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fulfillment process.
“One of the greatest gains we got was being able to send
multiple waves throughout the day,” Barrasso says. She
adds that the AutoStore’s ability to continuously reshuffle
the bins within the stacks allows the system to prepare for
picking future waves in addition to processing the current
wave. For example, the system can
work overnight to rearrange the bins’
positions within the stacks to speed up
retrieval operations the next morning.
In addition, the software can build
mini-waves throughout the day.
The system’s robots gather bins
holding products for the current wave
for delivery to 16 picking stations. The
stations are located in the middle of
the AutoStore’s gridwork to minimize
the robots’ travel time.
A single bin is presented at a station at a time to reduce
the chances of a mis-pick. The design also assures the security of products in the AutoStore. “No one is getting anything out of there unless they are picking,” Barrasso notes.
A display screen at the station shows the worker a picture
of the item (or items) to be selected, along with the quantity to pick. For bins with multiple storage slots, a light above
the station illuminates the bin’s interior and a graphic on
the screen indicates which slot contains the required product. As a result of all these failsafe features, picking accuracy
is so high that the facility no longer bothers to send orders
for quality checks.
Four totes or cartons representing orders are staged adjacent to the source bin for gathering
the needed items. Six-slotted totes are
mainly used for e-commerce orders,
while cartons are used for retail and
wholesale orders. The cartons arrive
from two automated carton erectors
that build boxes in six primary sizes.
Lights and quantity displays at each
tote or carton indicate how many
items should go into each order container. The picking process continues
until the container is full or the order is complete, at which
time it is pushed off onto a take-away conveyor.
Retail store orders exit the system via a Bastian ZiPline
conveyor that transports many of the cartons to value-added stations. Here, workers perform various services to make
the products retail-friendly, such as ticketing or refolding
garments for display. The orders next join up with the cartons that bypassed the stations to pass through auto-taping
and labeling machines before heading to shipping. There,
the cartons are floor-loaded onto outbound trucks.
E-commerce orders are sent to processing stations where
workers remove the items, scan each one, and place them
on a belt for transport to an auto-bagging system. The bagging systems can process 360 bags per hour per station. The
bags are then conveyed to shipping, where pop-up wheels
within the conveyors divert them to one of five lanes based
on carrier assignment.
HITTING THE GROUND RUNNING
As for how the new setup has been working out, Puma executives have high praise for the automated equipment. The
AutoStore system has helped Puma achieve double-digit
savings on staffing costs, which is important in Torrance’s
tight job market, according to Barrasso. “The supply of
workers just is not there to meet the demand. But the
AutoStore is simple to use, and it is very easy to train new
people on it. We can get them working in minutes so that
they can hit the ground running,” she says.
Barrasso adds that being in one building also makes it
easier to move associates wherever they’re needed within
any of the operations. Typically, the building runs two
shifts, but it can ramp up to three during peak periods.
Speed and productivity are also on the rise because the
AutoStore can process 200 lines per operator per hour.
During the recent holiday crunch, 97 percent of e-commerce orders shipped within 24 hours, Barrasso reports.
“We can process 24,000 e-commerce orders a day now,”
she says. “Before, we could only handle about 6,000.”
