The company quickly homed in on the equipment used
to move furniture around the facility. American Signature
had tried various approaches in the past, including carts the
company built in house at its Indiana DC. But none of
these devices proved satisfactory, Deutsch says. “The carts
were either not well built, or they were too good—too
heavy and too bulky and hard to move around. We found
ourselves struggling.”
CALL IN THE ENGINEERS
To find a better solution, the company turned to a specialist in engineered material handling carts, Cleveland-based
K-Tec Inc. Working in conjunction with American
Signature, K-Tec’s engineers developed special carts to meet
the furniture company’s requirements. Among other attributes, the decks feature rolled panel construction to maintain rigidity under full loads (typically 1,200 to 1,500
pounds) while keeping tare (unloaded) weight to a minimum. (Lighter tare weights help reduce the push force
required to manually move loads safely.) The carts, which
have specially mounted caster rigs and a high-strength coupling system, are also engineered to slide onto the forks of
the person-up order pickers used in the DCs, easing put-away or loading for the workers operating those vehicles.
Their use is fairly straightforward. When a truckload of
incoming merchandise is due to arrive, drivers on tuggers
stage the carts at the receiving docks according to directions
from American Signature’s homegrown warehouse man-
agement system (WMS). Once the truck pulls in, ware-
house associates manually load goods from the trailers
onto the carts for putaway. As part of the process, they
attach inventory labels and scan the labels’ bar codes.
Powerful, clean, cost-effective.
High performance
asynchronous drum motor
conveyor drive
; Up to 30 energy saving
; 95-97 mechanical efficiency
; High torque 82-113 mm diameter
; Maintenance-free even in extreme conditions
; Compact, integral design with no external
components (protection rating IP66)
TYPE EL - CLASS I
APRIL 2010
INTERROLL
CORPORATION
+ 1 910 799 1100
US.SALES@INTERROLL.COM
INTERROLL.US
A CUT ABOVE
American Signature is currently using the original K-Tec
carts in its York DC and a newer, lighter version at its
Columbus, Ohio, facility. Both models represent a vast
improvement over the old system, company officials say.
“The difference is night and day compared to what we
did ourselves,” Deutsch reports. “The carts are much better
balanced, and they’re lighter than the carts we [designed].”
He adds that the K-Tec units are quieter too.
The carts offer operational advantages as well. Their low
deck makes loading and unloading easier for workers and
has cut down on damage to furniture. And because the
carts are detachable, drivers can drop them where needed
rather than waiting for them to be loaded or unloaded.
Taken together, those advantages have added up to significant productivity gains, says Larry Tyler, K-Tec’s vice
president of sales and marketing. He reports that the DCs
using the carts were able to double output without doubling staffing.
But perhaps the best endorsement of all is American
Signature’s future plans for the carts. The company says it
expects to expand their use beyond just the York and
Columbus sites to all of its DCs.
