into such product lines as nutritional supplements, jewelry
and accessories, and health and beauty aids. That meant the
conveyors selected would have to be capable of transporting
anything from an empty carton weighing a few ounces up
to an order weighing 50 pounds.
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, spiral, curved, incline, gravity, accumulating, and trash conveyors that serve just about every area of the DC. The conveyors in the new system, most of which were supplied by
Hytrol, are equally capable of gently handling a big box of
dog food as a carton containing a single tube of lipstick.
“We have a wide range of conveyors. There is a purpose
behind every type,” explains Paul Slack, senior engineer at
Amway. “Within a line, we go smoothly from one type to
another—whatever is best to do the job.”
Rollers are employed for basic transport in this extensive
network (there are over 400,000 total rollers found within
the system’s conveyors). Belt conveyors are used in areas for
accumulating, weighing, and scanning, among others. The
system has 36 scanners arrayed along its various paths.
Among the workhorses of the system are Hytrol’s E24
modular conveyors, which provide zero pressure accumulation and gapping with the added benefit of plug-and-play
connectivity. That makes them easy to install and later
reconfigure. Their 24-volt design also provides efficient,
quiet operation. Rollers shut down when there is no product present to convey.
JUST SKIP IT!
Another benefit of Amway’s new conveyor design is that it can
accommodate zone skipping. In the old building, orders had
to pass through all pick zones whether the zones contained
items needed for the order or not. In the new facility, that’s no
longer necessary. Under the current setup, the facility’s
RedPrairie warehouse management system is able to route
cartons so they bypass zones that do not contain any picks.
“The conveyors now give us some routing options, and
we have the flexibility to direct cartons where they need to
go,” says Deb Parmé, Amway’s director of North American
logistics. “Not everyone is touching every box now, which
reduces labor.”
The conveyors serve a pick-to-belt area, where full cases
are selected; a split-case area; and a pick-to-combine area,
where small-carton items and split-case items are consoli-
dated into a single outbound carton to save on shipping.
Picking in these areas is directed by a combination of pick-
to-light and pick-by-voice technologies, with both systems
supplied by Bastian.
DIVERSIONARY TACTICS
Bastian also provided several ZIPline zero pressure accumulation conveyors that feature a “tacky,” or rough-sur-faced, belt that allows for quick acceleration and deceleration without product slippage. These are deployed in areas
where product is to be inserted or diverted. In all, the system at Amway features 51 total conveyor diverts.
Among those diverts is a section that feeds three French-made packaging systems from B+ Equipment and its
American partner, Sealed Air Corp. These machines “right
size” cartons by folding down the top edges to meet the
height of the tallest item in the carton. The system then
glues a lid onto the box.
In addition to routing items to the various picking areas,
the conveyors also serve document insertion areas, the
print-and-apply applicators, and the packaging area. In-line
scales built into the conveyors also perform weight verification at several stages along the conveyor journey to assure
that true weight matches expected weight.
Once all products have been packaged, the cartons enter a 4-
to- 1 sawtooth merge that lines them up for sorting via a nar-row-belt sorter. Wheels at the 16 diverts pop up at a 30-degree
angle between the conveying bands of the sorter to nudge
products down spurs to awaiting docks. This unit is able to sort
90 cartons a minute, serving four pallet build areas and 12
shipping lanes. Cartons are floor loaded onto trailers aided by
a telescoping extendible conveyor supplied by Adjustoveyor.
By all accounts, everybody involved in the project is happy
with both the design process and the results. “We had a good
idea of what we wanted to do, and everyone was engaged in
it,” notes Parmé. “With the help of everyone, we were able to
take our ideas and apply them to this new facility.” ●
Editor’s note: The facility described in this story is featured
in “Move it!,” a new Web-based TV series that takes viewers
inside the operations of leading companies and introduces
them to the people, cutting-edge technologies, and strategies that make it all work. To view the episode and see
Amway’s conveyors in action, visit www.moveitshow.com.
