rubbermaid commercial products’ retrofitted as/rs · source: peerless media research group. 92....
TRANSCRIPT
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Rubbermaid Commercial Products’ retrofittedAS/RSPage 16
THE BIG PICTURE
The state of automation 222010 WAREHOUSE/DC BENCHMARK STUDY
Brighter days ahead 28Now on-demand: www.mmh.com/wdcbenchmark2010
EQUIPMENT REPORT
Getting real gains with reusable containers 36
John Elliott, senior distribution engineer, Rubbermaid Commercial Products
®
m m h . c o m
PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTIONS FOR DISTRIBUTION, WAREHOUSING AND MANUFACTURING
December 2010
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mmh.com Modern Materials Handling / D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0 3
ltW intralogistics, a manufacturer of stacker cranes for automated storage and retrieval systems (as/rs), is pushing to grow its business in the United states. ltW intralogistics’ (www.ltwusa.com) division that makes as/rs cranes, conveyors and software for high-bay warehouses is 20% to 25% of the parent company’s production, which approaches $1 billion on a worldwide basis. “We are a well-known name in europe, but not in the U.s. until recently,” said daryl Hull, the president of the company’s north american operations. the company entered the U.s. market in 2000, but until 2006, its products were marketed through another sales organization.
ltW intralogistics expands in north america
isM: Manufacturing shows strong growth for 16th straight month
FAST FACT
UP FRONT B r e a k i n g n e w s y o u s h o u l d k n o w
The manufacTuring secTor remained solid in november, according to the institute for supply management (ism)’s manufacturing report. The index the institute uses to measure the manufacturing sec-tor—also known as the Pmi—was 56.6% in november, which was a 0.3% increase from october.
a reading of 50 or better rep-resents growth, and november represents the 16th consecutive month of it.
“The key takeaway here is that
we have seen 16 consecu-tive months of growth in the manufacturing sector,” said Norbert J. Ore, chair of the ISM’s Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. “We are still not back to where we were, but we are at very acceptable levels of demand. Many manufacturers are becoming profitable again, have
repaired their balance sheets in many instanc-es, and are able to make investments where they can find places to invest.”
Ore said the overall picture for manufactur-ing is encouraging, and
November, in particular, is a continu-ation of the strength we have seen, on average, over the last six months, which is a significant rate of growth month-over-month.
Han-tek acquires Powerlab control technologieshan-Tek, a maTerials handling and systems automa-tion company, announced its acquisition of Powerlab control Technologies, an industrial systems integrator.
Through this acquisition, Han-Tek (www.han-tek.com) bolsters its solutions portfolio with process controls and SCADA capabili-ties. PowerLab is the process of being integrated into Han-Tek’s Controls Division. PowerLab Control Technologies offers motion system design and control, robotics system support, PLC and PAC programming and panel building. Han-Tek customizes automation technology to optimize manufacturing-assembly and product-distribution systems.
Percentage of respon-dents in Modern’s Warehouse/dc
Benchmark survey that have imple-mented an environmental initiative in their facility. See story, page 28.source: Peerless media research group
92
colson expands caster linecolson casTer corP., a leading manufacturer of stan-dard and custom application caster and wheel products, announced an expanded line of product offerings. colson (www.colsoncaster.com) will now provide a selection of low-cost, general application casters for lighter capacity purposes.
“We are expanding product lines as a direct result of requests from our customer base,” said Brian Crain, prod-uct manager for Colson. “Now, Colson can service all of their needs, or their client needs, as a single-source, high quality supplier.”
The offering will launch with two full series of products and will be manufactured and tested to the same standards as Colson’s existing lines. And, the new casters will carry Colson’s three-year warranty.
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mmh.com MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 5
PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTIONS FOR DISTRIBUTION, WAREHOUSING AND MANUFACTURING
VOL. 65, NO. 12
DEPARTMENTS & COLUMNS 3/ Upfront
7/ This month in Modern
14/ Lift Truck Tips: Safety
41/ Focus On: Data collection
44/ Product Showcase
46/ Supplement: Warehouse & DC
50/ 60 seconds with...
NEWS 9/ Behind the ABB acquisition of
Baldor Electric
10/ RFID 2011 revenue growth over 16%
11/ CHEP announces intention to acquire IFCO
13/ <<blog@way>>
COVER STORYSYSTEM REPORT
16 Rubbermaid Commercial Products’ retrofitted AS/RSBy updating an aging manual storage system with automated cranes, Rubbermaid Commercial Products reduced costs and improved safety.
20 Revving up distributionRubbermaid Commercial Products’ new AS/RS supports manufacturing, distribution and replenishment.
FEATURESTHE BIG PICTURE
22 The state of automationDespite the recession, our industry is reaching an inflection point for automation.
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
28 Brighter days aheadOur annual survey reveals that inventory turns have increased, more expansions are on the books, and incentive programs are finally being dusted off. It’s time to dive into the results to see how your warehouse and DC operations stack up to some of the top organizations in the country.
EQUIPMENT REPORT
36 Seven magnificent gainsAlthough not new to the materials handling market, reusable plastic totes and containers are growing in use throughout many industries by addressing seven key challenges for users.
PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTION
40 Dynamic picking Pick-to-light technology increases productivity and picking accuracy for global manufacturer and marketer of high-quality apparel.
60 seconds with...John Elliott, page 50
Modern Materials Handling ® (ISSN 0026-8038) is published monthly by Peerless Media, LLC, a Division of EH Publishing, Inc., 111 Speen St, Suite 200, Framingham, MA 01701. Annual subscription rates for non-qualifi ed subscribers: USA $119, Canada $159, Other International $249. Single copies are available for $20.00. Send all subscription inquiries to Modern Materials Handling, 111 Speen Street, Suite 200, Framingham, MA 01701 USA. Periodicals postage paid at Framingham, MA and additional mailing offi ces. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Modern Materials Handling, PO Box 1496 Framingham MA 01701-1496. Reproduction of this magazine in whole or part without written permis-sion of the publisher is prohibited. All rights reserved. (C)2010 Peerless Media, LLC.
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THIS MONTH IN MODERN
It’s appropriate that we we’re wrapping up 2010 with the next installment in a series we’re calling “Big Picture: Where business
meets materials handling.” This month’s focus is on automation.
In these Big Picture articles, executive editor Bob Trebilcock breaks out of the traditional “how-to” and “case study” mold to offer an objective, broad-sweeping look at how materials handling technologies and best practices are making an impact on overall business strategy.
In fact, I would go out on a limb to say that this month’s “Big Picture: The State of Automation” (page 22) may be the defi ni-tive chapter in this series. This timely article examines how new applications in this area are helping adopters increase their com-petitive advantage inside and outside the four walls. And as Trebilcock makes clear from the outset, “there’s something chang-ing in the way the user community looks at automation today.”
As we’ve highlighted in our System Reports over the past year, many innova-tive organizations have moved beyond the thinking that automation’s main goal is to get more throughput from a smaller labor force. In fact, using labor reduction as a key metric in making the automation decision is slowly losing steam.
Instead, companies like Kroger, Del Mon-te, Offi ce Depot and Rubbermaid (page 16) have installed new automated systems designed to improve broader supply chain activities such as inventory, transportation and—in a signifi cant shift in strategy—labor management. “Today, there’s a recognition that you’re still going to have people in the
equation,” The Progress Group’s Bruce Stra-han tells Trebilcock this month. For Strahan and many of the analysts and executives interviewed this month, the new question is: How do you enhance what your people do with automation?
With that labor enhancement concept comes a number of opportunities to apply automation technologies in specifi c areas of your operation with a new ROI target in mind. As Trebilcock suggests, it could amount to something as simple as adding semi-auto-mated solutions—like voice- or light-directed picking—to an existing manual process to not only speed throughput, but to improve ergonomics and the culture on the fl oor.
And, as so many companies are running about as lean and mean as they can get, the enlightened are considering these automa-tion moves as part of their critical labor retention strategies. As Tom Coyne, CEO of System Logistics, tells Trebilcock: “The goal is not to eliminate the human component. It’s to help the associate reach their potential by eliminating walking, eliminating reading, eliminating waiting or any other extraneous process. The goal is to help the associate rather than eliminate the position.”
But I’m just scratching the surface of the discussion. Trebilcock’s Big Picture takes a deep dive into the new list of ROI justifi -cations for automation, offers a character study of the companies applying new tech-nologies, makes the argument for targeted automation, and gives us a look into what’s coming around the bend. If you’re on the fence about a future automation invest-ment, this is your required reading for the holiday season.
Automation’s age of enlightenment
MMH1012_Editorial.indd 7 12/7/10 2:42 PM
ABB, THE LEADING POWER AND automation technology group, and Baldor Electric, a North American leader in industrial motors, recently announced that the two companies have agreed that ABB will acquire Baldor in an all-cash transaction val-ued at approximately $4.2 billion, including $1.1 billion of net debt.
In the agreement, ABB would retain the Baldor management and brand. Fort Smith, Ark., would remain the headquarters for Baldor, and it becomes the headquarters for the com-bined motor and generator business for North America.
“Baldor is a great com-pany with an extremely strong brand in the world’s largest industrial market,” said Joe Hogan, ABB’s CEO. “Baldor’s product range and regional scope are highly complementary to ours and give both com-panies signifi cant oppor-tunities to deliver greater value to our customers.”
The transaction will substantially improve ABB’s access to the indus-trial customer base in North America, opening opportunities for ABB’s wider portfolio including energy ef-fi cient drives and complementary mo-tors. This move comes at a time when
regulatory changes in the U.S. and other parts of the world will acceler-ate demand for energy effi cient indus-trial motion products. The acquisition will strengthen ABB’s position as a leading supplier of industrial motion solutions, and it will also enable ABB to tap the huge potential in North America for rail and wind investments, both of which are expected to grow rapidly in coming years.
To fi nd out more about what it might mean to the materials handling industry, Modern spoke to Randy Colip, Bal-dor Electric’s executive vice president of motor sales.
First, both ABB and Baldor gain access to new products and markets. Baldor gains access to ABB’s line of IEC motors, what Colip described as “true European IEC motors.” IEC stands for the International Electrotech-nical Commission, and it is the European equivalent of NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) in the United States. An IEC motor, according to Colip, is a metric motor, and typically is a smaller-framed motor than those produced in the U.S. What’s more, they are readily available in the re-
m m h . c o m MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 9
Company Briefi ngs | Bob Trebilcock Thinking beyond labor to justify automation www.mmh.com
Di@blogbest of Modern’s blogs
BY BOB TREBILCOCK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
AUTOMATION
Behind the ABB acquisition of Baldor Electric THE COMBINATION WOULD CREATE A GLOBAL LEADER IN MOTORS AND DRIVES.
Baldor, a leader in industrial motors (pictured here), would retain its management and brand in the acquisition.
MMH1012news.indd 9 12/7/10 2:41 PM
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placement market in Europe and South-east Asia. “North American material handling manufacturers are interested in IEC motors if they are selling their products in Europe or Southeast Asia,” Colip explained. Although Baldor has a line of IEC motors, he added, “they’re not the true European IECs that mate-
rial handling equipment manufacturers are looking for.” At the same time, ABB has not effectively penetrated the U.S. market, something Baldor believes it can do with its sales force.
Baldor gains access to a broader portfolio of rotary servo motors and con-trols from ABB than they currently offer.
And, Baldor gains access to ABB’s line of AC variable frequency drives (VFDs), the technology that allows us-ers to vary the speed of conveyors and sortation systems to match demand rather than run fl at out all the time. “ABB is the world’s largest producer of AC VFDs,” Colip said. “That gives us the opportunity to sell a complete mo-tor and drive package, something we really couldn’t do in the past.”
Last, Baldor gains access to new markets outside of North America for its NEMA-rated motors through ABB’s sales force. In addition to gaining more access to the North American market for its IEC motors, ABB also gains access to Baldor’s line of linear motors.
“ABB does not have its own line of NEMA-rated motors and it doesn’t have a line of linear motors,” Colip said. “We see this as a very com-plimentary acquisition, and we’re excited about it.”
The deal is expected to close in the fi rst quarter of 2011.
TECHNOLOGY
Retail to push RFID growth over 16% in 2011ACCORDING TO A RECENT report by ABI Research, the industry is see-ing continued strong growth potential in RFID markets worldwide. The re-search fi rm is forecasting a total mar-ket size of about $4.6 billion by the end of 2010 for RFID systems (hard-ware, software and services). The total reaches $5.5 billion when hardware-only shipments to support automobile immobilization are included.
In addition, by the end of 2011, global RFID system markets (excluding immobilization) are expected to amount to almost $5.3 billion, a year-over-year growth in excess of 16%. RFID systems software revenue will outpace that from services, transponders and readers. When automobile immobilization is included the total market size is ap-proximately $6.2 billion, representing 13% growth next year.
MMH1012news.indd 10 12/7/10 2:41 PM
m m h . c o m
PACKAGING
CHEP announces intention to acquire IFCOBRAMBLES LIMITED, THE PARENT COMPANY OF CHEP, announced the planned acquisition of IFCO Systems, a leading provider of reusable plastic containers in 23 countries, and pallet management services in the United States. The transaction will enhance Brambles’ position as a global leader in pooling solutions, creating an entity with sales revenue of approximately $5 billion.
