Visiting Dainese

Amazon may be the yardstick by which product fulfillment is currently measured, but as I found out during a recent trip to Italy, Dainese has an automated shipping and receiving department that sets the bar for the motorcycle industry.

Marco Rossi manages 12 warehouse and two office staff working two shifts—one from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the second from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. “In these two shifts with these 12 people,” he said, “we can deliver 8,000 pieces per day.”

Products come from Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Asia. “Origin depends on the family of goods,” Rossi said. “Gloves, for example, are made in Asia, back protectors in North Africa, and helmets in Italy.”

Upon arrival, shipments are broken into two categories: 1) hanging up; and 2) laying down. “The hanging-up items arrive at a right angle inside the container,” Rossi said. “A telescopic arm takes the hanging items and puts them on conveyors. They are moved to the first floor. Laying-down items arrive on pallets and are put on the ground floor.”

Once products pass quality control, they are placed in numbered cages. Bar codes are recorded, and the cages are wheeled to a nearby holding zone. Two automated forklifts—one painted in the colors of Valentino Rossi, the other of Giacomo Agostini—load the cages into the automatic system.

I asked Rossi whose idea it was to paint the forklifts. “Mine,” he said, laughing. “Twenty-four world championships!” Agostini has autographed “his” forklift. “The last time Giacomo was here, I showed it to him. He liked it very much.”

Rossi led me up a flight of stairs and along a short hallway that opened into a vast storage area. Imagine a football stadium filled to capacity with gleaming steel framework. “This is the stocking area—five corridors with 13 floors each,” he said. “This kind of warehouse is typical in the beverage industry, which doesn’t have many SKUs. The most customized part is that we can stock and move hanging-up and laying-down items together.”

I asked if there were many breakdowns. “The first year in a system like this is very difficult,” Rossi admitted. “Now maintenance is once a year. For two days during the low part of the season, typically in June, we are completely stopped.”

Like so many companies, Dainese was impacted by the financial crisis. “The number of pieces we move are lower than the years before 2008,” Rossi said, “but the name of Dainese is important in the motorbike world, so we are working very much now.

“We can move any kind of order—one piece or 2,000 pieces. You can order a leather jacket on our website, and I will deliver it wherever you live.”