DC Velocity - January 2016

Cut the
Trash Talk!

Add a BloApCo Shredder above your baler and stop complaining about your Trash Line.

BloApCo warehouse shredders greatly expand disposal capacity and:

www.bloapco.com 800.959.0880

▲ Eliminate jams and ensure your production area is always clear of OCC

▲ Increase bale density and lower your haul-away costs

▲ Save energy and improve your environment with quiet, low HP, low dust performance

PMS 485

PMS 2728

CMYK 100M 100Y CMYK C96 M66

ShredderAdDVC121311.indd 1 12/13/11 1:38PM

whereby workers assemble parts into kits that can be sold as a single repair solution. For example, a mechanic replacing a wheel bearing could buy a kit containing all the needed parts for the job, including the bearings, seals, and nuts.

Automation plays a role here as well, helping to ensure that all of the needed parts are accumulated properly at the workstation. The carton receiving the parts is placed on a scale. The scale’s display screen has a visual indicator to show when the proper pieces are accumulated by weight—showing green when all parts are present (as determined by weight) and red when something is missing or there are too many parts in the carton. Another display presents a photo of each part to aid the packer in making sure the right parts are included. Approximately 20,000 kits are created daily in the facility.

The cartons of kits are packed into totes or onto pallets and become new SKUs that head to the OPS tote system or the MPS pallet system, where they are made available for order filling. Repacked items and larger kits that are too big to fit into the OPS are sent to pallet storage in the MPS system.

GOODS-TO-PERSON PROCESSING

Febi bilstein’s workers process about 1,100 orders each day, representing 130,000 individual items. The automated systems help to speed these orders along and allow much of the available labor to be diverted to repacking and other duties.

Items to be picked for orders come from each of the automated systems. Goods-to-person procedures are used to assure speed and accuracy.

In order to facilitate picking out of the OPS miniload, cranes are used to retrieve source totes containing products. These totes are then sent to 13 sequencing buffers. The buffers are designed to release the totes in a desired order to 26 goods-to-person picking stations located on two floors of the building, 13 stations per floor. Typically, heavier items are picked first and deposited into the bottom of customer totes, so these products are the first to enter a goods-to-person station.

Items for individual customer orders are
picked one at a time into a single staged
order tote.

Source totes containing products are presented one at a time so that only one SKU is available for picking, virtually eliminating any chance for error. A display screen indicates the quantity of that SKU to pick into the order tote. As soon as the pick is confirmed, the weight of the source tote is checked as a further safeguard against picking errors. The source tote then leaves the picking station, and another source tote is immediately presented for the next selection. The totes continue arriving in this fashion until all items are picked for the order. In some cases, the order tote may be passed along to other picking stations to complete the selection process.

Once picking from the OPS is completed, the tote heads to one of 52 packing stations (two stations serve one goods-to-person picker).

The WMS determines the size of the carton needed for the order and instructs the worker at the station to remove the items from the order tote and place them into the appro-priate-sized carton. Many of the individual shipping cartons bound for repair shops are shipped out via parcel carrier. The parcels are accumulated into wire cages that forklifts load into the parcel trucks.

Orders heading to wholesale distributors are usually packed into large corrugated Gaylord boxes for shipment on pallets, while other customers’ orders may be packed into wooden crates or metal racks, depending on customer requirements. Large odd-shaped items that don’t fit into the typical carton are placed into large boxes and loaded individually onto trucks.