The deal is pending until the completion of regulatory reviews and approvals from six of the countries where the two companies do business, including the U.S. and countries in Western Europe. That could take about nine months. Until then, the two companies will continue to operate as independent entities.
What might the combined companies mean to users of CHEP’s pallet pool and IFCO’s pallet management services? According to Derek Hannum, CHEP’s director of marketing, there are some issues—such as how CHEP may integrate IFCO’s pallet management capabilities with the pallet management services CHEP presently out-sources, or whether CHEP will more aggressively pursue the market for new pallets given IFCO’s capabilities—that won’t be answered until the regulatory reviews and the proposed acquisition is a done deal.
“Any talk of integration of the two businesses, espe-cially around wood pallets, is premature,” Hannum said. “How we’ll realize the synergies in the U.S. hasn’t been sorted out and is premature.”
What he could say is that CHEP is intent on broaden-ing the products and services it takes to market, especial-ly in the U.S. “Right now, we’re a one-size-fi ts-all model,” he said, referring to the company’s pallet rental business.
“We don’t want to be a one-size-fi ts-all model going forward.”
Here are some key takeaways from Modern’s conversa-tion with Hannum.
Returnable plas-tic containers is a key market target: While CHEP is the market leader in the pallet rental market, IFCO is a market leader in reusable plastic containers, especially Western Europe. “The IFCO
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CHEP’s acquisition of IFCO would create a pallet and plastic container pooling entity with a sales revenue of approximately $5 billion.
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RPC pool is about twice the size of our pool, it’s well established and well managed,” Hannum said. “We don’t have an RPC business here in the U.S., and we believe that is 100% complementary to pallet pooling.” Ironically, CHEP once had a small RPC business in the U.S. that it sold
to IFCO back in 2005 in order to con-centrate on growing the pallet pool-ing business. “IFCO has grown that business 28% a year for the last three years,” said Hannum. “We see a lot of opportunity in the auto industry and upside in the fresh produce mar-ket as growers and retailers expand
reusables as part of their sustainabil-ity initiatives.”
The dock is another potential op-portunity: While the details are still to be worked out, Hannum believes IFCO’s pallet management busi-ness is a nice strategic fi t for CHEP. “We’re strong in pallet pooling and they’re strong on the back docks, where we don’t have much of a pres-ence,” he said. “There’s not a lot of pallet customer overlap between our business and theirs.”
New pallets: In its current busi-ness model, CHEP does not manu-facture and sell new pallets. IFCO does. While the white wood busi-ness—as the market for new pallets is known—is highly fragmented, with lots of mom and pop manufacturers competing against the big boys, IFCO has a national presence. “Overall, IFCO has a small percentage of the U.S. market for new pallets, but they service a portion of the pallet market that the rental pallet market does not service,” Hannum said. “To the extent that some of our rental customers also purchase white wood pallets, we’ll now be in a position to compete for that business. Whether we do that under the CHEP name or the IFCO name is still to be determined.”
Plastic pallets: Too early to tell, Hannum said. Clearly, iGPS has made inroads in the pallet pooling market. Whether or not CHEP decides to compete in that market down the road, developing a pool of plastic pallets was not a rationale behind the proposed acquisition. “We currently manage a pool of about 400,000 plastic pallets for one customer,” Han-num said. “More importantly, we have been looking at alternative materials to enhance our existing wood pallet for some time. That research con-tinues.” The more important point, Hannum added, is that the wood pal-let delivers value for the price to the vast majority of people in the CHEP pool. “That won’t change overnight just because of a new technology,” Hannum said.
MMH1012news.indd 12 12/7/10 2:41 PM
Is automated materials handling ready to grow?Are we seeing a resurgence of inter-est in automated materials handling systems, particularly in distribution? That’s a question that has been on my mind, based on three points.
The fi rst is rooted in some of the very highly automated systems we’ve profi led in Modern over the last few months, including Offi ce Depot and Del Monte. Both brought automated technologies more fre-quently associated with manufactur-ing, including robotics and automat-ic guided vehicles (AGVs), into the distribution center. When each of those stories ran, I received emails and telephone calls from other large end users who were interested in automating their facilities.
The opportunity of the green supply chainWe’re schizophrenic on green, and that’s an opportunity for our industry.
This morning’s Wall Street Journal includes a call to action on energy for the new Congress. The writer
describes the $33 billion in stimulus money awarded to 5,137 entities, from General Electric to state ener-gy initiatives to “no-name start-ups” as “Soviet central planning under the guise of ‘investing’ in America’s future.” The next Energy chairman, who will be a Republican, needs to reign in “a federal energy appara-tus that is fl ushing taxpayer dollars down ethanol, wind and battery projects while crowding out cheaper fuels and killing jobs.”
Lift truck industry in slow recovery modeAt the Material Handling Industry of America’s fall meetings in September, Hal Vandiver, MHIA’s economist, had an interesting observation about the recovery of the materials handling industry: We won’t fully recover until the lift truck industry is back on track.
So, how is the lift truck industry doing?
I posed that question to Don Chance, president of NACCO Mate-rials Handling Group Sales. NMHG is better known by its Yale and Hyster brands. Innovative
WarehouseSolutions
www.interlakemecalux.com1-(877)-MECALUX
<<blog@way>>excerpts from executive editor Bob Trebilicock’s blog
Join Group Editorial Director Michael Levans and the research team of Derek
Sorensen and Norm Saenz from TranSystems as they put context behind this annual survey designed
to give the market the most up-to-date snapshot of current activities and trends in warehouse and DC management.
See story on page 28, or view the Webcast on-demand at www.mmh.com/wdcbenchmark2010.
2010 WAREHOUSE/DC BENCHMARK STUDY
Brighter days ahead
For the latest Modern news and blog posts go to www.mmh.com.
MMH1012news.indd 13 12/7/10 2:41 PM
lift truck TIPS
GraphicCaption
Managers and lift truck operators compare notes to improve long-term safety habits.
Now you try it
Before hittiNg the aisles, an operator in training can expect a few laps through a traffic cone course, followed by an upbeat—if slightly corny—safety
video. Supervisors might distribute a safety quiz to train-ees before pushing the play button and leaving the room.
But if Ron Brewer has his way, managers will stick around for the video, join operators for hands-on training, and demonstrate proficiency in each safe practice they expect of lift truck operators. Brewer is manager of opera-tor training for Crown Equipment, and he says supervisor training can help bring good safety habits from the break room VCR to the warehouse floor.
“Some supervisors don’t even know what safe opera-tion looks like,” says Brewer. “Those safety habits go by the wayside because they’ve never been reinforced.”
Just watching a video won’t do the trick, says Brewer, who recommends supervisors learn lift truck operation—forward, backward, up and down—as well as pre-shift lift truck inspections and an emphasis on safe habits for pedestrians.
Before the training, a supervisor can survey a work area and determine whether work is being done, says Brewer. After the training, a supervisor can see at a glance whether work is being done safely.
So far, however, the idea has been slow to catch on. Brewer says he has visited more than 1,000 warehouses in his career, and he has rarely seen such a program in place.
“I can say with some confidence that most companies are not doing this,” he says. “For some it’s a welcome a-ha moment. For others, it’s a real cultural shift.”
Brewer admits that the prospect of supervisor training and a program of ongoing safety-oriented supervision is a tough sell.
“We get some pushback,” says Brewer. “Their initial reaction is: ‘That’s one more responsibility for this overworked person.’ But when you make the case and show them less shrinkage, less equipment damage, less workers’ compensation claims and increased productiv-
ity, they begin to realize the benefit.”Brewer cites a recent study by the National Institute of
Safety and Health, which found that conventional opera-tor training reduced operator mistakes by 44%.
“I’m a ‘glass half empty’ guy,” says Brewer. “That means 56% remained.”
With sustained oversight from a trained supervisor, Brewer says the study found 70% fewer operator mis-takes, a near doubling of effectiveness.
Whatever the impact of supervisor training, Brewer says one thing is certain: “OSHA is going to enforce the rules, whether you know them or not.” M
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lift truck TIPS
By Josh Bond, Contributing Editor
Josh Bond is a contributing editor to Modern and can be reached at [email protected].
Safety
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16 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0 / Modern Materials Handling mmh.com
rubbermaid Commercial Products’ retrofitted AS/RS
John elliott, senior distribution engineer
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rubbermaid Commercial Products’ retrofitted As/Rs
By updating an aging manual storage system with
automated cranes, rubbermaid Commercial Products
reduced costs and improved safety.
By Bob trebilcock, executive editor
rThe company was able to reuse and
recycle the existing rack infrastructure in a 20-year-old, high-density storage area containing 56,500 pallet positions in 200,000 square feet. Meanwhile, by replacing 10 aging manually driven stracker cranes with 28 automated cranes, Rubbermaid reduced the amount of labor associated with oper-ating that section of its operations. As a side benefit, automating the storage area has also created a much safer work environment and provided room to grow in the future.
Launched in November 2008, the project unfolded in four distinct steps over an 11-month period
• choosing a solution and vendor,• designing the system and processes,• preparing for the installation, and• finalizing the installation.
Taken as a whole, it was a textbook example of solid design and project management coming together to deliver productivity gains with materials han-dling automation.
“We were able to bring this project in on budget and realize the payback we expected,” says John Elliott, senior distribution engineer. Beyond that, adds Elliott, Rubbermaid is only using a fourth of the available throughput capac-ity of the new cranes. “We are positioned for significant growth,” he says.
Time for renewal Winchester, Va., is the headquarters for Rubbermaid Commercial Products, a division of Newell Rubbermaid that manufactures a diverse line of products for business customers including waste management, facilities maintenance,
and materials handling products. The Winchester facility employs 800 associ-ates in manufacturing and distribution operations, stocks an estimated 7,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) and ships about 1,800 pallets a day in a 24/7 oper-ation. Shipments are primarily full pallet and full case quantities that may go to customers or to replenish stock at the other two locations. In addition to the 750,000-square-foot facility in Virginia, Rubbermaid leases another 700,000 square feet of distribution space nearby to distribute to big box retailers and a third site in Victorville, Calif., that dis-tributes to 13 West Coast states.
Since its launch in 1969, the divi-sion has grown into one of the top three performing units for parent Newell Rubbermaid, and it continues to expand. Two years ago, the division pur-chased Technical Concepts, a company that distributes a line of complementary products such as hand sanitizers and bathroom deodorizers. In addition to growing the volume of product shipped, that acquisition also has an impact on the profile of the shipments that go out the door. “In the past, we primarily shipped large units such as trash cans that might have been stacked 20 to a pallet,” says Elliott. “Today, we might
educe, reuse and recycle. Those are the three R’s of the sustainabil-ity movement.
Going green may not have been one of the reasons Rubbermaid Commercial Products chose to retrofit a manually operated, high-bay warehouse with automated storage and retrieval cranes (Dematic, formerly HK Systems, www.dematic.com) last year at its 750,000-square-foot manufacturing plant and distribution center in Winchester, Va., but the three R’s are certainly in play.
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modern system report
also ship a pallet with 10,000 small air fresheners on it.”
The 28-aisle, high-bay, high-den-sity storage area was installed in 1989. Seventy-feet tall, it featured 10 manually operated stacker cranes. Six aisles were dedicated to components, materials and work-in-process (WIP) to support manufacturing while the other 22 aisles stored finished goods. After 20 years of service, the system had become expen-sive to operate and maintain. “The area was staffed 24/7,” says Elliott. “It was also becoming difficult to find available parts for maintenance and the prices of those parts were going up.”
There were also safety concerns. Not only were employees working 70 feet up in the air, but the masts were beginning to show their age. With the system deteriorating and business requirements growing and changing, the time was right for a new system.
The right solutionThe retrofit project was the single biggest capital investment at the Winchester plant. An automated solu-tion, however, was not the first choice, says Elliott. In the early stages of the
evaluation process, Rubbermaid con-sidered several different proposals to update with another manually oper-ated system. The proposal to automate the area with 28 aisle-dedicated cranes came later in the selection process, after Elliott and his team thought they were going to move forward with a pro-posal for a smaller-scale automated solution. Two things changed.
The first was the introduction of a rotating fork materials handling device that can operate in a very narrow aisle (VNA) and be retrofitted to a building with standard post-and-beam rack. In this instance, there is just 65 inches between the racks.
In this unique design, the crane extracts a pallet from a storage loca-tion and then rotates 90 degrees so that the profile of the load is no wider than the overall profile of the storage and retrieval (S/R) crane. The crane rotates 90 degrees again to put a pallet away in a storage location.
“Up until we saw that design, we didn’t think it could be done with auto-mation,” says Elliott.
The second was that in a tough eco-nomic environment, all vendors were
sharpening their pencils as they put their quotes together. On paper, the combination of automation, improved productivity and labor savings made the most sense. What’s more, the state of Virginia made funds available for the investment as well as funds to retrain and redeploy employees who had worked in the high-density storage area.
