When NASA astronauts needed a special Hasselblad lens to take photos from space, they called the world-famous camera-maker—but Hasselblad didn’t have it. New York’s B&H Photo did.

Such is the lure of this unassuming retail store located in a turn-of-the-century building in the middle of Manhattan. “What differentiates us from big box electronic chains is that we strive to provide both our amateur and professional customers the most complete collection of photo, video, and audio products all in one store—no matter how obscure,” says Gary Eisenberger, an executive with B&H (the company doesn’t believe in titles).

And with that mission comes nearly 200,000 SKUs. The challenge, says Eisenberger, was to find a way to have all of them readily accessible for customer inspection in a retail store where showroom space is at a premium. Most of the SKUs are stored in multiple quantities in shelves in the basement. The challenge was getting these products to customers waiting to inspect them one level up.

Ten years ago, B&H responded by developing a multiple lift system where chain-driven lifts transported products in totes from the basement to the street-level showroom. The lifts allowed B&H to maximize their stock in the basement, while providing display units near sales counters on the showroom floor. “Runners” took the tote from a lift to a sales counter where a customer could inspect the product. If the customer purchased it, the product went back into the tote and runners took the tote to one of three access points in an overhead conveyor system.

This system then transported the totes to a pick-up area where a customer completed the transaction. “Our customers do not walk around with bags or carts. Items they wish to purchase are automatically consolidated and are waiting for pick-up when they finish shopping,” explains B&H’s Sam Klein. If a purchase is not made, the tote is returned to the basement warehouse via the lift for re-stocking.

This multiple-lift system worked so well that business grew. The store became so busy that B&H decided to expand their one-floor, 30,000-square foot showroom into the second floor with identical square footage. “We used to have offices on the second floor but we decided to move them to another building and expand onto that floor,” says Eisenberger.

In addition, the chain-driven lifts had become a liability. “They required regular monthly maintenance—grease, lubrication, brake pads, and bearings,” recalls Eisenberger. “Plus they needed on-site repairs when they failed.” They also weren’t keeping up with projected growth. During busy days the lifts were already operating at or near peak capacity.

To add to the stress, having only three access points meant runners had to carry totes over longer distances increasing the need for runners—especially at peak. To cope with the planned expansion without compromising customer service, B&H Photo knew they needed to upgrade their multiple lift system. The goal was to more efficiently deliver product from the basement to the sales counters over two floors under projected peak volumes and minimize customer wait times—but how?

In early 2007, a re-design of the lift system was developed incorporating the second-floor expansion. This new design could not detract from the aesthetics or take a square-inch off valuable retail floor space.

Certainly a tall order, but not impossible for B&H and the three key contractors assigned to the project: Dave Cederholm, project manager for Bastian Material Handling LLC, the systems integrator; Howard Eisenberg, president of United Sortation Solutions (USS), manufacturer for most of the new lifts; and Geoff Sisko, assistant VP of TranSystems|Gross & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in material handling systems.

A base design was developed increasing the number of lifts and conveyors to service the new second-floor showroom expansion. “To validate this base design, we performed a simulation,” says Sisko. “We saw that some lifts were too slow during peak. In conjunction with Bastian and USS, we increased lift speeds and rerouted conveyors to relieve constraints.”

According to Cederholm, “The final design gave B&H the functionality they needed while meeting all of their goals.” The 100,000-square-foot “pick module” basement remained largely unchanged. But now when a product is requested, pickers get the product, put it in a tote, and attach a bar coded ticket and send it to the sales counters via two types of state-of-the-art lifts: vertical reciprocating conveyors (VRC) and continuous vertical conveyors (CVC).

The VRCs are built with belt-driven linear actuators that require no lubrication. They are bi-directional and can stop at multiple levels along the way. Right angle transfers were imbedded onto the lift platform so that the tote can be discharged in any direction. “This was unique to the B&H project,” says Eisenberg. “In all, we installed 29 VRCs ranging in height from five to 26 feet.”

To maximize throughput, two parallel CVCs were dedicated to transporting totes directly from the basement to the second floor, feeding two conveyors going through busy camera counters. “A pop-up mechanism diverts the tote to the sales person,” Cederholm adds. If purchased, the tote travels back through the conveyor system down a lift to the first floor pick-up area.

While old buildings may be a dream to history buffs, they’re a nightmare to conveyor installers. “We had to go through different material—from wooden beams to weak concrete—and we needed to use different types of anchors to hang conveyors,” says Cederholm. “Building plans were old, columns were not the size they were supposed to be and not in the location they were supposed to be.”

But one of the biggest challenges was that the work site is an actual operating store, so all the work had to be done from 7 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. “Everything had to be clean the next morning,” says Cederholm. “There was no leaving tools around, no leaving something half-done that was a safety hazard.”

But the time constraint was only half of the story: “All 31 lifts—some of them three stories high—along with one-thousand feet of roller conveyor, conveyor legs, tools, and other equipment had only one entry point, a 4-foot by 6-foot window on the second floor,” describes Sisko.

“We had to remove the window frame so we could provide an opening to bring these lifts through in the middle of the night,” recalls Cederholm. “Now, try doing this without waking residents in the apartment building directly above.”

Since the second floor opened in October 2007, B&H reports that it’s reaping the rewards of a system that’s meeting its intended goals. “Sales have increased significantly with the expansion,” reports B&H’s Eisenberger. The new lifts are one-third the footprint of the old lifts, giving the company more retail space, while throughput on the new lifts increased from two to six totes per minute—decreasing the waiting time for customers.

With the new lifts, regular maintenance has been reduced from once a month to once a year with near zero downtime. There are now 18 access points in the first floor alone (31 total), up from three, and the additional lifts and conveyors significantly reduced the number of runners, reducing labor costs.

B&H’s Eisenberger cites the cooperation and communication among the contractors as the key to the project’s success. Plans are already underway to expand their consumer electronics department extending the same system.