling could arrange LTL deliveries to individual stores, or delivery to a warehouse for customer delivery to the store locations.
Rollouts are complex–for example, L.A. Darling fulfills an order for 7,000 pieces going to 3,500 different locations, with one to three items at each location. The importance of logistics planning can’t be overstated.
4. Choose a manufacturer who focuses on YOU and YOUR timetable
In any manufacturing setting, especially custom work, certain elements set the schedule. But whose parameters will be establishing the timing–yours or your supplier’s?
Look for these attributes in the custom manufacturer you choose to work with.
Customer-centric planning
Communication and transparency are crucial in any relationship with a custom manufacturer. Planning driven by customer goals creates the foundation for a successful rollout.
“Each customer is different around logistics, around what kind of volume they’re putting into each store,” says Johnson. “In the custom world, things change on a daily basis. So it makes you very adaptable.”
Options tailored to your need for speed
Extensive supply relationships offer L.A. Darling the freedom and flexibility to tap overseas and domestic sources to meet key customer timeline requirements and budget constraints.
If there’s “a certain date they’re trying to hit, that’s what we work with” and vendors work with that date too, Johnson says. Not all fixture manufacturers have this flexibility; others may offer turnaround times of 12, 14, or 16 weeks on projects where Johnson could quote 6 to 8 weeks.
Johnson explains the process of scaling up:
Installation support
You don’t want a manufacturing supplier that just makes a delivery and disappears. While the installation process itself is the responsibility of the customer, the manufacturer can improve the process with clear installation instructions and continuing service.
L.A. Darling provides instruction and support in multiple ways. Video instructions are given on the website and linked to the product itself using QR codes, and installers have easy access to live phone support.
And for challenges that can’t be resolved with these methods, Johnson says, “we’re either going to send a new fixture or we’re going to send somebody to that store” to help.
Johnson explains L.A. Darling’s commitment to support:
Genuine customer service
L.A. Darling believes in following through. When one customer’s contracted installer had difficulties on a complex project, Johnson and his engineering staff were on standby with a hotline to support the installers. They answered calls wherever they were, even at football games.
“We’re going to give the support needed to make sure it’s successful,” says Johnson. “I don’t want you just for a customer for this, I want you for a customer tomorrow too. That’s the kind of approach that we take.”
Partnership and long-term relationships
Contracts, commitments to certain dollar value annual expenditures, and high order volume can all affect pricing and ongoing relationships. Johnson notes that larger orders bring better pricing, as L.A. Darling gets a lower price from vendors and shares that break with customers.
When you work with the same partner, repeat orders are simpler, with less lead time. Even design changes may only need to be refinements, rather than whole new designs.
Best practices help you streamline complex rollouts
The routine may feel the same, but each rollout brings its own deadline and performance pressures. Working closely, and more effectively, with a custom retail fixture manufacturer like L.A. Darling can reduce the uncertainty and ease stress.
Understanding the planning system, and how your shipping and logistics decisions affect the total process, can reveal ways you can help your own team improve the rollout process.
Draw upon the expertise of a custom manufacturer that’s completed thousands of successful rollouts. L.A. Darling works as a partner not just by meeting and exceeding your performance and delivery goals, but by helping execute each rollout more smoothly and consistently.