materialhandlingupdate
BY DAVID MALONEY, SENIOR EDITOR
A new state-of-the-art conveyor system
whisks more than 24,000 items through
the company’s Michigan DC a day.
On a roll
at Amway
When consumer products giant Amway decid- ed to move its Midwest fulfillment operations to a building on its main campus in Ada,
Mich., managers saw their chance for a clean
sweep. From the outset, they rejected the idea of
replicating the setup of the retailer’s former regional facility, located just a few miles away. Instead,
they would use the opportunity to redesign the fulfillment process and introduce more automation.
What prompted the move was a change in the
retailer’s operations. The old building had been a
dual-purpose facility, used for shipping both catalog orders and orders from Amway’s
“Independent Business Owners,” or IBOs—the
local folks nationwide who market Amway products to their friends and neighbors. But the retailer had recently shut down the catalog business,
making the old process obsolete. At that point, the
company decided it would be better served by
shifting fulfillment to a 600,000-square-foot facility that had formerly supported manufacturing.
Although the move offered an opportunity to
start with a clean slate, the design team also faced
some challenges. One of the big questions
involved the conveyors that would be used to
whisk items through the facility (95 percent of
Amway’s products are conveyable). The company
was hoping to improve on the system at the old
facility, which had featured eight miles of convey-
or belt. In particular, it was looking for units that
would be quieter and more energy-efficient than
their predecessors. It also wanted models that
would provide better accumulation and gapping.
ON A ROLL
With the help of Bastian Solutions, a systems
design and integration firm that also acts as a distributor for Hytrol Conveyor Co., Amway found
the solution it was seeking. The system the two
partners came up with features not just one type
of conveyor, but a combination of roller, belt, spi-
