Features/Benefits Provided: Reduced project cost by 50% using refurbished AS/RS Provided full bar coding functionality of finished goods Allowed for future expansion Provided greater SKU retrieving, picking and shipping efficiency and accuracy

An electrical components Manufacturer struggled with shipping inaccuracy, an unwieldy 18-digit stock number on many of its 4000 SKUs, missed on-time delivery, and a 25 percent annual growth rate. This distribution center provided products for 2000 OEM customers and 250 distributors in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

To meet these challenges, the Manufacturer selected an Automated Storage and Retrieval system (AS/RS) solution. When the overseas parent company denied the Manufacturer's initial project funding request, the Supplier found another creative solution-relocate, upgrade, and reinstall a decommissioned 3-aisle miniload system from one of the Supplier's customers who no longer wanted a centralized parts warehouse. This project received approval.

Once the overseas shipment arrives, AS/RS induction occurs without paper; item verification results from worker barcode scanning, once at the receiving dock and again at the end of each aisle. As workers place items into pans for AS/RS storage, its new current location is identified in the Supplier's equipment management system (EMS).

Picking instructions to workers also come from the EMS system. Workers pick to tote boxes, scanning the tote's bar code as each order's line item is added to it. Totes move to carts and then to consolidation lanes where they are scanned again. This allows the EMS system to know precisely each item in each tote. At the consolidation station, workers receive EMS system instruction on which of 22 gravity conveyor lines to feed. Finally, when a customer order is complete, the operator sends automatic notification to the packing station so the order can be packed and readied for shipping.

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

P. O. Box 1512
Milwaukee, WI 53201-1512
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