Logistic
ListenThe Group’s distribution system is globally integrated and fed by a centralized manufacturing programming structure. The network linking the logistics and sales centers to the production facilities in Italy and China also provides daily monitoring of global sales performance and inventory levels so that manufacturing resources can be programmed and warehouse stocks promptly re-allocated to meet local market demand.
This integrated system serves both the retail and wholesale businesses and is based on one of the most efficient and advanced logistics organizations in the industry, with 23 distribution centers worldwide, of which 11 in the Americas, eight in the Asia-Pacific region and six in the rest of the world.
There are three main distribution centers (hubs) in strategic locations serving the major markets: Sedico in Europe, Atlanta in the Americas and Dongguan in the Asia-Pacific region. They operate as centralized facilities, thus being able to offer clients a highly automated order management system that reduces delivery times to a minimum and keeps stock levels low.
The Sedico Hub was opened in 2001 and given a new automated system in 2006. It currently manages over 22,000 orders a day, including spectacles and spare parts. Everyday, Sedico sends out over 150,000 units coming from the manufacturing plants and going, on one hand, direct to EMEA clients and on the other to the Group’s distribution centers in the rest of the world, from which they are then shipped to local clients.
The Sedico Hub is the result of a strategic project that enabled the closure of the local warehouses that characterized the previous distribution system. Cutting out the intermediate stage that those warehouses represented required major investments but it was decisive in improving the speed and efficiency of Luxottica’s distribution, as well as eliminating the overheads and increasing working capital typical of unnecessarily decentralized organizations.
The Atlanta Hub is the pride of Luxotica’s retail logistics operation. Located in the main logistics area of America, this hub has a highly advanced cross-belt sorting system that can move up to 140,000 pieces a day at a conveyor belt speed of 1.5 meters a second.
Of the Group’s 23 logistics centers, seven were acquired along with Oakley, whose distribution system is currently being integrated with Luxottica’s. In North America, the Oakley brand’s most important market in terms of volumes, products are distributed through the Ontario hub in California.