“The way we planned this project, no one lost a job,” says Elliott. “They were redeployed to other parts of our operations, including four crane opera-tors who became lead technicians for the new system.”
Before sending out a purchase order, however, Rubbermaid conducted a sig-nificant amount of due diligence. “This system is the heart of our business,” says Elliott. “We had to get this right.”
There were a number of site visits with all of the proposals. The automa-tion supplier demonstrated how its solu-tion would work with an S/R crane in a test area that matched the dimensions in Rubbermaid’s plant. “Seeing that demon-stration gave us confidence that we had a capable supplier with the engineer-ing disciplines we would need in house, and they assured us they had people they could dedicate to us at every stage of the project,” says Elliott. The purchase order was let in November 2008.
Scoping the project Between November 2008 and April 2009, Rubbermaid assembled a project team from across its operations, includ-ing operations, maintenance and IT, as well as representatives from relevant vendors, such as the automation solu-tion provider and its warehouse man-agement system (WMS) provider.
IT representatives, for instance, needed to plan how the different sys-tems would communicate with each other and hand-off instructions. Early on, the team had to decide whether the warehouse control system (WCS) that directs the AS/RS would manage inventory in the system, which is com-mon, or if the WMS would determine putaway and retrieval locations. In this instance, Rubbermaid kept the WMS in charge of inventory. “We have different
rubbermaid installed the first of 28 new cranes in the spring of 2009.
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graphicCaption
sized locations, and we have aisles dedi-cated to components needed to keep the manufacturing lines running and fin-ished goods aisles for distribution,” says Elliott. “We were more comfortable con-trolling inventory with the WMS instead of turning it over to the new system.”
That decision required modifica-tions to the WMS as well as changes to the network, programmable logic con-trols (PLC) and Ethernet.
The next phase was to map out all of the process steps for the machines. Those steps had to cover every even-tuality. That’s because an operator on the machine could make decisions and adjustments that would now have to be controlled by automation. “We had to think through every single handling step from start to finish that an operator used to perform,” says Elliott. That required building logic for different sized prod-ucts and different sized rack locations. It also required new controls for the con-veyor system and a validation process to prevent the wrong pallets from being inducted into the system. For example, the induction conveyor won’t deliver a pallet to a crane until the expected license plate bar code on a pallet is scanned while the pallet simultaneously blocks the correct photo eye sensor. Likewise, the system was programmed to interleave putaway and picking activi-ties to optimize throughput.
Putting in a new system also cre-ated an opportunity to start with a clean slate and put in new processes to opti-mize the flow of materials throughout the facility. One new process involved how to handle hot orders. The WMS releases work to the floor based on pri-ority. In the past, if a hot order came into the system, a crane operator could retrieve a pallet and drop it off at an outbound station for pick up. Now, the whole automation system is optimized around priority. “If someone comes in with an emergency order, the system can change the priority of the picks,” says Elliott. “If there are already pal-lets staged on the outbound conveyor, the system will bump up the priority of the pallets in the way so the crane can deposit the hot item for pickup.”
Laying the foundation By February of 2009, the cranes were in production. Back in Winchester, Rubbermaid began the physical work of installing wiring and data drops for the controls and machines. A 3,000-amp breaker was installed to accommodate the new equipment.
Rubbermaid also began welding together the floor rails for the new cranes. They were put to the side of the aisles so that the old cranes could continue to operate. That was important since Rubbermaid was not going to shut down
its operations for the implementation. Instead, it expected to install the system piecemeal, bringing up a few aisles at a time while still running the old system.
In April, a team from Rubbermaid visited the Salt Lake City plant where its cranes were being manufac-tured. One machine was installed in a test rack that matched the width of Rubbermaid’s aisles and the openings of its racks. During the test period, the system handled a load that matched Rubbermaid’s biggest load. The group put it through the paces in manual
in addition to the as/rs, rubbermaid relies on a high-speed conveyor and sortation system (top photo) to deliver cartons to the shipping area. once there, product is palletized and staged for delivery (bottom photo).
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mode, automatic mode and recovery mode, while simulating the controls that would actually be used to operate the system.
At the end of the test, “we only made a few minor changes to the crane motion,” says Elliott. They were ready for implementation.
Implementing the systemIn late May, the first aisle was shut down to install the first crane. “We started with just one aisle so that if something went catastrophically wrong, we would only have one aisle tied up and could continue to operate,” says Elliott.
The first installation took three weeks. Some minor physical modifi-cations had to be made. In addition, changes were made to the logic in the WMS to better match the physical locations to the product. Once those changes were made and the crane was in place, it was tested for several days before it went into production.
“The lift truck operators did a fan-tastic job testing the new logic and controls,” says Elliott. “We learned very quickly that the system would
not induct the wrong pal-let unless the pallet was labeled incorrectly. We knew that the accuracy in the building was going to improve.”
Having worked the bugs out on the first aisle, Rubbermaid installed the remaining 27 cranes in about 16 weeks. During this period, Elliott made a point of being a visible presence, working each day side-by-side with the installers on a folding plas-tic table in the facility.
“People knew I was there and if there were issues, I was able to address them promptly,” he says. It also was an opportunity for salaried
staff and hourly associates to sug-gest ways to improve the system that could be incorporated then and there. Another contributing factor to the success of the project was that hourly
associates, who had been working in the storage area, were deployed as quickly as their old machines were decommissioned. “We had backfilled positions in the plant with temporary workers so that we could accommo-date our hourly associates once their old positions were eliminated,” says Elliott.
By October 2009, the work was complete and the whole system was in operation. Productivity improved from the start. “We went live during the busiest time of the year,” Elliott says. “With the old system, we would have product staged for putaway across the southern wall of the building because the manual cranes couldn’t keep up. Once we had all of the cranes up and running, we had virtually zero staging unless a crane was down.”
After more than a year of operation, the system continues to deliver. “We now have a system with reliable equip-ment that accommodates our needs today and will grow with us in the future,” says Elliott. “It has been a total transformation of our VNA facility.”
W ith the capability to han-dle up to 17,000 pal-let movements a day,
the automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) at Rubbermaid Commercial Products’ Virginia loca-tion is the engine that drives the manufacturer’s storage and order ful-fillment operations.
Receiving: Pallets may be received from the manufacturing line or from Rubbermaid’s receiving dock and put away in the AS/RS . In either case, the lift truck operator scans a license plate bar code and is then directed to the appropriate induction conveyor. There,
the operator scans a location label to ini-tiate the induction process.
Putaway: Once the pallet is placed on the induction conveyor, the ware-house control system (WCS) verifies that the correct label is on the pal-let and that a photo eye has picked up the pallet. If those conditions are met, the pallet is automatically sized by a dimensioner for putaway. In this instance, the warehouse management system (WMS) rather than the WCS is responsible for choosing a putaway location. When the pallet is picked up by a second photo eye, a crane picks up the pallet and delivers it to the
Revving up distributionThe new AS/RS supports manufacturing, distribution and replenishment.
automation has created a safer work environment and is enabling rubbermaid to control the growth of its labor while adding capacity.
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tion that can hold two pallets per aisle. Pallets destined for production will be delivered by lift truck. Pallets destined for
shipping will be picked up by an out-bound tugger and delivered to a drop off area. There, a lift truck operator will pick them up and deliver them to
a staging area for ship-ping or to the appropriate case picking area for replenishment.
Case picking, con-veyables: In the case pick area , operators directed by RF pick cartons to a belt conveyor . Cases are then scanned and sorted by a shoe sorter to the appropriate dock door . There, the case is scanned to a mixed case pallet. Once a pallet, it is stretch wrapped and staged for shipment.
Case picking, non-conveyables: In the non-conveyable area , associates are directed by RF to manually pick and label cartons to a pallet. Once the pal-let is built, it is stretch wrapped and delivered to the shipping area where it is married with conveyable items for that order and either staged or loaded onto a truck as an outbound shipment . M
Production6
Production6
AS/RS1
Case pickarea
2
Case pickarea
2
Non-conveyables
3
Staging7
Conveyor
4
3
3
Shipping dock5
Sorter 8
Rubbermaid Commercial Products Winchester, Va.size: 750,000 square feet including manufacturing, warehousing and distribution Products: Products for maintenance and materials handlingtHrougHPut: 1,800 outbound pallets per daysKus: 7,000sHifts: 24/7eMPloyees: 800 in operations
System supplierssystems integration, automated storage and retrieval cranes: Dematic, formerly HK Systems, www.dematic.com
Warehouse management system: Manhattan Associates, www.manh.com
drive in, pallet flow and case flow rack: Mecalux, www.interlakemecalux.com
lift trucks: The Raymond Corp., www.raymondcorp.com
Bar code scanning: Psion Teklogix, www.psionteklogix.com/us
conveyor and carton sortation: Intelligrated, www.intelligrated.com
conveyor control system: Pyramid Controls, www.pyramidcontrols.com
stretch wrapping: Lantech, www.lantech.com
extendable conveyors: Stewart Glapat, www.adjustoveyor.com
tuggers: Motrec, www.motrec.com
storage location. The product is now available to promise in the WMS.
Picking: Product can be picked from the AS/RS, a case picking area or a non-conveyables picking area for product that can’t travel on a con-veyor system .
AS/RS: Pallets can be picked from the AS/RS for delivery to the shipping dock , to the production area or to the case and non-conveyables picking areas. Once a pallet has been chosen, an AS/RS crane retrieves it and delivers it to a take away loca-
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22 D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 / MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING mmh.com
By Bob Trebilcock, Executive Editor
THE BIG PICTURE
In August, Modern featured Office Depot’s new distribution center (www.mmh.com/article/flexible_automation) in Newville, Pa., on the cover. At the heart of the DC is
an integrated piece-picking solution that combines mobile robots for high-density storage and conveyance; light-directed picking to ensure that the associate picks the right item; and a high-speed conveyor and sortation system to get the product to the packing zone.
While this level of automation has been common on high-speed assembly lines for years, it represents a new level of sophistication in distribution. Although the technology allows Office Depot to
get a significant amount of throughput from a relatively small labor force, labor savings within the four walls of the DC wasn’t the primary driver behind choos-ing a highly automated system.
Rather, the solution represents a broader supply chain play; it is an enabling technology that will allow Office Depot to completely retool the way inventory is replenished at the stores serviced by that DC. “We believe that the future belongs to the brave,” Brent Beabout, Office Depot’s vice president of global network strat-egy and transportation, told Modern. “We are in a commodity business and the supply chain is a differentia-
tor. We plan to be on the front end of that.”
That is a different way to view mate-rials handling automation, particularly in distribution, where the historical approach to system justification was based on a reduction in head count. It got us to thinking: Is Office Depot unique? Or, is something changing in the way the user community looks at automation today? Does the future belong to the brave when it comes to automated materials handling?
To find out, Modern talked to 10 indus-try leaders about the state of materials handling automation today. Here’s what we learned.
The State of AutomationWhere business meets materials handling
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The labor equationThere is a sense that something is happen-ing in the market: Nearly everyone we interviewed agreed that end users are taking a harder look at automa-tion than in the past—even if that has not yet translated into more orders. “We may be too early in the cycle to be conclusive about what
this interest will mean to the mar-ket,” says Bruce Strahan, presi-dent and CEO of The Progress Group. “But I do believe that end users are looking back at the past three years and concluding that all of the layoffs and downsizing they went through was not fun. They want to be prepared for another downturn in demand without wondering every day whether they need 10 more people or 10 fewer based on fluctuations in volume.”
What’s more, as companies like Office Depot look to logistics as a profit center and an enabler of their broader corporate goals, “they are trying to use automation as a competitive advantage over
their competitors within their industry,” says Sean O’Farrell, business development manager for Witron.
Solution providers describe an evolving view of automation among the end user community, especially when it comes to auto-mation in the DC. Traditionally, that has involved conveyor and sortation systems. That percep-tion, however, is changing. “More intelligence is required in the dis-tribution center today than in the past, when it was mostly about moving pallets out the door,” con-tends Larry Strayhorn, president of TGW Systems. That complex-ity is driving interest in automatic guided vehicles (AGVs), robotics and automated storage solutions along with semi-automated solu-tions involving software, lights and voice. “Every company is try-ing to drive costs out of its supply chain and the distribution center is the next link in the chain for optimization,” Strayhorn says.
Reducing labor has always been the key metric for decid-ing whether to automate and that remains the case for many projects. However, with so many organizations already running bare-bone operations, new ways to think about labor and automation are emerging at some companies.
“Our customers are gaining confidence, they are sitting on cash, and they have access to cheap capital,” says Jim Stollberg, vice president of global product management for Dematic. “If you look at the unemployment rate,
they clearly are not hiring back people. Many are choosing to put that capital to work in automation.”
Stollberg and others believe that many of those empty jobs may not come back even if the economy comes back. Having already eliminated labor, companies are looking at the costs associated with labor in a different way to justify automation. Those include the increasing cost of training new employees given the high turnover rate in many distribution centers and the inability to find enough labor in sparsely populated areas or in urban areas where there are alternatives to working in a DC. “If a new employee goes out to lunch and doesn’t come back, which is happening, the cost of bringing a new employee up to speed is now part of the calculation,” Stollberg says.
