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Victoria's Secret has increased the number of returns it handles from 180 an hour to more than 600 using scanning technology.
Whhe most pople think of women's lingerie, they think of Victoria's Secret. This catalog company and chain of 829 stores, operates worldwide and receives between 1.5 and 2 million turn every year.
"We used to have 15 data entry people handling returns on a dumb terminal connected to our mainframe," says Mary Ellen McKinney, manager of data entry products. "This was an expensive, time consuming process that was prone to errors.
"In 1994 we looked at various scanning systems to improve productivity, but rejected them all because they were expensive and offered limited productivity gains. By 1997 prices had fallen and technology had improved to the point where it was worth looking at again.
"Our sales (and returns) had also continued to grow and we were at the point where we just had to do something. Returns were piling up - during...