DC Velocity - December 2019

40 DC VELOCITY DECEMBER 2019 www.dcvelocity.com applications

A look at how DCs are using equipment and services to rev up their operations

AS ONE OF THE LARGEST CONVENIENCE-store distributors in the United States, Wisconsin-based Chambers & Owen stocks about 8,000 items that are individually picked, packed, and shipped to fill weekly orders from its customers throughout the Midwest. The three-shift-per-day operation can’t afford a moment’s downtime, so when the conveyor system in its fulfillment center was reaching the end of its life a few years ago, company leaders set out to find partners that could deliver a needed upgrade without shutting the system down for a second. Chambers

& Owen partnered with systems integrator Modo 8 and conveyor solutions provider TREW Hilmot to get the job done, performing incremental installations of the system daily to keep the 252,000-square-foot Janesville, Wisconsin, facility up and running.

“We started [installing] in January and ended in May
[2019], and we never missed a day,” reports Mike Sullivan,
vice president of operations for Chambers & Owen.
“The [fulfillment] process was fully running during this
conversion.”
The end result: a high-efficiency, low-maintenance sys-
tem that has improved throughput and reduced fulfillment
times, ensuring that local stores are kept fully stocked with
candy, coffee, grocery items, snacks, beverages, tobacco
products, and more.

CHALLENGING TIMES

Chambers & Owen’s primary challenge was that its once
state-of-the-art sortation and conveyor system wasn’t able
to keep pace with the times. Items needed to be picked and
packed faster than ever before, but the system was often
slowed down by various factors. Packaging is one example.
The plastic packaging around a case of water, for instance,
would often stick to the sides of the conveying system,
especially in humid conditions, causing slowdowns or a
backup. Item size is another example. Chambers & Owen
wanted a conveyor system that could automatically adjust
to items of different sizes and weights, keeping them
centered so they wouldn’t be pushed to the side and risk
getting stuck.

“We have multiple sized boxes and multiple weights,”
Sullivan says, noting that inventory items can weigh any-
where from one pound to more than 70 pounds. “Conveyor
systems have a hard time adjusting to differences in size and
weight. [We wanted to know that] no matter what the size
or weight of an item, it could be conveyed easily.”
As for maintenance, the system’s age made replacement
parts hard to find. The distributor needed a system that
worked faster and smarter, and that would allow on-site
employees to diagnose and fix problems quickly. Reliability
was key too.