What’s more, there’s a growing acknowledgment that in distribution, lights out automation rarely makes sense, while there is an ROI in making the remaining workforce more produc-tive. “One of the first automation proj-ects I ever worked on years ago was in a manufacturing setting where we were focused on getting rid of as much labor as possible to the point that we proba-bly over-automated,” says The Progress Group’s Strahan. “Today, there’s a rec-ognition you’re still going to have people in the equation, so how do you enhance what your people do with automation.”
That may be as simple as adding semi-automated solutions, like voice-directed or light-directed picking, to a manual process. “Voice and light tech-nologies haven’t changed a lot over the years, but end users have realized they can make the associate on the floor faster and more accurate,” Strahan says. “They’re making decisions that affect
Despite the
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The State of Automationooooooooooooooommh.com MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 23
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the product the end customer receives as much as their internal ROI.” Those types of technologies also address the diversity of today’s workforce. “The fact is, you can put a headset on a Spanish-speaking person while the associate next to him is speaking English, and they can both get the job done,” Strahan says. “That’s pretty attractive.”
That approach might also involve adding a mini-load automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) or carou-sel to deliver product to an ergonomi-cally designed workstation, adds Tom Coyne, CEO of System Logistics. “The goal is not to eliminate the human com-ponent,” Coyne explains. “It’s to help the associate reach their potential by eliminating walking, eliminating read-ing, eliminating waiting or any other extraneous process. The goal is to help the associate rather than eliminate the position.”
In that same vein, companies are looking at manual processes and asking how they can eliminate the non-value added labor component. “They justify the project not by eliminating a position but by getting better performance out of their people,” says Bruce Buscher, vice president of sales for the smart handling division of Jervis B. Webb. For example, Webb installed an AGV system to automati-cally remove bins of card-board from workstations over a two-shift operation. “The cardboard had to be removed several times dur-ing each shift and each cycle took someone away from the workstation for about 15 minutes,” says Busher. “We designed an AGV to handle special trash bins. When a bin is full, a line worker pushes a wireless call but-ton and the AGV takes the trash out for them.”
Last, but not least, com-panies are looking at auto-mation to create a safer and
more ergonomic work environment, especially in the context of an aging workforce. This is already an issue in Europe, where regulations are reducing the amount of weight workers can move at any one time, or during a shift. That is becoming a concern to some U.S. facilities. “One of our customers is add-ing automatic palletizers to their tote handling processes,” says Jim McKnight, senior vice president for system sales
and marketing for Intelligrated. “Since a tote can weight 50 to 60 pounds, there’s a big ergonomic and safety factor to putting in a palletizer beyond reducing labor.”
New ROIs While labor remains the No. 1 reason for automation, several other variables are entering into the ROI justification.
One of those is flexibility, says Bill Casey, president and chief operating officer for SI Systems. “We have manu-facturing customers that want the abil-ity to pick a solution up and take their investment with them if they need to expand or move their operations,” Casey says. That is leading to an emphasis on technologies like automatic guided vehi-cles and carts in manufacturing rather than traditional conveyor or overhead handling systems that were bolted to the floor. “If something changes, they can reprogram the AGV or cart, or if they move, they can load it onto the back of a truck and set it up at a new location,” Casey says.
In fact, the market for AGVs has never been stronger, and not just among manufacturers. “There are whole new markets out there for AGV systems,” says Mark Longacre, marketing manager for JBT Corp. and chair of the Automatic Guided Vehicle Systems group at the Material Handling Industry of America.
24 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0 / Modern Materials Handling mmh.com
reducing labor remains the primary justification for automated materials handling, but some end users are finding their return on investment in transportation costs or more efficient store operations.
Materials handling automation has been common in manufacturing settings for years. now, distributors are looking for ways to bring in targeted automation.
the big pictureThe State of Automation
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“The cost of the units has come down, software has made them easier and more intuitive to use in the warehouse, and they are capable of handling differ-ent scenarios than they did in the past.” Longacre points out that in addition to transporting pallets or product from one workstation to another, AGVs routinely put away and retrieve pallets from drive-through and push back rack systems and even load trucks in some distribution scenarios.
Flexible automation also allows end users to scale their solutions as needs change. “We have designed a fully auto-mated robotic workstation with palletiz-ing and stretch wrapping,” says System Logistics’ Coyne. “But we have a cus-tomer in Europe who implemented the system with manual palletizing to start, with the idea of installing a robot in 2011.”
Similarly, TGW has developed a pallet-building solution that combines automation with manual palletizing. In this solution, a conveyor delivers a car-ton to a workstation at an ergonomic
level. The operator, rather than a robot or software system, determines how best to build the pallet. Once a layer is built, the operator steps on a footswitch that lowers the load for the next layer; at the same time a stretch wrapper auto-matically wraps that layer. “The idea is to flush as much of the materials handling out of the system as makes sense, while still having the flexibility to easily build a pallet in a certain way,” says Strayhorn.
Taking a holistic viewAs is the case with Office Depot, compa-nies that own their own stores and control their distribution and transportation pro-cesses are justifying automation by taking a holistic view of the supply chain, start-ing with what happens in the store. “In Europe, we are implementing systems in the retail channel where the focus is on improving the materials handling in the distribution center to reduce the cost of operating in the store,” says Strayhorn. In the past, companies have implemented systems that build aisle-ready pallets, meaning that all of the items on a pal-
let will be putaway in a specific aisle in a specific store. The most sophisticated examples can design a pallet so that the top layer will be stored on one end of the shelf with the bottom layer on the other end of the shelf.
Strayhorn is now seeing systems that take that concept one step further, to loading containers—and not just pal-lets—with product in the order it will go on the shelf. “We’ve developed a system that picks women’s T-shirts by size and places them in store-ready car-tons in the order that they’ll sit on the shelf in the women’s department,” says Strayhorn. “The store associate simple opens up a tote, puts the cartons on the counter and they’re done.”
Likewise, one of Witron’s customers in Southern California justified the cost of a highly automated system on trans-portation savings. “The system builds a pallet in an aisle-ready fashion which ends up saving them about half a per-son per store over several hundred stores in their region,” says O’Farrell. “But the automation is able to build a load that is taller than the load they can build manu-ally. That’s generating a 20% to 40% sav-ings on transportation because they’re getting more cube on the truck.”
Targeted automationThe last trend might be something we’ll call targeted automation: Embracing automation where it makes sense and embracing smart manual processes where they make sense. “One of our rules of automation is that an end user should take a long hard look at a lean approach to operating before they auto-mate,” says Strahan. “You don’t automate more than you need or automate things that shouldn’t be automated at all.” Instead of spending $20 million to auto-mate 100% of your storage, maybe you can spend $5 million to automate 20% of your storage and still get productivity gains from smart traditional processes.
CVS is a proponent of this approach, according to Intelligrated’s McKnight. Over the years, CVS has built some of the most highly automated distribution cen-ters in North America. Yet, Intelligrated
26 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0 / Modern Materials Handling mmh.com
By Bob trebilcock, executive editor
The idea that end users are taking a harder look at automation is backed up by the first in a series of surveys being conducted by the Integrated Systems and Controls Council of Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA). The surveys will look at end user attitudes and plans for automa-tion. The first in the series, released in September at MHIA’s fall meetings, found that nearly 90% of the manufac-turing and warehousing/distribution professionals who responded planned to undertake process improvements during the next 12 months.
Of those, more than half (54%) plan to make a capital equipment invest-ment in material handling and logis-tics equipment, systems and software during the next 12 months. While racks, lift trucks, dock equipment and totes and containers topped the list
of planned expenditures—no surprise there—more than half voluntarily associated automation with the types of solutions that would improve the performance of their facilities.
The reasons: • Many said they want to be prepared
for anticipated growth in 2011 due to new customer demands, new orders and new business.
• Respondents are concerned about their ability to recruit and retain a workforce with the skills required to get the job done.
• More significantly, a majority say they are from excellent in the met-rics and operations that matter most to their companies, including on-time delivery, picking, shipping and receiving. Done right, automated materials
handling can address each of those concerns.
Looking for automationMHIA’s first automation survey finds a majority of end users are ready to invest in efficiency.
the big pictureThe State of Automation
MMH1012_BigPicture.indd 26 12/7/10 1:40 PM
is working on a project with CVS that involves a traditional wide-aisle, low-bay distribution system. The takeaway: “From working with automation, CVS has learned that it’s important to find the right niche,” says McKnight. “They will put in lights out automation where it makes sense, but they won’t hesitate to put in a traditional solution enhanced by limited automation if that makes sense.”
To that end, materials handling companies are developing flexible and scalable solutions that allow their cus-tomers to do just that type of targeted automation. One example is a mobile A-frame developed by SI Systems. “It’s designed for the warehouse with anywhere from 16 to 64 fast-moving products and spikes in demand that create bottlenecks,” says Casey. “You can move the A-frame into place, lock it down and do order fulfillment of any fast-moving product that has stackabil-ity characteristics, like round bottles or square boxes. If your demand picks up, you can add another unit.”
Likewise, Swisslog has developed a high-density storage solution that uses bins for storage and robotic extractors that travel on a grid above the bins. “If a user needs to add more throughput, they can simply add more bins or more robots,” says Markus Schmidt, senior vice president of Swisslog. “You can start small and easily expand.”
The next frontierOver the last several years, tremendous achievements have been made in auto-mated solutions for case picking and palletizing that use automated storage, conveyor and sortation systems and robotic palletizing.
The next frontier is piece picking. It is, after all, the most labor intensive activity in a distribution center. It is also the process with the most oppor-tunity for error. “Piece picking is what we’re all trying to conquer,” says TGW’s Strayhorn. “There are solutions out there, but I don’t know that any of us has solved the problem to the satisfac-tion of our end users.”
The most common approach to
automating piece picking is a goods-to-person solution that uses some type of automated storage and conveyor to deliver the products to be picked to an ergonomic workstation. There, lights, voice or images on a display screen will automatically tell the associate how many items to pick and where to place them. That type of solution is most often used to aggregate a high num-ber of slow-moving stock keeping units into space saving storage and eliminate walking on the part of the associate.
Witron has created a variation of that solution for operations that include case and piece picking in the same order. The systems uses an AS/RS to automati-cally replenish a pick face; pick-to-light to optimize piece picking; and software to marry the individual items picked to a carton or tote with full case picks for that order at the palletizer.
Other solution providers, such as Axium, have developed robotic piece picking solutions that completely auto-mate the piece picking process in appli-cations that include a consistent product.
Developments like these, combined with the sophistication of software for automation, could lead to a brighter future for materials handling automa-tion. “I think the most important devel-opment is that the industry and end users are more in tune with creating a solution than selling equipment,” says Strahan. “We’re seeing more people who understand automation and appli-cations than in the past.” M
Companies that contributed to this special report include:Daifuku/Jervis B. Webb, www.jbwebb.com Dematic, www.dematic.com Intelligrated, www.intelligrated.com JBT Corporation, www.jbtc-agv.com Material Handling Industry of America, www.mhia.orgSI Systems, www.sihs.com Swisslog, www.swisslog.com System Logistics, www.systemlogistics.com TGW Systems, www.tgwsystems.com The Progress Group, www.theprogressgroup.com Witron, www.witron.com
Innovative Automated
Solutions
www.interlakemecalux.com1-(877)-MECALUX
the big pictureThe State of Automation
MMH1012_BigPicture.indd 27 12/7/10 1:40 PM
BRIGHTER DAYS AHEADBY MAIDA NAPOLITANO, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Our annual survey reveals that inventory turns have
increased, more expansions are on the books, and
incentive programs are finally being dusted off.
Let’s dive into the results to see how your warehouse
and DC operations stack up to some of the top
organizations in the country.
Things are � nally looking up. In fact, the results of the Supply Chain Group’s 5th Annual Warehouse & Distribution Center (DC) Operations Survey are showing clear signs of recovery. Inventory turns have increased after three years of continued decline; companies report that more expansions are being
planned to distribution operations; and more managers are telling us that they’re re-installing incentive plans as company coffers are starting to slowly, but surely show signs of new life.
Designed to gauge activities and trends in U.S.-operated ware-houses and DCs, our annual survey investigates how today’s man-agers are currently running their distribution operation. In Septem-ber 2010, a survey was sent via email invitation to Supply Chain Group subscribers. A total of 521 quali� ed responses were received from CEOs to upper-level logistics and supply chain managers who are personally involved in decisions regarding their company’s ware-house and DC operations.
Most participating companies came from the manufacturing sector (40%), followed by distributors (25%), third-party providers (14%) and retailers (9%). A wide assortment of products handled in the DC was once again well represented, with food and grocery leading the pack at 15%, followed closely by general merchandise at 11%, industrial/chemical at 9%, and electronics at 8%.
