Case Study
Khalid EL JARRARI
Ice House Toys
Index of contents Ice House Toys presentation I- Mail-Order Operation and prospects of change I-1 Capacity constraints I-2 Extension of the warehouse capacity I-3 Other ways to overcome capacity constraints I-4 The website impact on operations II- Long-term capacity planning issues III- Alternative purchasing policy IV- Overtime payment V- Appendixes
Ice House Toys presentation
Ice House Toys (IHT) company consists of five shops and one mail-order business. The mail-order operations warehouse is situated in a building of three floors, each 1200 m².
Ice House Toys send three catalogues of toys and games every year. The winter and spring catalogues are sent to 90,000 customers and results in 6,900 orders with an average order value of £23.
The Christmas catalogue is the major catalogue, sent to 160,000 customers and resulting in 22,600 orders with an average order value of £42. The stock for the Christmas sales is ordered by the end of July and received in two phases. 75 percent arrives in the first week of October and filled the stock areas to capacity. The remainder is ordered after the first 2,500 orders have been processed in the fourth week of November. In 1999, stock with a resale value of £1.1m was ordered.
The mail-order operation is divided into three stages: recording, assembly & packing and dispatch. The appendix 1 shows the operations layout during 1999.
IHT plans three main changes for the mail-order operation. - Firstly, IHT will do an agreement with a company which sells upmarket children’s clothes. This will lead to 30,000 new names and addresses of customers. - Secondly, IHT will spend £18,000 on advertising: each £1,000 led to 190 additional orders in the past. - And the third future change will be the new website. On this, the ordering will be easier because the user