Carter's / OshKosh USA Distribution Center

Project Overview

Carter's / OshKosh, a leading children's apparel brand, undertook a project to enhance the efficiency and capability of its distribution operations in the United States. The company needed a solution to manage the high volume of individual units (garments) flowing through its distribution center to meet the demands of both traditional retail partners and direct-to-consumer e-commerce sales.

The primary goal was to implement an automation solution that could accurately and swiftly sort thousands of items daily. This was crucial for enabling faster order fulfillment, reducing errors, and creating a distribution system that could scale effectively with business growth across all sales channels.

Technical Solution

High-Speed Unit Sortation System

The core of the solution is Element Logic's automated unit sortation technology. This system is designed to handle individual apparel items (units) at high speed. It likely consists of a network of conveyors, scanning stations, and divert mechanisms that automatically route each item to a designated destination based on its order or shipping criteria.

Key Features

The system operates at high speed, capable of processing thousands of individual apparel units per hour, which is essential for meeting the throughput requirements of a major distribution center.

The automation ensures precise handling and routing of each item, minimizing manual touches and the potential for mis-sorts, which is critical for maintaining order accuracy in apparel fulfillment.

A key strength of the solution is its ability to support the distinct requirements of both bulk retail distribution and single-piece e-commerce fulfillment within a single, integrated system.

Results & Benefits

The implementation led to a measurable increase in distribution productivity, allowing more orders to be processed in less time with the same or fewer resources.

The automated sortation significantly reduced errors compared to manual sorting methods, leading to more accurate shipments and fewer costly returns or corrections.

The system enabled faster overall order fulfillment cycles, contributing to improved service levels for both retail customers and end consumers.

The technology provided a scalable platform that can accommodate increases in order volume and complexity as Carter's / OshKosh's business continues to grow.

Challenges & Solutions

The challenge was creating a distribution operation that could efficiently and accurately handle a high volume of individual items for two different business models (retail and e-commerce) simultaneously. Carter's / OshKosh addressed this by partnering with Element Logic to deploy a high-speed automated unit sortation system. This technology automates the most labor-intensive and error-prone part of the process—sorting individual items to their correct orders—thereby accelerating throughput, improving accuracy, and creating a unified, scalable foundation for omnichannel distribution.

System Integrator

Element Logic served as the system integrator for this project. They provided their specialized unit sortation technology and expertise to design and implement the automated sorting solution within Carter's / OshKosh's distribution center. Element Logic's solution was key to transforming the fulfillment process to meet the needs of a modern, omnichannel apparel retailer.