In an economic recovery tempered by a lack of consumer con-� dence and spending, how have managers responded? Most are sticking with conventional, low-cost, tried-and-true solutions for their distribution problems. To realize transportation savings, many are adding satellite DCs and renegotiating freight rates. And to keep a lid on operational costs, a majority of respondents are improving warehouse processes, tightening inventory controls, and adopting “lean and green” strategies.
Over the next few pages, we’ll share all of the detailed results on how warehouse and DC operations have changed over the past year. And with yet another year of results in our database, de� nitive trends
N O W 0 N - D E M A N D
2010 WAREHOUSE/DC BENCHMARK STUDY
GO TO:www.mmh.com/wdcbenchmark2010
28 D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 / MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING mmh.com
MMH1012WDCbenchmark.indd 28 12/7/10 1:33 PM
BRIGHTER DAYS AHEAD
Source: Peerless Media Research Group
Figure 1: Profile of today’s distribution network Buildings in distribution network
1 building
2 buildings
3 buildings
More than 3 buildings
TYPICAL PROFILE: Distribution network made up of more than 3 buildings
30%
20%
12%
38%
2M+
1M to 1.99M
500K to 999K
250K to 499K
100K to 249K
50K to 99K
<50K
12%
7%
11%
15%
21%
14%
21%
Size of network in square feet
Most common clear height in feet(for more than 3 buildings in network)
Over 50 feet
40 to 49 feet
30 to 39 feet
20 to 29 feet
<20 feet
10%
11%
31%
39%
9%
Company description
Manufacturing
Distributor
3PL
Retailer
Other
40%
25%
14%
9%
11%
TYPICAL PROFILE: Total area of network: Less than 249,999 square feet
TYPICAL PROFILE: Most common clear height: 20 to 29 feet TYPICAL PROFILE: DC supports a manufacturer
Source: Peerless Media Research Group
Area of service
Global
Entire U.S.
Multi-state region
Single metro area
Western hemisphere
“Half” of the U.S.
TYPICAL PROFILE: Global area of service
31%
25%
22%
13%
4%
3%
28%
10%
12%
11%
15%
25%
300 or more
200 to 299
100 to 199
50 to 99
25 to 49
Less than 25
Number of employees
Number of SKUs
> than 75,00050,000 to 74,00020,000 to 49,99910,000 to 19,999
5,000 to 9,9992,500 to 4,9991,000 to 2,499
500 to 999100 to 499
99 or less
9%3%
9%9%
13%12%12%
8%12%12%
9%2%10%8%
11%19%
27%13%
2%
Annual inventory turns
24 or greater18.0 to 23.912.0 to 17.99.0 to 11.9
7.0 to 8.95.0 to 6.93.0 to 4.91.0 to 2.9
Less than 1.0
TYPICAL PROFILE: 300 or more employees
TYPICAL PROFILE: Number of SKUs: 5,000 to 9,999 TYPICAL PROFILE: Annual inventory turns: 3 to 4.9
mmh.com MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 29
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30 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0 / Modern Materials Handling mmh.com
in warehousing and supply chain man-agement over the past five years can now be identified. It’s time to dive into the results to see how your warehouse and DC operations stack up to some of the top organizations in the country.
Clear trends One of the clearest trends that we’ve seen unfold over the past several years is an increase in the number of DCs that make up today’s distribution networks (Figure 2). The number of networks with more than three DCs increased from 33% in 2007 to 38% in 2010.
On the flip side, one-facility net-works are decreasing—from 39% in 2007 to 30% in 2010. “There’s a trend to move away from a single distribution point to multiple points closer to your customer base,” says Derek Sorensen, senior consultant for TranSystems (www.transystems.com), a supply chain consulting firm and our partner for this survey. “Not only does this move help achieve higher customer service lev-els in a competitive market, but it also helps to cut down on transportation dollars.”
Norm Saenz, an assistant vice presi-dent with TranSystems, agrees with Sorensen’s assessment, but also points to another phenomenon that’s enabling this trend. “While there are companies looking to add DCs, other companies are consolidating and closing facilities to reduce operating costs,” says Saenz. “And as a result, there’s plenty of avail-able, inexpensive warehouse space in the real estate market today.” He adds that many companies are taking advan-tage of this availability to add satellite facilities for temporary, seasonal stor-age, and perhaps relieve storage issues in their main DCs.
Another clear trend has been the continued “leaning” of the supply chain as more respondents implemented this strategy—from 39% in 2009 to 44% in 2010. Why does “lean” remain so popular? According to Saenz, lean has had considerable and proven success in manufacturing; and as a result, it’s quickly making its way into warehous-ing and distribution operations. It’s also a low-cost approach that can bring high-value savings through the elimina-
tion of waste in the supply chain.Within the four walls, we asked
how they’ve been keeping operational costs manageable. Seventy-two percent of respondents say they are “improv-ing warehouse processes” (Figure 4, page 32). “The cheapest thing to fix in your warehouse is your processes,” says Saenz. Sorensen agrees and suggests you start by looking at those steps that hap-pen every day, a hundred times a day. “If you can save seconds here and there,
that translates into real dollars without making a million dollar investment.”
To reduce transportation costs, more than 60% of respondents have re-nego-tiated freight rates—a task Sorensen believes companies should be doing regularly—especially when implement-ing any sort of changes such as opening satellite facilities or reducing truckloads (Figure 5, page 32). “In such a dynamic business, you would want to stay as current and as up-to-date with your car-
2010 Warehouse/DC BenChmark stuDy
Figure 2: Increase in multi-building networksfrom 2007 to 2010
40%
20%
0
Source: Peerless Media Research Group
1 building 2 buildings 3 buildings More than3 buildings
2007 2008 2009 2010
39%
30%33%
38%
Departure from one-building networks
Trend towards multi-building networks
Figure 3: Warehouse management systems in use
Source: Peerless Media Research Group
Full-featuredWMS
25%
30%32%
Basic WMSfunctions
30%28%
30%
ERP used asWMS
21%17%16%
Labor planningfunctionality
5%4%5%
None orminimal
19%21%
18%
Increasinguse of ERP as WMS
About 1-out-of-5 distributioncenters are still not using
any form of warehousemanagement system
2008 2009 2010
MMH1012WDCbenchmark.indd 30 12/7/10 1:34 PM
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riers as possible,” Sorensen says. “Green” initiatives remain a popular
choice with 92% of respondents having implemented some kind of environmen-tal initiative (Figure 6, page 34). While recycling remains at the top of the initia-tives list, there’s a considerable increase in facilities that have implemented “lighting fixtures and/or controls (53% in 2009 to 66% in 2010).” “These lights not only use less energy,” says Saenz, “but combined with motion sensors they turn off when they’re not needed.” Ben-efiting the environment might be great, but Saenz believes it is cost and utility savings that are driving the adoption of these initiatives.
The 2010 DC neTworkWhile the number of buildings may have increased, other properties in the distribution network have stayed essentially the same (Figure 1, page 29). Typical building size remains in the range between 100,000 to 249,999 square feet with clear heights of 20 to 29 feet.
Fifty-six percent of respondents report that they’re handling less than 5,000 SKUs, but the overall mean of total SKUs continues to increase—14,600 in 2009 to 15,315 in 2010 (Figure 7, page 34). Saenz believes this SKU prolifera-tion is a marketing push, not logistics. “It’s marketing looking for the magic bullet trying to figure out the next best thing, trying to be competitive, trying to get sales up,” he says. Sorensen agrees: “I doubt there are warehouse managers who want more items, or more SKUs in their DCs.”
This year, inventory turns are finally on the upswing, with managers keeping less on hand (Figure 7, page 34). While increased demand from a recovering economy is partly the cause, Sorensen also speculates that managers may have gotten better at modifying their buying inventory practices to better match the landscape of the new demand that’s out there.
The naTure of operaTionsThe use of the DC for value-added services continues to be a common occurrence. Eighty-three percent of respondents report doing some kind of special labeling (54%), promotional
2010 Warehouse/DC BenChmark stuDy
Figure 4: Actions taken to lower operating costs
Source: Peerless Media Research Group
Easy, low-costmethods to loweroperating costs
Taken any action (NET)
Improving warehouse processes
Improving inventory control
Changing rack/layout configuration
Reducing staff
Improving information technology
Consolidating/closing warehouses
Re-negotiating leases
Using 3PL
Other
97%
72%
65%
43%
36%
36%
29%
20%
15%
3%
Figure 5: Actions taken to lower transportation costs
Source: Peerless Media Research Group
Request customer to order lessoften, in larger quantities
Taken any action (NET)
Re-negotiating freight rates
Shifting the mix ofcommon/contract carriers
Re-routing trucks/Using TMS
Using more rail includingpiggyback/ TOFC/ COFC
More local/regional sources
Using 3PL warehouses
Change inbound/outbound ports
Collaborate with companiescloser to customer
Adding internal with housescloser to customer
Other
89%
66%
28%
24%
17%
16%
15%
13%
9%
9%
8%
5%
“ if you can save seconds here and there, that translates into real dollars without making a million dollar investment.”
— Derek Sorensen, senior consultant, TranSystems
MMH1012WDCbenchmark.indd 32 12/7/10 1:34 PM
Modern Materials Logistics Management Supply Chain Management
• Automation
• Conveyors & Sorters
• Inventory & Picking
• Loading Dock Equipment
• Mobile & Wireless
• Shipping Pallets
• Storage Systems
• Containers & Totes
• Energy & Sustainability
• Lift Truck & Fork Lift
• Handling & Warehouse Ergonomics
• Packaging
• Software & Technology
www.mmh.com/criticaltopics
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Critical Topic areas help you develop strategies and expand your knowledge. Each topic provides you with the news, information, and resources you need — each day.
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2010 Warehouse/DC BenChmark stuDy
34 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0 / Modern Materials Handling mmh.com
packing (33%), and kitting for produc-tion (29%). There’s a marked increase in the deferred customization of prod-ucts from 3% in 2009 to 13% in 2010.
“By deferring customization, you’re letting your customer specify exactly what they want,” says Saenz, “rather than building up inventory of items you hope they’re going to buy.”
The tide has also turned with the giving of incentives (63%, up from 60% last year). Sorensen believes incentive programs are how managers squeeze
the last bit of juice from a smaller work-force. “People want to maintain the workforce they currently have because of the efficiencies that come with that educated workforce.”
Technology doldrumsDespite a plethora of new technol-ogy, today’s DC remains a conven-
tional, paper-based, single-order pick operation. This year there’s even more conventional, paper-based picking. In addition, 19% of ware-houses still have no warehouse man-agement system (WMS) of any kind (Figure 3, page 30).
“Obviously, people are investing less in automation because of the economy,” says Saenz. “But the more shocking sta-tistic to me is the fact that paper-based is still so high…and I’m wondering why voice is so low when manufacturing and grocery is our highest percentage of respondents.” Grocery, with its full case picking nature, can benefit greatly from voice technology as it keeps workers hands free as they assemble cases on a pallet for an order.
Sorensen points out another inter-esting trend on picking technologies (Figure 8). Radio frequency, voice, and light-directed picking with no scan veri-fication have all grown slightly in the past year while RF-assisted picking with scanning has taken a tumble from 43% in 2009 to 37% in 2010.
“Individually, I don’t know if we can draw a definitive conclusion, but there’s something with those three moving together,” says Sorensen. “Per-haps people are getting comfortable with their quality control initiatives and their order accuracies and are cut-ting out some of these double checks as a cost initiative to get more produc-tivity out of their workers by eliminat-
2010 Warehouse/DC BenChmark stuDy
Figure 6: Environmental initiatives implemented
Source: Peerless Media Research Group
At least one green initiative (NET)
Recycling
Lighting fixtures and/or controls
Fans to circulate cool or warm air
Packaging and/or packing materials
Reusable shipping containers
Metal and/or plastic pallets
Water run-off controls
Upgraded insulation
Solar panels
LEED certification for new buildings
Other
90%92%
75%72%
53%66%
48%44%
44%42%
37%37%
14%15%
15%12%
12%12%
3%7%
4%5%
2%2%
Biggestjump
2009
2010
Figure 7: Distribution center size and scope trends
Source: Peerless Media Research Group
Annualinventory
turns(mean)
# of SKUs(mean)
2007
2008
2009
2010
9.8
8.7
8.0
8.4
12,500
14,800
14,599
15,315
Figure 8: Picking technologies in use
Source: Peerless Media Research Group
Paper-based
RF assisted with scan verification
Light assisted with scan verification
Light assisted with no scanning
Voice assisted with scan verification
RF assisted with no scanning
Voice assisted with no scanning
Other
60%64%
43%37%
15%18%
5%6%
4%5%
4%5%
3%5%
1%2%
2009
2010
MMH1012WDCbenchmark.indd 34 12/7/10 1:34 PM
ing the need to scan—having them do one less step.”
From a WMS standpoint, another interesting trend is emerging. More companies are using their ERP as a WMS. Saenz sees this first hand. “A lot of companies are taking their entire ERP system and using it for every-thing,” he says. “I’m not surprised at all…not that I agree that it’s the right route. I believe the best-of-breed WMS are still much better.” He spec-ulates that ease of integration and the apparent cost control of having just one package are the top two reasons for this trend.
