BY DAVID MALONEY, SENIOR EDITOR
AS/RS
equipment&applications
The prospect of losing three
key employees to retirement
proved to be just the impetus
switch-maker Saia-Burgess
needed to automate its
warehouse operations.
the big
switch
IN ONE SENSE, THREE EMPLOYEES AT SAIA-BURGESS’S VANDALIA, OHIO, WAREHOUSE
provided the impetus for dramatic changes in operations by leaving the company.
The three announced that they planned to retire, and senior management, seeking to rein in
labor costs, decided they would not be replaced.
That caused operations managers to look closely at what were largely manual operations and
rethink how they handled order fulfillment. And the changes they implemented resulted in a
leaner, more efficient warehouse operation.
Crunch time
A division of Johnson Electric, Saia-Burgess produces solenoids, switches, and motion solutions that are used by original equipment manufacturers in a variety of products, including
ATMs, security monitoring systems, and medical devices. The Vandalia manufacturing facility,
one of two that the company operates in the United States, includes a small onsite warehouse
that holds parts and components needed for manufacturing as well as for filling orders from
the company’s 3,000 or so customers.
Until just over a year ago, items housed in the 7,000-square-foot warehouse were stored in
bins on shelving. But that system had become increasingly unworkable over time. As the number of SKUs stored at the site swelled to 10,000, the warehouse ran up against a space shortage,
which eventually forced the company to rent an offsite overflow storage facility.
At the time, picking was largely a manual process. When items were needed for manufacturing or order fulfillment, workers would select the products by hand using paper pick lists, filling one order at a time. But there were a couple of drawbacks to this approach. To begin with,
it was time-consuming. The average order consists of 250 pieces, which meant workers spent a
lot of time trudging up and down the aisles in search of various parts and components.
