Common mistakes and best practices for Garment on Hanger (GOH)

Garment on Hanger (GOH) offers clear benefits but also brings unique operational risks. Avoiding common mistakes and following established best practices will maximize the advantages of GOH while controlling cost and complexity. This guide outlines frequent issues teams encounter and practical fixes to keep GOH running smoothly.

Common mistakes:

• Using the wrong hangers: Cheap or inconsistent hangers can lead to slippage, mis-shaping, or damage. Mismatched hanger sizes can also cause uneven spacing and increased tangling.
• Poor layout and flow: Treating GOH like pallet storage leads to chokepoints and excessive handling. Narrow aisles, insufficient staging space, or poorly planned cross-dock areas increase touchpoints and damage risk.
• Insufficient tracking and labeling: Without barcodes or RFID on hangers or garment loops, visibility suffers. Inventory counts become slow and error-prone, especially during peak seasons.
• Inadequate staff training: Hanging systems require different skill sets than palletized goods. Staff unfamiliar with loading racks, securing rails, or moving mobile racks can create safety hazards and product damage.
• Ignoring returns complexity: E-commerce returns often arrive mixed and need rework. If returns are fed back into GOH flows without inspection and staging, they contaminate sellable inventory and increase labor costs.
• Overlooking transport compatibility: Mobile racks that don’t lock or fit into transport configurations can shift in trucks and cause garments to rub and tear.
• Neglecting sustainability and reuse: Treating hangers and covers as disposable increases waste and long-term costs. Conversely, choosing reusable solutions without a return program causes losses.

Best practices to prevent problems:

• Standardize hanger types and spacing: Adopt a single hanger spec per garment type and standardize rail spacing. This reduces tangling and speeds picking. Consider color-coding hangers or using differentiated clips to quickly identify size or assortment.
• Design GOH-specific layouts: Allocate dedicated GOH receiving lanes, inspection zones, and outbound staging areas. Provide sufficient turning room for mobile racks and mark pedestrian paths and forklift routes clearly.
• Use technology for visibility: Attach RFID or barcode tags to hangers or garment loops. Integrate these reads with your WMS so you can perform rapid cycle counts, track rack movements, and support omnichannel fulfillment.
• Train teams thoroughly: Develop SOPs for hanging, loading, covering, and moving racks. Train staff on safe handling to reduce damage and workplace incidents. Use simple checklists for quality control during receiving and shipping.
• Define returns routing: Establish a returns inspection lane separate from inbound GOH. Items that require cleaning, steaming, or repair should be routed to a rework area before re-entering GOH storage.
• Secure racks for transport: Use locking pins, straps, or dedicated transport fixtures to keep rails fixed during transit. Plan container and truck loading to minimize movement and abrasion.
• Implement reusable asset management: Track and manage rack and hanger assets through return logistics. Incentivize suppliers and carriers to return reusable racks and incorporate liner reuse where practical.
• Measure and iterate: Monitor KPIs such as damage rates, hang-to-shelf time, and space utilization. Use data to justify layout changes, additional automation, or new training programs.

Examples of remediation:

• If you experience high damage rates, perform a root-cause analysis: look at hanger condition, rack stability, transport securing methods, and packing density. Often simple fixes like upgraded hanger clips or cushioning rails cut damage materially.
• When inventory visibility is poor, pilot RFID tagging on a subset of SKUs. Even limited RFID use for high-value items can prove ROI through faster counts and fewer stockouts.
• For returns spikes, create a fast-track rework cell with clear acceptance criteria and light reconditioning (steaming, re-tagging) so items re-enter GOH only when ready for sale.

Operational checklist for success:

1. Standardize hangers and rail dimensions across the DC.
2. Allocate GOH-specific receiving, inspection, and cross-dock lanes.
3. Integrate barcode/RFID tagging with WMS tracking for rack and garment level visibility.
4. Train and certify frontline staff on GOH handling procedures.
5. Secure racks and fixtures for transport; validate loading patterns during carrier tendering.
6. Implement a returns inspection workflow and rework station.
7. Establish reusable asset recovery and tracking for racks and hangers.
8. Monitor KPIs and run continuous improvement cadences to refine flows.

In friendly summary, GOH can be a powerful enabler of better presentation and faster replenishment, but it introduces new operational demands. Avoid common mistakes by standardizing equipment, designing purpose-built flows, using technology for visibility, and training staff. With those best practices in place, Garment on Hanger (GOH) becomes a reliable part of an efficient apparel supply chain.