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www.steelking.com
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DESIGNED TO PERFORM
For over 40 years, Steel King Industries has been
designing and manufacturing high-quality,
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• AS/RS Storage Systems
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• Cantilever Racks
• Portable and Custom
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL 800-826-0203
Cantilever Rack
Rack Storage Systems
Pallet Rack
Dynamic Storage
48 DC VELOCITY DECEMBER 2015 www.dcvelocity.com
er) carton, saving money on void
fill, freight charges, and corrugate
material.
In addition to helping warehouses
hold down shipping costs, a dimensioning machine can be a crucial
tool for shippers negotiating rates
with carriers.
“You’re not just going to negotiate
by price, you’re going to negotiate by volume; you can’t rate-shop
without giving them dimensions,”
said Bob Fischer, founder and CEO
of Advanced Distribution Solutions
Inc. (ADSI) of Schaumburg, Ill.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE DC …
The benefits of capturing the precise
dimensions of every item extend well
beyond the packing station and shipping dock, however. That information
has become critical to efficient DC storage
practices as well.
That’s because knowing the exact size
of items allows DCs to optimize product
slotting, packing the maximum number
of items into valuable storage space.
It’s no accident that some cubing and
weighing systems are designed to measure
packages with an accuracy of one-tenth of
an inch for shipping applications, and an
even more precise five one-thousandths of
an inch for warehousing and distribution.
“Real estate is costly; if you save space,
you save money,” Headley said.
Makers of dimensioning machines
have kept pace with these demands by
upgrading the technology over the years.
The first measuring systems used ultra-sound-based platforms, but manufacturers quickly moved on to infrared technology, then digital cameras, and finally
the laser-based 3D cameras with image
processing capabilities found in today’s
top-line systems.
Among other benefits, these enhancements have made it possible for operations to use the equipment to weigh and
measure pallets on freight docks, not just
parcels neatly lined up on indoor conveyors, said Jerry Stoll, marketing manager for transportation and logistics at
Columbus, Ohio-based Mettler Toledo
LLC, a maker of weighing and dimensioning equipment.
Commercial parcel carriers have been
using top-shelf dimensioners for years,
but many less-than-truckload (LTL)
freight carriers are still using manual tape
measures to estimate density, Stoll said.
When laser technology finally entered
the LTL market in 2006 or 2007, trucking
companies realized they could use the data
provided by the systems to participate in
global multimodal moves with partners
who needed precise measurements.
“Even palletized goods are rarely perfectly square,” said Stoll. “They can be
obscure or ‘ugly,’ with protrusions sticking out that make them oblong or irregular. The challenge is to determine what