Looking aheadThere is no clearer sign for economic recovery than the increased plans for expansion (Figure 9). Thirty-nine per-cent of respondents report that they are planning on expanding in the next 12 months—that’s up from 33% last year.
Although most are expanding by increasing number of SKUs (54%) and
the overall square footage (53%), the biggest percentage jump from last year is the “number of buildings,” up 48% from 41% in 2009. “All these things are often inter-related,” says Sorensen. “Additional building space may be needed to deal with the purchasing department’s move to buy large quanti-ties at a discounted rate or with corpo-
rate management who’s in the middle of an acquisition and needing space for additional SKUs. Either way, it’s best to look at the big picture and be set up as best as you can to weather the storm.” M
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2010 Warehouse/DC BenChmark stuDy
Figure 9: Likelihood of expansion in the next 12 months
Source: Peerless Media Research Group
Number of SKUs
Overall square footage
Number of buildings
Number of employees
Area of service
Annual inventory turns
Height of buildings
Other
Planning to expand over next 12 months
Planned areas of expansion
No61%
Yes39%*
54%
53%
48%
47%
38%
28%
11%
8%
*Up from 33% in 2009
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36 D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 / MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING mmh.com
Although not new to the materials
handling market, reusable
plastic totes and containers are
growing in use throughout many
industries by addressing seven
key challenges for users.
By Sara Pearson Specter, Editor at Large
R
7 7GAINS77MAGNIFICENT
eusable plastic bins, totes and container use is on the rise. Reusables have long been an accepted option for supporting lean manufacturing processes, notably in the automotive industry. Now, due to the operational gains and cost savings they can bring, these products are seeing increased use for the pro-cessing, handling and distribution of consumables such as food and consumer packaged goods.
Growth in these industries is expected to con-tinue, according to several suppliers Modern talked to about this trend. We’ve whittled down what we’ve learned to seven key areas where this equip-ment is bringing benefits to the supply chain today.
MMH1012_EquipRptReusableTrends.indd 36 12/7/10 1:47 PM
1 1. SustainabilityLong before it was trendy, reusable plastic tote and con-tainer vendors touted the environmentally friendly ben-efits of their products. When used as a replacement for one-way, disposable packaging, durable plastic contain-ers (and associated dunnage to secure sensitive con-tents) eliminate waste as well as the costs of continually repurchasing expendable items.
“Green initiatives are starting to make financial sense as companies establish sustainability goals,” says Ken Beckerman, president of Flexcon Container (www.flexcontainer.com). “Because of competitive pressures in the plastic container market, returnables have held steady on pricing while single-use packaging prices have risen.”
In addition, potential purchasers have had an increased interest in the amount of recycled content used in the bins, he adds. “If a buyer has a choice, they pick the box that has recycled content because it’s the green thing to do.”
It’s important to understand the difference between post-industrial plastic and post-consumer plastic con-tent, cautions Bob Dunne, president of MOD (Meese Orbitron Dunne, www.shipshapecontainers.com). Because it’s specifically engineered for heavy-duty use—including containers and component parts—post-industrial content has known and reliable strength and durability properties that withstand the rough handling associated with warehousing and distribution.
“Post-consumer content, from recycled plastic milk jugs and water bottles, comes with a lot of unknowns from the sorting process, and right now manufacturers can’t really be sure of the strength and composition of the post-consumer content that’s available,” he says.
Additionally, to ensure a returnable container system yields the anticipated sustainability (and financial) ben-efits, it’s critical to place an emphasis on preventing asset loss, says Bill Mashy, general manager of Rehrig Pacific’s materials handling group (www.rehrigpacific.com).
“Although I think a lot of people point to theft as the problem, that is truly a symptom of a lack of under-standing throughout the loop of the benefits of the sys-tem,” he says. “We work to educate our customers, their customers and everybody in their supply chain about the basic premise of returnable packaging. We also evaluate the gaps and help put the controls in place to ensure the returns—because a returnable system only makes sense if you can get the containers back.”
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2. Automated systemsWith labor costs always a key aspect of any warehouse’s bottom line, more facilities are implementing automated systems such as mini-load automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS).
Warehouse managers would be wise to design their system with the tote fore-most in mind, says Norm Kukuk, vice president of marketing for Orbis (www.orbiscorporation.com). That’s because a successful automation operation is highly dependent on the consistent, tight tolerances of the totes that hold the products stored within it.
“If a system is not built to accommo-date the dimensions or weight capaci-ties of totes that are readily available in the market, that can definitely cause a lot of heartburn for someone who has to have a special container developed and tooled after the system is in place,” he explains.
Mainly used for distribution from
retailers’ warehouses or consumer pack-aged goods (CPG) supplier facilities for direct-to-store delivery, most sys-tems use totes that correspond to 600 x 400 millimeters (23.6 x 15.8 inches) because they are frequently engineered by suppliers in Europe, where auto-mated systems are more commonplace.
“Other common tote sizes used for automated storage and distribution of general merchandise, grocery and con-venience store inventory, and automo-tive supplies are 21 x 15 inches and 24 x 20 inches,” adds Joe Borer, market manager for Buckhorn (www.buck-horninc.com).
3. Food handlingWith hygiene and safety regulations making wood and cardboard containers less desirable for use in food handling and processing, interest in reusable plastic handheld and bulk containers has increased.
While beverage, dairy, meat and bakery items have long been distributed to stores in returnable plastic bins, more growers are cap-italizing on the “eat local” trend, with fresh produce put on floor displays in a container delivered straight from the field.
“Not only is plastic easy to clean and sustainable, it also does not harbor pest infestations or bacte-ria,” says David Gargett, national sales manager for Decade Products (www.decadeproducts.com).
“We see large bulk con-tainers going into the tomato paste industry, for example,” adds Buckhorn’s Borer. “Typically, tomato paste is processed and stored in wood containers with a liner, but because of cleanliness issues, that industry and others involved with large bulk storage of food ingre-dients are moving toward plastic.”
4. ErgonomicsTo meet both corporate and OSHA mandates to reduce the amount of weight lifted by workers, suppliers are re-engineering handheld totes to right-size their capacities and reduce the amount of plastic used.
“As components become lighter, the amount of weight that people are allowed to pick up has been reduced—so there’s less need for big, heavyweight totes,” says Kukuk at Orbis. “OSHA’s limit is 40 pounds per container, while some companies don’t allow their employees to pick up more than 28 pounds. So, there have been some design changes to tote weight and per-formance, up or down, to better meet the application.”
Additionally, some companies are moving away from returnable bulk containers to handheld containers, not only for enhanced ergonomics, but also for better inventory flow control, adds Buckhorn’s Borer. “Better inventory con-trol comes from the products being in smaller lot sizes,” he explains.
5. Trailer cubingLarge, durable bulk containers—both collapsible and with rigid, non-collaps-ing sides—have been gaining in use for maximizing the cube of a trailer. Shippers are finding them useful as a replacement for stretch-wrapped, pallet-ized shipments of non-modular, uneven loads that can’t be easily stacked.
“Instead, you can put these items in a container that can be stacked two-high and take advantage of cubing out a trailer to reduce freight costs, says Orbis’ Kukuk.
Collapsible containers sized 45 x 48 x 34 inches currently represent 60% of sales at Flexcon, says Beckerman.
“It used to be 10% of our bulk box business, but users have found that it packs out a truck best, collapses for return, and can also be stacked four-high in a warehouse to eliminate pallet rack,” he says. “We’re also seeing cus-tomers use them with lids almost as a shipping case with protective dunnage to ship returnable equipment to users around the world because it protects
While food items have long been distributed to stores in returnable plastic bins, more growers are capitalizing on the “eat local” trend, with fresh produce put on floor displays in a container delivered straight from the field.
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footprint, and custom-ize it to meet the user’s specs,” says Decade Products’ Gargett. “We can cut down the height to 32.5 inches, cut out walls, add casters, decrease the footprint to 20 inches wide to fit in tight spaces, or use a durable plastic weld-ing process to increase the bin’s height or foot-print.”
Gargett has seen a 100% increase in this aspect of his com-pany’s business in the five years they’ve offered these ser-vices. “Customization as an option is being requested by multiple industries, including food processing, phar-
maceuticals and machine shops,” he notes. �
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the contents so well.”Rotationally molded,
nestable plastic bulk containers with a 44 x 44 inch footprint at the base and a 49.5 x 49.5 inch top dimension are also being used for the same purposes, says MOD’s Dunne. “We offer three heights in those dimen-sions so users can select the stacked combina-tion that best maximizes their trailer space—cub-ing out continues to be a critical driver with the cost of diesel fuel still being so high.”
6. PoolingFor companies wish-ing to take advantage of the environmental, economic and ergo-nomic benefits of reusable plastic containers but can-not justify the cost of ownership, suppliers and third parties both offer leasing as an option.
“For example, in agricultural use, growers just need the bins for their harvest season, which is often just one or two months,” says Decade Products’ Gargett. “They rent the con-tainers, pick fruit or vegetables, put them in the bins, process them and give them back to the pooling company when they’re done. It makes more sense than laying out the capital to pur-chase the containers for the limited time that they use them.”
In addition to leasing totes and containers, some ven-dors also supply value-added services to aid in the man-agement of the units. “For meat processors, we custom-designed a container for use in the grind and trim portion of their production. We lease it to them, but we also pick it up, clean it, sanitize it, and return it to them for their continued use,” says Rehrig Pacific’s Mashy.
7. CustomizationSometimes a standard size, off-the-shelf container won’t work for a given application, due to the size, weight, or spe-cial handling requirements of the products it is intended to handle, space it’s being used in, or equipment with which it will interface.
While designing a custom container is an option, it’s often far too expensive to create the tooling for a limited quantity of 50 or 100 units. Therefore, suppliers are offering “after-market” customization of their standard container products to meet these unique needs.
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Sometimes a standard size, off-the-shelf bulk container won’t work for a given application without “aftermarket” customization, including the addition of casters, height increases or reductions from plastic welding or cutting, and the creation of openings in the sidewalls.
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Deck 2 lines
modern productivity solution
For Delta Galil Industries, a global manufacturer and supplier of apparel for men, women and
children, increasing accuracy and capacity was a must to keep up with increasing customer demands.
“Our pickers were doing 2,000 picks per day with paper,” explains Steven Seidman, vice presi-dent of supply chain at Delta Galil. “We were audit-ing 100% of the orders due to 97% pick accuracy. We desperately needed to increase capacity and accuracy without increasing the footprint of the dis-tribution center.”
Delta has manufacturing and distribution facili-ties on four continents, serving retail giants such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart and J.C. Penney, and leading fashion brands including Victoria’s Secret, Calvin Klein, Nike, Hugo Boss and Pierre Cardin.
And with more than 40 million items shipping a year from its Willamsport, Pa., DC, a new system was critical. Delta tossed out its paper picking sys-tem and implemented a warehouse control system with pick-to-light and productivity management
that could be scaled for future applications (AL Systems, www.alsystems.com). Dynamic picking was a key requirement, as Delta needed to accom-modate multiple pickers in a zone at one time. The system also provides associates with the ability to simultaneously pick orders for multiple customers in a given zone.
Since implementing the system, Delta more than doubled productivity and significantly reduced the number of pickers required to fill orders. Delta’s new minimum requirement for pickers is 3,500 picks per day at 99.5% accuracy. The system gener-ates reports that measure productivity and accuracy rates by picker and zone. However, associates now average more than 4,000 picks at 99.95% accuracy and audit less than 7% of the orders.
“We achieved payback on our implementation in about 13 months,” says Seidman. “We were expecting an 18-month ROI, but did much better due to the dramatic increase in productivity and accuracy.” M
By lorie King rogers, Associate Editor
DynAmic picking Pick-to-light technology increases productivity and picking accuracy for global manufacturer and marketer of high-quality apparel.
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THE SOUND CHOICE.
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Rugged handheld computer upgradable with open source computing platformOffering the ability to co-create adaptable solutions, the Omnii modular mobile computing platform employs open source mobility to a new line of modular, rug-ged handheld devices. The customizable approach addresses technology obso-lescence by enabling the devices to be re-configurable and re-purposed in the field as needs change. The system is included on the Omnii XT10 ultra rugged, modular handheld computer, which features an IP65 and a 2.0-meter drop rating, powerful processor, and extended battery life. Psion Teklogix, 800-322-3437, www.psion-teklogix.com/omnii.
FOCUS ON DATA COLLECTION
Centralized deployment of voice applications across multiple warehousesVersion 4.0 of enterprise voice manager software for voice pick-ing and other warehouse operations has been released. New features enable deployment and management of voice picking applications from a single instance of software in a central data center across many warehouses—even when warehouse lay-outs vary and voice workflows differ per facility. This approach reduces total cost of ownership. Other functional enhancements to the system’s order picking, replenishment, and putaway appli-cations are included, along with additional support for devices from Intermec, LXE and Motorola. Voxware, 609-514-4100, www.voxware.com.
