Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. At this time, we are ready to take question. (Operator Instructions). Our first question is from Mr. Jeff Black of Lehman Brothers.
Jeff Black - Lehman Brothers
Thanks. Good afternoon, everybody. I guess, just a question on the magnitude and depth of the problem at the DC. I mean is this a full reengineering effort we have to undertake here, and what are the chances that extends beyond 4Q and into spring, would be a? And then on Victoria's Secret systems implementation, assuming you probably don't want to do that next fall, is that going to slip into '09? Thank you very much
Tom Katzenmeyer
Thanks, Jeff. We're going to go to Martyn Redgrave with your question
Martyn Redgrave
Jeff, in terms of the distribution at our operation, just to step back and give your a little bit more perspective, because I'm sure this could be a source of a number of question, the first thing I think you need to understand with opening a new centre in August we had expected a slow ramp-up. We did, in fact, ramp up the development pace as were expecting to ramp-up that throughout the end of September and into October. We say no ways, if you will, in the operation of the center, but we didn't see an inability to breakthrough the volume levels that we need to breakthrough the service holiday.
Over the last four weeks, as we have evaluated the performance of the center, we've concluded that that are some issues there that are going to cause us to have one of the capacity in center that will limit the capacity in center as we're entering a holiday.
The center itself, obviously is a new operation for us, for instance, it utilizes a number of new capabilities that we've not had in our other distribution centers before the things like the High Bay reserve storage capabilities that are not in our other centers. So, we're using as a dynamic location picking system, which is very different then the static location for consistence that our traditional centers have used.
We are using new high-speed multiple stage conveyor systems, new handheld and laser reading scanning technologies, all of this is kind of new to us, not necessary new to the world in terms of the way it's been utilized in other large scale distribution centers, but it is just taking us longer than we had expected to, kind of, burn in these new processes, these new systems and make sure that our associates in our distribution center fully understand how to utilize the new processes and systems.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
