Features/Benefits Provided: Approximately 58% of the distribution center's line items are stored in the carousels. Phone orders, e-commerce and walk-in orders are handled with less than 1% mis-picks and extended cut-off times.

A repair parts distribution center maintains on-hand some 55,000 line items - tiny nuts and bolts to heavy diesel engines - that typically cover 92% of customer requests off-the-shelf. As picking volume increased over the years, productivity fell because too many man-hours were being wasted waiting to retrieve and replenish parts. Parts also couldn't be picked fast enough at peak times. In order to meet growing sales, the distribution center turned to horizontal carousel systems to improve customer service and operating efficiencies.

Until recently, many small parts were maintained on a manned, 8-lane rail-guided mini-load AS/RS. To boost picking and replenishing speed and efficiency, they replaced the AS/RS with eight horizontal carousels on two tiers. The system utilizes two clusters of four 10-foot high carousels - one cluster on grade, the other cluster on a mezzanine directly above. The upper and lower level carousels are identical and each level is served by a single workstation. Approximately 32,000 line items of the distribution center's 55,000 line items (or 58%) are located on carousels. The remaining 42% are stored primarily in pallet racking and in several aisles of storage rack served by manned wire-guided order pickers and reach trucks. Of line items picked, some 47% (or about 2,800 a day) are retrieved from the carousel system at an average rate of about 200 lines an hour over an entire working day. This is a 444% increase over the AS/RS's average picking rate of 45 lines an hour. The line items per day has increased by 32.6% and the staff required to pick, pack and ship the parts has increased by only 6.2%!

The carousel system's picking rate is high compared to the AS/RS because parts are brought to the picker rather than the picker traveling to the parts. The four software-driven carousels serving each workstation stay several picks ahead of the operator. The carriers are automatically pre-positioned and presented for picking via the shortest path. The picker never needs to wait for a part. A pick light tower tells the operator which carrier to pick from, the exact location and the desired quantity. Put lights direct the operator to place the correct quantity of parts into each tote. Computerized picking has cut picking errors well below 1%, which is lower than the previous AS/RS system.

is a Proud Member of the AS/RS Product Section of Material Handling Industry of America

41 Eisenhower Drive
Westbrook, ME 04092
Toll Free: 800-639-5805    Phone: 207-854-1861
info@remstar.com
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