Celebrating a perfect marriage of humor and ruthlessness, Diane Garforth is cheerfully and diligently leading logistics enhancements at America’s largest bridal retailer.
As senior director of supply chain systems and operations for David’s Bridal, Garforth is not wedded to past processes but rather is implementing innovative systems for a business that began in 1950 as a single Fort Lauderdale bridal salon and now spans more than 330 stores throughout North America and the United Kingdom.
In advance of the traditionally favored matrimonial month of June, AJOT caught up with Garforth at the same warehouse in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, where she started her industry career nearly three decades ago – and where she met her own bridegroom.
Surrounded by more than 600,000 formal dresses, Garforth far-less-formally shared some secrets to success with her gregarious “I do” attitude.
What challenges and joys are associated with being involved with such an important – and emotional – day in the life of your customer, keeping in mind that one-third of all U.S. brides get married in a David’s Bridal dress?
I feel like everyone at David’s Bridal feels we have the responsibility of getting her the perfect dress in pristine condition by the day we promised it to her. So it isn’t just me, it’s everyone, and it permeates the entire company.
Knowing it is her most important day and that brides talk so much to others about their experience, now with a social media component, she definitely has a forum for chatting about her wedding. That puts a lot of pressure on the supply chain to execute perfectly.
On the flipside, knowing we’re making a difference to someone on the most important day of their life makes what we do seem so meaningful and impactful.
How do you deal with peak demand, which presumably comes in the traditional wedding month of June and perhaps now in other months, such as September?
We mostly handle peak demand through working overtime, and then we’re always ruthlessly reviewing our processes, procedures and systems for any improvements that can make the work more efficient.
A lot of that’s self-motivated, but it also comes from the top and from the bottom, too. Our distribution managers are always coming to us with ideas for improving the process.
How are you set up to handle and distribute imports, and why is your strategy beneficial?
We do use an NVOCC [non-vessel-operating common carrier] so we have more shipping options, and we also have had our DCs [distribution centers] certified as an FTZ [Foreign-Trade Zone], so that defers our duty payments until the goods leave the DC.
We have two DCs within 30 miles of each other [west of Philadelphia], and each is dedicated to certain types of products. Being so close, we’re able to move staff between the two DCs and are able to leverage some management positions between the two buildings.
Our Conshohocken DC is a GOH – goods-on-hanger – DC, and all our material-handling equipment is focused on how to efficiently process GOH. And then our Bristol DC is a flat-pack operation.
How is implementation of Manhattan Associates’ distributed order management (DOM) system saving time and money for David’s Bridal?
One of the largest impacts has been how we can use DOM to allocate store and customer orders against incoming purchase orders. And then we leverage Manhattan Associates’ warehouse management system to process those orders immediately upon receipt and bring them right to our labeling stations. So that saves two to three days of processing time and approximately 8 cents per unit.
Additionally, we’re using DOM to fulfill orders from our stores when we don’t have the product in our DC. That’s allowed us to reduce our inventory carrying costs while getting orders out to the customer more quickly.
Congratulations on 20 years with David’s Bridal. Is it correct that your logistics career actually began nearly 30 years ago in this same building in Conshohocken, and, at the risk of sounding like a psychotherapist, how does that make you feel?
I’m really proud of that and feel like it plays a key part in what has made me successful. I can work on improving DC processes because I was a temp on this same floor, trying to take orders as quickly as I could, and I was also a manager on this floor, so I can think about what reporting the managers need to run their areas.
There hasn’t been a single work experience I’ve had that I haven’t been able to leverage into solving problems, because, ultimately, that’s what my job the last 20 years has been about – using technology to solve everyday issues.
When I first came here, this was the DC of [women’s apparel retailer and ugly Christmas sweater originator] Eagle’s Eye. Eagle’s Eye was starting to downtrend, and my boss came to David’s Bridal and hired me to implement the warehouse management system here. It was the smoothest job transition ever.
Actually, my husband [Brian Garforth, now manager of IT security at David’s Bridal] and I met here at Eagle’s Eye and then we both went to work for David’s Bridal, too. We’ve been married for 24 years and are happily childless.
What have been the key changes you’ve seen in logistics over the past 20 to 30 years, and how do you see them being addressed?
When I started picking and tried to work so fast and get my rate up, I was pushing a cart all through the DC. I love the rise in material-handling automation in all of its forms and it blows me away, because it’s so different than grabbing a cart and running through the entire floor.
I do think we’re creating material-handling equipment haves and have-nots, and the price barrier in getting into some types of automation is so high. It especially makes it hard when Amazon raises consumers’ expectations, and not everyone else can afford the automation required to get a large volume of orders out in a short period of time.
What we are doing again goes back to ruthlessly reviewing processes to see where we can take time out of the process, make things easier and make things faster. And then how much money are we going to have to spend?
So it becomes a question of whether I compare myself with my competitors or I compare myself with the customer expectations Amazon has created. We kind of want to hit somewhere in that sweet spot in the middle.
Do you still start some of your meetings with amusing anecdotes related to TV shows, and, if so, how is this beneficial?
It is true, and it’s actually for my cross-functional meetings. Humor is a great way to get people to relate to one another in a nonwork way. Once you understand someone and like them, it becomes harder not to respond to their emails.
It makes my meetings really popular, so, when you’re working to address cross-functional issues, it’s really helpful because my partners actually look forward to coming to the meetings, and then we’re able to solve more problems.
I always do reality TV shows. I call it Reality Roundup. I try to always have a work or life lesson related to an episode of a recent reality TV show, and then I also come up with recommendations of some of the weirder, wackier reality TV shows that are out there.
To me, one of the most beneficial work lessons I’ve learned has come from “Survivor,” and it’s that you always need a secret alliance.
So do you have any secret alliances here, or is that a secret?
I do. I have people I’m close with that I make sure other people don’t know, so that way, when I have information, you can’t just assume you know where I got it from.
Aside from watching reality TV, what nonwork activities do you enjoy?
I love to travel, and the great thing about being at David’s Bridal for 20 years is that I’ve earned a lot of vacation time.
My husband and I have focused the past several years on visiting national parks and really enjoying all that America has to offer.
My faith is also very important to me, and so I spend a lot of time preparing to lead my weekly Precept Bible study.
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