High-performance scanners read bar codes on the moveA line of industrial bar code scanners has been expanded to include the SR61THP high-performance scanner, the SR61TXR extra range scanner, and the SR61T2D industrial range imager. The motion-tolerant units feature illumination and a red laser aimed to quickly read bar codes at top speeds and in multiple colors. The extra range device’s scan engine reads long-range 2D bar codes both near and far. All scanners in the line include laser aimers and 2D near/far long-range optics, the ability to capture videos, and transmission of images over a full speed USB 2.0 interface. Intermec, 800-347-2636, www.intermec.com.
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Automatic tracking of lift trucks, loadsThe VisiblEdge lift truck tracking solution automates data capture of lift trucks and their loads through a combination of data collection devices, load detection sensors, and optical positioning. As lift truck fleets and loads move, software automatically captures and tracks the physical movements for real-time visibility of status and location of goods and materials handling assets. The system includes RFID or optical tags for iden-tification; optical or RFID readers, antennas, power converter and distribution, cables, and proximity sensor devices to capture location information; and software to analyze data. Rush Tracking Systems, 913-227-0922, www.rushtrackingsystems.com.
FOCUS ON Data collection (continued)
Ideal for adding RFID to stationary and mobile devices, the 1-watt, four-port Mercury 6e (M6e) UHF RFID module can be used as the platform for developing fixed/finished RFID readers. The module offers the RFID tag read/range and power manage-ment performance standards of full size RFID readers, but is small
and efficient for use in multiple mobile applications. Features include multi-protocol support to handle several applications with a single module, greater read range for multi-antenna reader configurations, and compatibility with global applications. The
module measures 2.7 x 1.7 x 0.3 inches and has built-in thermal management, four antenna ports, and an RFID tag read rate of up to 400 tags per second at a dis-tance of more than 30 feet. ThingMagic, 866-833-4069, www.thingmagic.com.
Compact, high performance RFID reader module
Vehicle-mounted, voice-directed system improves productivityTo accelerate productivity and accuracy, improve ergonomics, and reduce operational costs with vehicle-based workflows, the vehicle mount Talkman terminal directs workers with voice. Eliminating the need for paper, screens and keyboards—and the need to look away from the vehicle path—the system includes software, a voice appliance, vehicle mounting hardware, power adapters and wireless headset. With the system mounted to and powered from the vehicle, users can move freely within a 20- to 30-foot radius of the vehicle to perform tasks. Once installed, any voice unit can move between a vehicle-mounted configura-tion and a body-worn device with no tools or specialized training. Vocollect, 412-349-2515, www.vocollect.com.
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BLUE HAS NEVER BEEN SO GREEN.
THE NATURAL CHOICE.
Need to reduce your impact on the environment? The CHEP Equipment Pooling System produces less solid waste and greenhouse gas while consuming less
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Miniature bar code scanner for tight spacesBarely larger than a USB plug, a new line of miniature bar code scanners has been launched. The CLV500 series scanners are easily installed in extremely limited spaces, while offering easy configuration through an online tool. Features include high decoding performance, large depth-of-field, and a high scanning frequency of 1,000 Hz, making it suitable for conveyor speeds of up to 16.4 feet per second. SICK, 800-325-7425, www.sickusa.com.
Speech recognition platform cuts training time To reduce training time by more than 75% compared to conventional warehouse voice technology, the Serenade speech recognition platform is offered as part of the Jennifer VoicePlus voice picking system. The enhancement improves accuracy and saves time, permitting individual users go through a 5-minute enrollment process rather than 25 to 30 minutes of voice training. Incorporating adaptive voice modeling, the system also offers advanced noise filtering and suppression techniques, while supporting speech rec-ognition for dozens of languages. Lucas Systems, 724-940-7000, www.lucasware.com.
Handheld bar code terminal runs Windows MobileThe wireless BHT-710BWB-WM bar code scanner terminal is a robust mobile computer that sports the Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system. Its smart-device capabilities enable use in field operations, transportation and logistics, and retail and manufacturing. Features include a 624 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, Bluetooth, high-security WLAN (802.11a/b/g) wireless cover-age, and 12 hours of continu-ous wireless communication from one battery. For reliable reading of high-density or poorly printed bar codes, the terminal includes advanced image-scanning software. Durable, the magnesium-alloy frame survives drops up to 5 feet. Denso ADC, 800-264-9573, www.denso-adc.com.
Middleware manages asset movement dataFor delivery of real-time asset move-ment information, eP360 distrib-uted Internet-based middleware ties together RFID and/or bar code browser-based technologies. The software collects, assembles, inte-grates and delivers data automatically. Applications include management of reusable containers, replenishment items, warehouse items, and multi-facility asset management of tools, supplies and products. For ease of retrieval, all data is centrally held in a SQL transaction database. Scalable, the software may be hosted remotely or onsite. It can also operate as a standalone system or integrate into a larger enterprise resource planning system. The Kennedy Group, 440-951-7660, www.kennedygrp.com.
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PRODUCT SHOWCASE
Intelligent sorting systems A line of intelligent, integrated sorting systems for postal and parcel organizations modernize and lower the cost of mixed mail sortation. The systems are compatible with tilt-tray conveyors, cross-belt conveyors and shoe sorters. To read linear bar code and two-dimensional symbolo-gies, the system features laser and camera scan-ners for automatic identification. The system can be scaled up with add-ons such as label print-and-apply applications, and dimensioning and weighing information. Accu-Sort, 800-227-2633, www.accusort.com.
System monitors truck battery statisticsTo help maintain lift truck battery fleets, the iWarehouse fleet optimization system now includes an iBattery module. The module automatically notifies warehouse managers of key battery statistics—including charge/discharge cycles, high and low temperatures, and low battery water levels—to extend battery life and prevent over-charging. The system draws information from on-board computers mounted on the supplier’s lift trucks, and can be accessed on the Web. The Raymond Corp., 800-235-7200, www.raymondcorp.com.
Clear bins for storage, organizationMade from autoclavable polycarbonate material and offered in four sizes, InSight ultra clear bins provide easy and maxi-mum visibility of contents for improved organization and efficiency. The bins can be stacked, placed on shelving, or hung on the supplier’s rails, louvered panels or storage system. To protect contents from dust, optional lids that do not impede stacking may be specified. Clear length and width dividers create customizable compartment sizes, while a large label area permits part identification and bar code scanning. Akro-Mils, a Myers Industries Co., 800-253-2467, www.akro-mils.com.
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Robotic palletizing for freezer environments
The Severe Duty line of robotic palletizers is capable of work-ing in cold processing operations with temperatures at -20°F. Ideal for products palletized in freezers, the machine includes a robot jacket that circulates encapsulated warm air around the robotic arm during operation. Using an integrated FANUC robotic arm, the palletizer accommodates a variety of product types, weights and sizes while building highly stable unit loads in interlocked, brick, spiral or column patterns. Each system can be fully automated with product and pallet transport conveyor, pal-let dispensing, and slip sheet dispensing. Schneider Packaging Equipment, 315-676-3035, www.schneiderequip.com.
mmh.com MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 45
THE SIMPLE CHOICE.
BLUE HAS NEVER BEEN SO EASY.
Saving time. Saving money.Innovative solutions from CHEP help you do both.
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Reusable foam cradle protects work-in-progressLong-life reusable foam cradles offer durable construction and high memory capability to retain their shape. Ideal for manufac-turing and converting operations to protect work-in-progress during storage and handling, the cradle presents a clean sur-face with a slight texture to prevent slippage. Because they are standalone foam cradles without pallets, they are easily custom-ized to unique requirements. Rollguard Products, 800-925-2626, www.rollguard.com.
Vertical leveler enables opening of trailer doors inside facilityTo save energy and prevent food spoilage, the installation of a vertical storing leveler device at the dock allows trailer truck doors to be opened inside the facility, maintaining temperatures in both areas. The system also prevents pilferage of products in the driveway and reduces the amount of handling on trailers. The device uses a 6-foot long minimum vertical storing dock leveler, special placement of vertical dock bumpers and a 10 x 10 foot doorway. Mountable either on a continuous shelf or in
a shallow pit, the leveler can also be integrated with intelligent dock management soft-ware for enhanced productivity and security at the dock. Serco, 877-933-4834, www.sercocompany.com.
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modern special supplementWarehouse & DC
Easy being green: Make the small things countIn this climate, many materials handling companies are being increasingly socially responsible and are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint. In some cases, this means creating a greener product, in other cases it means a greener process and a sustainable working environment.
By lorie King rogers, associate editor
Back in the 1990s, it was trendy to market a product as green. Now, it’s not cool for a product to be anything but green. In fact, green
isn’t just about the product anymore, it’s about every link in the supply chain.
According to the recent 2010 United Nations Global Compact and Accenture (www.accenture.com) report titled “A New Era of Sustainability,” a survey of more than 750 CEOs from companies around the world, 93% of respondents said they believe that environmental issues will be critical to the future suc-cess of their businesses. And, some companies, including National Grid, are even tying executive pay to environmen-tal performance. In this case, compen-sation is calculated against performance in reaching company carbon emissions reduction targets.
In an effort to both increase the bot-tom line and work to a greater, greener good, businesses are looking for more
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MODERN special supplementWarehouse & DC
Easy being green: Make the small things count
ways to be environmentally savvy. “Many companies are taking a strong position on green initiatives and looking for suppliers that are taking the same initiatives and providing green solu-tions,” says Keith Allmandinger, senior manager of marketing for Komatsu Forklift (www.komatsu.com). “This is driven by corporate responsibility and responsibility to our environment.”
Green is responsible, but in some cases, it’s also required. For example, more and more retailers are demand-ing environmentally friendly products. Toward that goal, Staples now chal-lenges its suppliers to compete in a “Race to The Top” to find innovative solutions for product manufacturing, packaging and distribution; Procter & Gamble recently launched a Supplier Sustainability Scorecard to measure the environmental impact of suppliers; and in April, IBM announced that its sup-pliers must track environmental data.
What are companies in the materi-als handling industry doing to go green? Here are a few examples of how green solutions have paid off in the workplace and on the bottom line.
Electric lift trucks and off-peak chargingEven though we’re in the midst of an evolving culture, people don’t always like change. In regard to lift trucks, says Allmandinger, “People like what they’re using, like the fuel types, and are used to doing things a certain way because they’re familiar with equipment perfor-mance and run time. We have to con-vince them first that a greener way will still get the job done and still have the
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performance they expect,” he adds.Komatsu recently introduced a ver-
satile electric counterbalanced lift truck into the U.S. market that can operate indoors, outdoors and even in cold stor-age where condensation was once an issue. The truck can replace IC units in a number of applications and also can have a positive impact on CO2 emissions.
But with electric lift trucks comes the need for batteries as well as the energy and cost associated with charg-ing them. One way to optimize the pro-cess and maximize savings is to charge batteries during off peak hours.
Utility companies charge more for energy during peak hours when the demand is highest, usually during the day. “This period represents the worst time financially to recharge the bat-tery,” according to Steve Munton, director of emerging technology for EnerSys (www.enersys.com). For exam-ple, it costs about $9 a day to recharge a typical forklift battery rated at 30 kilowatt-hours at 3:00 p.m., when costs are 30 cents per kilowatt-hour. “By simply delaying that charge cycle until 2:00 a.m. when electricity is closer to 3 cents, the cost drops significantly to 90 cents per day,” Munton says. “That’s $8.10 savings, or a 90% cost reduction.”
Improved product, processSimple changes to business as usual can result in dramatic improvements. As an example, Hytrol Conveyor (www.hytrol.com) has a dual green focus. “We’re not only looking for ways to save the end user resources, we’re finding ways to save in our own facility,” says Hytrol’s manager of marketing Phillip Poston.
On the product side, Hytrol has developed a new conveyor system with a decentralized 24-volt motor that uses 60% less energy, in part because it shuts down individual zones and motors when not conveying product.
On the process side, the company uses a powder paint system that helps to eliminate the need for an air permit because no volatile organic chemicals are emitted into the atmosphere. The company also employed a value stream mapping exercise to modify its manu-facturing environment. By removing unnecessary steps, using forklifts for heavy tasks, and creating focused fac-tory areas, Hytrol was able to eliminate 60% of its lift truck fleet, resulting a savings equal to 70 tons of coal per year.
Look to the lightLighting is a universal area to seek green solutions and energy savings. Rachel
Young, communications specialist at Orion Energy Systems (www.oesx.com), explains that replacing outdated HID (high-intensity discharge) fixtures with high-intensity florescent fixtures can pro-duce 50% more light while saving 50% of energy costs. In large manufacturing facilities, the savings can be enormous.
For example, when the Miller Brewing Company replaced the old light fixtures in its Milwaukee facil-ity, annual savings totaled more than $127,000 and 2.1 million kWh. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, that environmental impact was equal to planting 380 acres of trees, taking 340 cars off the road, and saving 3.5 million gallons of gas and 83,000 barrels of oil.
