DC Velocity - March 2009

need more space? raise the roof!

When companies need more warehouse space, the usual strategy is to add a wing onto an existing building or simply move into a larger facility. But what if those options aren’t available? The solution, says Toronto, Ont.-based Rooflifters, is to build up, not out.

This unusual company literally raises the roof on buildings to increase the space available for storage. Rooflifters replaces a building’s existing columns with its patented sliding columns, which act like jacks. After workmen separate the roof from the walls, the columns slowly raise the roof to the desired height. Then it’s a matter of extending the walls upward and reattaching the roof. The painstakingly engineered process typically takes a few weeks and can be done in sections to avoid disrupting existing operations.

Rooflifters executives say their solution costs less than demolition and is far cheaper than building new. There is little material to dispose of, and the original roof, lighting, and sprinkler systems usually remain intact. Because the building’s footprint is unchanged, a roof-lift usually isn’t subject to the same regulations, zoning restrictions, and taxes as new construction.

Before-and-after photos, a Discovery Channel video, and case studies of such companies as Planter’s Peanuts (which turned a long-vacant building into a modern distribution center on the cheap) can be found on Rooflifters’ Web site ( www.rooflifters.com).

shhhh … order fulfillment in progress

Some third-party logistics companies specialize in a particular industry. Others focus on certain types of service offerings or geographic coverage. Now, a new 3PL has come along with a unique angle—what you might call the “Look Ma, (almost) no hands” approach to order fulfillment.

Quiet Logistics, which announced its launch at ProMat 2009, is building its service offerings around Kiva Systems’ Mobile Fulfillment System. Kiva’s solution uses robots to bring items on movable shelves to warehouse workers for receiving, picking, and shipping. Quiet Logistics says it can provide order fulfillment, returns processing, and other services for considerably less than its competitors can because it doesn’t need costly automated conveyors or sortation systems. Furthermore, since inventory comes to the workers rather than the other way around, fewer people are needed than in traditional setups.

How did the 3PL get its unusual name? Kiva’s little orange robots produce a quiet hum as they zip around the DC floor. And with no noisy conveyors or forklifts, said Quiet Logistics CEO Bruce Welty at a press conference, his company’s facility will be downright peaceful compared to most DCs.

inbound

don’t try this at home

Not long ago, we needed a break from a late-night research project. Just for the heck of it, we went to You Tube, the online depository of amateur film clips. We searched for “forklift,” expecting just a handful of results. After all, how many people would bother to film forklifts—or think that others would want to watch them?

Quite a few, it turns out. A cursory search turned up more than 100 videos. Some were posted by dealers and manufacturers trying to make a sale. But most were filmed by lift-truck drivers and their co-workers. Many show risky behavior that could—and probably should—cost the “cowboys” their jobs. Others preserve for posterity drivers’ incompetence: Videos of toppling product abound, and one security-camera film shows a driver raising a walkie’s mast as high as it will go and absentmindedly ripping a sprinkler pipe from the ceiling, with predictably soggy results.

Here are some of our favorites, a disproportionate number of which seem to originate in the United Kingdom and Australia. Just go to www.YouTube.com and search for these titles: