CONVEYORS
materialhandlingupdate
If you’re using conventional systems designed to handle cases, the answer is no. Here are some things you can do to prepare your operations for e-fulfillment.
Are your
conveyors
ready for
e-commerce?
WHEN RETAILERS FIRST BEGAN DABBLING IN
e-commerce—whether as a pure play or as a supplement to their brick-and-mortar operations—they
often were able to get away with handling order fulfillment manually. But now, as online retailing explodes,
they’re finding that approach just doesn’t cut it. In order to
keep up with the increase in volume and the demand for faster
turnaround times, they have to automate. At the very least, they have to
put in conveyors and sortation systems.
But as they do so, many companies are discovering that the systems that work
well for supplying brick-and-mortar stores aren’t a good fit with direct-to-consumer
operations. That’s because the characteristics of e-commerce orders are very different from
their store-based counterparts.
These differences have a number of implications for fulfillment operations. First, when you’re
shipping directly to consumers instead of stores, the volume of orders is going to be higher.
Second, instead of transporting cases or broken cases, conveyors and sortation systems have to
be able to handle individual items. On top of that, there’s packaging. In a bid to cut costs, more
companies are choosing to mail out e-commerce orders in polybags or envelopes rather than
corrugated boxes, according to Stephen Cwiak, vice president and general sales manager at conveyor manufacturer Interroll.
PHOTO COURTES Y OF INTERROLL
THE RIGHT FIT
All of these characteristics have a big impact on what type of conveyors you use or how you use
them. For instance, small items, soft goods, and items packaged in bags or envelopes typically
aren’t a good fit with conventional roller conveyors.
“Because you can’t rely on the item’s having a large, firm, flat-bottomed surface, there’s a
potential that the item will end up going up and down between every roller,” explains Tim
Kraus, product manager for line sortation at systems integrator Intelligrated. As a result, he says,
small things could get stuck between rollers, and you don’t have as much control over the movement of the bagged items as you might like.