Heating and coolingHeating and cooling systems are another place to look for savings. “In manufacturing and warehouse facili-ties with high ceilings, there can be as much as a 30-degree temperature dif-ferential between the floor and the roof deck,” says Katie Hunt, marketing com-munications specialist for Big Ass Fans (www.bigassfans.com).
By installing large ceiling fans with small motors that consume little energy,
modern special supplementWarehouse & DC
replacing old high intensity discharge lighting with high-intensity florescent fixtures can provide 50% more light while saving 50% on energy expenses. the enhanced lighting solution can also help increase productivity, reduce errors and eliminate the need for task lighting, which provides an additional savings on product costs and maintenance.
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substantial volumes of air can be circulated slowly and quietly through big spaces. With the right fans in the right place, the tempera-ture differential between the floor and the roof deck can be brought to within 2 degrees.
In fact, ceiling fans can take the heat generated by functioning machinery and use it to actually heat a facil-ity. In some cases, mostly in southern climates of the country, the right fans can eliminate the need for a heating system and the asso-ciated cost of the energy source, installation, up keep and poten-tial repair.
Recycle, reuse palletsAnother way to go green is to keep mate-rial out of the landfill. Incorporating reusable, returnable pallets into your supply chain is one way to accomplish this goal.
“It’s a given that this technol-ogy lends itself to recycling,” says Allan Howie, managing director of the Reusable Container and Pallet Association (RCPA, www.mhia.org/industrygroups/rpcpa). Howie adds that reuseables is a hot topic and one that’s at the forefront of the industry.
“Every year 223 million pallets go into landfills,” explains Eric Renteria, president and CEO of Green Line Armor (www.greenlinearmor.com). “Our goal is to reduce landfill waste by 100 million pallets a year.” Renteria’s company has developed a hybrid pal-let that incorporates a 100% recyclable,
bio-composite bumper that encap-sulates the ends of the pallet to add strength and durability to extend its life.
The cost perspective is also green. Renteria explains, “Users can buy one
[hybrid] pallet and use it 200 times instead of buying 20 or 30 standard pallets.”
Pre-cycle packagingOne way to intercept materials before they go to the landfill is to pre-cycle. For example, if a company changes its marketing approach, product packaging may also change, leaving behind a surplus of top quality contain-ers. Instead of shipping the sur-plus off to a grinder or a landfill, pre-cycling gets that product to a new end user.
Gina Crespo, marketing and advertising manager for McKernan Packaging (www.
mckernan.com), explains, “We find buyers for unwanted, obsolete packag-ing components and give them another life and repurpose by putting them back into the industry.”
system can now self-regulate its speed depending on the volume that’s inbound on the system,” says Ruehrdanz. The warehouse control systems (WCS) soft-ware makes that decision using elec-tronic sensors that’s constantly moni-toring where all the cartons are and how they’re fl owing.
2. Print and apply on the fl y. When your supplier is a fancy designer from Italy who can’t be bothered with labeling, you’ve got to be ready with Plan B. The use of print and apply sys-tems allow crossdock operators the fl ex-ibility to deal with inadequately labeled cartons so that proper labels can be printed and applied on cartons as they travel along conveyors allowing them to be immediately cross docked.
“When they fi rst started out, these systems could process 10 cartons per minute (cpm) maybe,” says Steve Haskell, vice president for L.A.-based SDI Industries, a designer, integrator and manufacturer of materials handling systems. “Now you can get 30 cpm reli-ably with a tremendous range of print-ing and software capabilities.”
3. Crossdocking with voice and RFID. With a scan of the pallet license plate, voice-directed operators on the receiving dock can be instructed to quickly move their crossdock pallets to
the correct shipping doors without hav-ing to look at a terminal.
By attaching an RFID tag on a pallet, the simple act of moving the pallet from a tractor trailer through a receiving por-tal not only acknowledges receipt, but allows the automatic download of criti-cal information so automatic crossdock allocations can be made.
The next generation of RFID-enabled lift trucks go a step further by combining RFID data collection with optical real-time location sys-tems (RTLS) to precisely record pallet movement without any operator typing or scanning. As adoption increases, users are investigating the feasibility of using RFID-based technology to elimi-nate the need for some EDI communi-cations by encoding the advance ship-ping information onto the RFID tag to reduce the number of EDI messages.
Vision for the futureWith more trading partners shar-
ing data in real time along with greater levels of systems integration, Manhattan’s Lamphier envisions more “dynamic crossdocks” that constantly look for opportunities to fl ow-through product, even while still in transit. SDI’s Haskell sees equipment improv-ing and becoming more affordable. Soon, you’ll simply be running out of excuses not to crossdock.
50S A P R I L 2 0 1 0 / MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING m m h . c o m
» A Special Supplement to MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING
This gapping conveyor creates mini-mum gaps between cartons. Minimum carton gaps allow the conveying and sorting systems to accommodate more throughput at a slower operating speed.
A sliding shoe sorter diverts cartons using a parallel diverting method.
MMH100401sup_Crossdock_ID 50 4/8/2010 11:36:23 AM
Even the government is going greener. LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) status for new U.S. government buildings has been ratcheted up from silver to gold, ensur-ing that design, construction and main-tenance of the building measures up in a number of environmental fronts.
Ceiling fans break up the stratified air that rises and bring the heat down to create even, comfortable temperatures throughout a facility.
MMH1012supplement_green.indd 49 12/7/10 1:28 PM
modern 60 Seconds with...
John ElliottRubbermaid Commercial Products
TiTle: Senior distribution engineer
locaTion: Winchester, Va.
experience: 12 years
primary Focus: Distribution operations
Modern: Why did rubbermaid decide to automate what had been a manually operated section of your warehouse rather than replace it with another manual system?
elliott: We had planned on replac-ing our existing system with another manually operated system in part because we had been told that automation was going to be very cost-prohibitive. As we got into the project and talked to a number of vendors, we were pleasantly sur-prised at how much automation had become available that could be ret-rofitted to a standard post-and-beam rack system like ours and that it was economical and cost-effective. Those were great improvements. Modern: as you look at other processes that might be ripe for improvement in your facility, how will you make the decision to add more automation?
elliott: We look at three decision points: Can we justify the cost? Is the system reliable? And, will it improve safety? Safety is very important to us, but it is still a soft cost because we’re already running a safe opera-tion. In terms of the cost justification, automation works best when you have repeatable processes, and we’re changing our molds and product mix all the time. But, we have some processes that are repeatable and
lend themselves to automation. So, there, it’s traditionally been a labor justification and whether the payback is quick enough. When it comes to reliability, we have an extensive main-tenance program so that we can run our equipment until the end of its life. In the case of our cranes, for instance, the system still worked, but the struc-tural components of the cranes could no longer be maintained. We are now factoring in the cost of business disruption if a system fails and contin-gency planning as part of the larger project cost when we do an ROI.
Modern: Having just done an auto-mation project, what do you think
has changed about automated solutions that might make them more viable today than in the past?
elliott: What we found is that auto-mated solutions have become more flexible, more scalable and more cost effective as a result of better controls and software. We have been told that we can double the length of the aisles in our automated storage and retrieval system and the controls can adapt. When you look at automatic guided vehicles and tuggers, you can simply adapt your software if your processes change. Those kinds of improvements seem new in just the last five or six years. M
50 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 0 / modern maTerials Handling mmh.com
Jeff H
utch
en
s
MMH1012_60Seconds.indd 50 12/7/10 10:31 AM
classified/recruitment
ExEcutivE OfficEs111 Speen StreetFramingham, ma 01701508-663-1500
Brian ceraolopublisher [email protected]
Kelly Jonesproduction [email protected]
charles tannerDirector of audience [email protected]
salEs OfficEsCt, De, FL, ma, mD, me, mi, nh, nJ, nY, Oh, pa, ri, Vt, WV, eastern Cansteve Mccoy, national Sales Director 508-261-1120 Fax: 508-261-1121 [email protected]
ia, iL, in, KS, mn, mO, nD, ne, SD, Wi, Central CanBob casey, District Sales Director 847-223-5225 Fax: 847-223-5281 [email protected]
ar, aZ, Ca, CO, iD, La, mS, mt, nV, OK, Or, tX, Ut, Va, Wa, WY, Western CanPaul Zampitella, District Sales Director 508-663-1500 x307 Fax: 877-330-7436 [email protected]
aL, DC, De, FL, KY, ga, mD, nC, pa, SC, tn, Va, WV Greg Bolen, District Sales Director 704-875-7977 Fax: 866-680-5930 [email protected]
WEB OPEratiOnsclive PurchaseDirector, Web Operations [email protected]
DirEctOr Of OnlinE salEsPaul Zampitella508-663-1500 x307, [email protected]
custOM articlE rEPrintsreprint management Servicesthe YgS group (800)290-5460, x100 [email protected]
MaGaZinE suBscriPtiOnsStart, renew or update your Free magazine subscription at www.mmh.com/subscribe.Contact customer service at:Web: www.mmh.com/subscribeEmail: [email protected]: 1-800-315-1578 x294Mail: peerless media pO Box 1496 Framingham ma 01701
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label Holders
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To advertise, or for more information
please contact: Jennifer Drevline,
847-223-5225, ext. 11, [email protected]
46 M A R C H 2 0 1 0 / MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING mmh.com
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Racks
Accessorize for faster product mix swaps
New slotting accessories for the supplier’s SelecDeck carton flow sys-tem enable fast, cost-effective prod-uct mix changes. Offerings include drop-in lane dividers that fit into slots along the load side and permit cartons to be added, changed and sorted by size and SKU. To eliminate adhesive labels, a sliding label holder can be placed anywhere along the front of the case flow bed for hassle-free reprofiling. Additionally, the SelecDeck system retrofits existing structural roll-formed racks with-out replacing shelf beams. Frazier Industrial, 800-614-4162, www.frazier.com.
Steel axle carton flow tracksCarton Trax steel axle carton flow track features abuse-resistant 1.125-inch dia-meter polyethyl-ene rollers and chromate-coated steel axles that are free-floating to prevent binding for durable, smooth operation. The heavy-duty tracks incorporate a specially engineered steel axle tooth for close wheel placement that enhances reliability. For carton support, the wheels are placed on 1.5 inch centers. The grav-ity-driven tracks include durable, galvanized side channels, making them ideal for freezer and food stor-age applications. UNARCO Material Handling, 800-862-7261, www.unarcorack.com.
Racking resists earthquakes
Offering greater lateral stability than the supplier’s standard pallet rack, the PLUS rack is ideal for areas where seismic activity or other severe conditions are likely. The rack’s beam end connectors feature four prongs to create a tighter connection with more surface area between the beam and the upright post. Beams are welded 3 inches down from the top of the connector to evenly distribute loads across all four prongs. To pre-vent accidental dislodging, all beams have a beam locking key. Upright frames offer heavy-duty 35-square-inch, 0.325-inch thick footplates with four anchoring holes. Standard frame heights range from 48 to 240 inches. Penco Products, 800-562-1000, www.pencoproducts.com.
Customized push back rack systemsPush back, high-den-sity storage rack permits selectivity and dense storage, making it ideal for storage of multiple SKUs and mul-tiple pallets of individual SKUs. The system includes an integrated cart system mounted on rails in the rack structure at a slight pitch. Pallets are placed on the carts as many as six-deep per storage lane. Each racking system is custom-configured to match specific pallet and load size: width, depth and height. Elite Storage Solutions, 508-230-5755, www.elitestoragesolutions.com.
MMH100301ShowProds_ID.indd 46 3/10/2010 3:52:18 PM
POWER TRANSMISSION STRETCH BELTSPyramid Inc. has manufactured round and flat Pyrathane® belts for over 40 years. Pyrathane® belts are used in a wide variety of low and fractional horsepower drive applications such as live-roller conveyor systems, as well as transport devices for paper, currency and small parts. Pyrathane® belts are manufactured to our customers’ specifications and are of the highest quality with exceptional abrasion resistance and durability.Pyramid Inc.522 N. 9th Ave. E. • Newton, IA 50208Phone: 641-792-2405 • Fax: 641-792-2478E-mail: [email protected]: www.pyramidbelts.com
Come view our annual survey Webcast designed to give the market the most up-to-date snapshot of current activities
and trends in warehouse and DC management.View the Webcast on-demand at www.mmh.com/wdcbenchmark2010
2010 Warehouse/DC BenChmark stuDy
Brighter days ahead
MMH1012_Classified.indd 3 12/7/10 1:30 PM
A U T O M A T I O NThe Intelligent Material Handling Company
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Call or Email For A FREE Space & Productivity Analysis Today!
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New Viper VLMSmall Parts, Items and Inventory Vertical Lift Module
AS/RS Technology Taken To The Next Level…
Imagine being able to dramatically improve overallefficiencies and profitability while reducing labor andspace costs. Take your Lean and Sustainable programsto the next level by incorporating the Viper™ VLMsimple automated solutions...over a weekend.
The Viper VLM Difference:• Up to 5 year warranty available
• Rack & Pinion drive delivers the highest level of performance and reliability
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Sapient MMH Ad December 11/10/10 2:31 PM Page 1
MMH_Dec_ads.indd 4 12/7/10 2:01 PM