DC Velocity - December 2017

that directs all of the activities. The three-shift operation has the capacity to distribute more than 25 million pairs of shoes annually.

The project was not without its challenges, however. For one thing, the available land was limited, so Clarks decided to build upward instead of outward, making extensive use of automated equipment. For another, because the DC was built close to town, building codes restricted the facility’s height. Although a variance was granted to build to a height of 70 feet above ground level, space would still be tight. So to fit in the AS/ RS, a four-level facility was constructed with the bottom level underground when viewed from the front entrance.

The new building has a relatively modest footprint of about 450,000 square feet, with some additional footage to expand when needed. The automated systems use the full height of the facility, while picking is performed on mezzanine levels, which have additional mezzanines located above them to accommodate future growth.

“We wanted to make sure we had the capacity to meet our future business needs,” says Paul Clark, Clarks’ group performance and optimization leader.

“We can grow that capacity in places by adding more picking stations and other work areas. So it gives us some flexibility.” The automated systems occupy most of the facility. Approximately two-thirds of the building consists of racking, including racks for automated storage. The DC also contains conventional racks, which are used to hold some packed products and which are serviced by Raymond forklifts.

SHOE ARRIVALS

Today, products flow through the automated facility with choreographed precision. Processing begins at the facility’s four receiving docks, where ocean containers filled with goods are unloaded. Most of the merchandise arrives floor-stacked in the containers, which enter the country through the ports of Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia. Two Caljan telescopic conveyors from Rite-Hite extend into the containers to aid in the unloading process, with each conveyor able to move between two of the four doors.

Incoming cases are first weighed and measured. About 3 percent are then conveyed to a vendor compliance area, where these receipts are further inspected for quality. Some repack may also be done in this area if vendor cartons don’t meet the minimum standards for automated processing.

Label applicators next place a bar code “license plate”
onto each received carton, including those that have passed
through the compliance area. The cartons are then scanned
using fixed scanners from industrial sensor manufacturer
Sick and conveyed to a large carton-level AS/RS. The sys-
tem has 14 aisles and 30 levels of racking. TGW storage
and retrieval cranes operate in the aisles, which are 600 feet
long. The cranes are equipped to carry two cartons at a time
to 511,000 locations, where they are stored double deep.

To build goodwill with the Hanover community, Clarks provides tours to local school groups and even allowed students to name the storage and retrieval machines. For instance, one machine is named BOB, short for “bring our boxes.” The students also drew pictures of their namesakes that are displayed on the fencing at the ends of the aisles.

RUNNING SHOES

As orders arrive, the warehouse management system directs the AS/RS to retrieve needed items. These are conveyed to the large active OSR Shuttle system for fulfillment.

“The OSR is the bread and butter of
our operation,” says Smith. “Knapp uses
algorithms to put the inventory in the
right place, and then we rely on the solu-
tion to do the work.”
The OSR Shuttle features 10 aisles
and multiple levels of storage positions.

Robotic shuttles glide on rails on each level to service the positions. The OSR is actually two systems in one, with each functioning separately. OSR1 is used to feed order picking stations, while OSR2 holds packed goods until they are ready for shipping.

The company experiences two peak seasons—December/
January and July/August. In an effort to balance work load
during these peaks, orders like those for the wholesale
channel are filled in advance and placed into OSR2, where
they’re held for shipment. “This allows us to get ahead from
an order fulfillment perspective,” says Paul Clark. “We can
smooth out the workflow, and it [frees up] capacity for
when we need to make a big push.”
The OSR system has 235 total shuttles, with about four
shuttles operating on most levels within each aisle. Upon
arrival from the AS/RS, products are diverted to an aisle,
raised vertically by lifts to the assigned level, and then
transferred onto the shuttles for horizontal transport to the
storage positions. When an order is prepped for assembly,
the shuttles retrieve the items for delivery to 10 goods-
to-person processing stations. Five stations are located
on the ground floor, with the other five on a mezzanine
level above. Each of the 10 aisles is dedicated to one of the
picking stations to shorten delivery time, but the system is
designed to deliver products from any aisle to any station.

Only one order is processed at a time at a station, and only one stock-keeping unit (SKU) of source product is presented. This makes it virtually impossible to pick the wrong product.