As the U.S. economy picks up and orders begin to flow again, shippers need to move more product in less time. For many, that means finding a way to increase throughput in their warehouses and distribution centers.

One way to achieve that objective—often without adding space or moving to a larger building—is to install an automated conveyor system. These systems move packages from picking areas, sorting them by customer order and destination and diverting them to the proper location for final packing and shipping. "Automated conveyor systems are bringing the work to the worker, rather than bringing the worker to the work," explains Greg Aimi, research director at AMR Research in Boston.

Because automated conveyors can increase the number of units picked per hour, enhance productivity, and increase throughput with fewer people, they're a good choice for warehouses and DCs that need to handle increased order volumes. Here's a look at three shippers that have used automated conveyor systems to do just that—and have even exceeded production expectations in the bargain.

As the sole distributor of spirits and wine in its state, Mississippi Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) distributes 8,000 to 9,000 cases most days, with seasonal peaks of up to 25,000 cases. Until October 2003, though, the organization had spent years "performing miracles" with a worn-out conveyor and an outdated controls system.

The previous conveyor system was more than 20 years old and had turned into a maintenance nightmare, says Mississippi ABC Director Vince Falconi. The equipment, which was mainly used for picking individual store orders, couldn't keep up with daily volume requirements, nor could it handle any type of wave or batch picking.

"With the old system, a warehouse staffer would get on the PA system and call down for three cases of something, and someone else would put three cases on a conveyor belt that would be manually sorted and then sent down a conveyor to be loaded onto a truck," says Falconi. "This process was very labor-intensive; it could take 12 to 14 hours to move 10,000 cases."

In 2001 Mississippi ABC began exploring ways to improve productivity as it prepared to add 25,000 square feet to its distribution center in Madison, Miss. After reviewing proposals from several vendors, the organization chose W&H Systems because it offered the best price and was able to build to specific requirements, Falconi says.

Leading the list of requirements was wave-picking functionality, which is directed by software from Forte Industries. Picking in waves allows staffers to multi-task and pick for several customers simultaneously. "The order selectors are picking for a specific wave, which could be loaded on three different trucks," Falconi explains. The order selectors go to a slot within the pick modules and pick cases for one or more customers. They then place them on the conveyor belt in wave sequence.

Seven of the 11 pick modules are for slow-moving items, which comprise about 28 percent of nightly volume. The belts from those pick modules lead into what Falconi calls the "7 to 1'' merge area, where they are first scanned. Items in the "7 to 1" area continue on a single belt to the next merge, where they converge with the four high-volume lanes. At each juncture the boxes are scanned, which keeps them in wave sequence. The final sort determines which of three loading lanes each box will follow.

Working in wave sequence has enabled the Mississippi ABC to handle 49 cases per minute and 2,900 cases per hour on the conveyor—a "heck of an improvement," Falconi says. "Going to the new system decreased production time by half. It was designed and built with future growth in mind," he adds. "This new setup has given us enough capacity that we are set for the foreseeable future."

In 2002, book publisher Penguin Publishing knew it had a problem at its returns centers. The company handled millions of returned books at two facilities—one for paperbacks in Pittson, Pa., and the other for hardcover books in Kirkwood, N.Y.—through antiquated processes that required manually moving books on carts and staging them on shelves.

Managing those returns involved receiving books, scanning them, putting them on a cart, and then placing them in the appropriate locations on shelves, recalls Don Cox, Penguin's director of engineering services. Once there were enough books to fill a carton, they were removed from the shelves and packed into boxes on skids for cycling back into inventory. "We were having a lot of trouble keeping up with a large quantity of returns with this system," says Cox. Continued...

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