AS A CROWN CORPORATION, THE NOVA SCOTIA
Liquor Corp. (NSLC) may operate under government oversight, but it’s subject to the same consumer-driven trends
as any private-sector retailer. The need to respond to those
trends while serving two distinctly different types of retail
outlets and a wholesale customer base created some challenges for the company’s distribution center (DC), which is
located in Halifax.
NSLC, which sells alcoholic beverages throughout Nova Scotia,
owns and operates 106 “corporate”
stores. To keep up with consumers’
changing tastes and expectations,
the stores are stocking a wider
variety of products than in the past
while adopting new approaches to
store layout, customer service, and
merchandising. NSLC also supplies 60 “agency” stores that are
authorized to sell alcohol. Agency stores, many of which are
small family-owned businesses, order a limited assortment
in small quantities on a weekly basis.
These conditions have led to stock-keeping unit (SKU)
proliferation, including more slow-moving SKUs than in
the past, as well as changes in how product is received,
stored, and picked. For example, for the agency stores,
NSLC typically picks single cases and individual bottles.
Furthermore, because Canadian ergonomics regulations
limit the weight a worker can lift to 18 kilos (about 40
pounds), many products must be shipped in less-than-pal-letload quantities. As a result, the DC increasingly had to
store pallets holding only one or two layers of product. All
of those changes meant “less bulk picking across a greater
number of SKUs, and a greater number of articles with
smaller quantities on both inbound and outbound,” says
Brad Doell, vice president, supply chain, procurement, and
facilities.
The DC was mostly doing floor-level picking from two
locations, one above the other. These slots were 48 inches
deep but only 30 inches high because of rack modifications
to accommodate the growing number of partial pallets.
While those modifications did create more slots, they were
difficult for operators to maneuver in.
The end result was a DC that was becoming inefficient and was running out of space. Expansion was
not an option, so Doell and his colleagues turned to
their Raymond-authorized sales and service center, G.N.
Johnston Equipment, for ideas on how to store more inventory in the same amount of space.
The solution they chose was to
convert two 11-foot-wide aisles to
three very narrow aisles (VNAs)
that are just six and a half feet wide,
a move that would give the DC an
additional aisle of storage. The new
configuration created 1,000 new
pallet positions in a vertical pick
configuration, a gain of about 30
percent in the facility’s capacity.
The VNA area largely handles
slow movers that arrive and are stored on pallets but are
picked as “eaches” or by the case. To serve that area, G.N.
Johnston brought in two Model 9600 Swing-Reach turret
trucks. The new trucks are flexible both horizontally and
vertically, and allow operators to pick either side of an
aisle. The trucks’ paths are controlled by Raymond’s
“intelliguide” wire guidance system, which simplifies the
drivers’ job. “Once the operators are locked on the wire,
they can concentrate on the task of horizontal and vertical
movement and selecting product,” Doell says.
NSLC’s warehouse employees were instrumental in
planning the new layout’s design and product placement,
Doell notes. “They are the ones doing the work, so their
input was very important,” he says. “By having a say, they
also had buy-in and an understanding of what we were
trying to accomplish with the ergonomics and capacity
improvements.”
Doell is satisfied with NSLC’s investment in the new aisle
configuration and equipment. “It’s a great way to better
utilize the existing box,” he says. “If and when we need to
bring in more items, we know we have a solution that works
and that we can add to it with no problem.”
Converting part of its DC to a very-narrow-aisle (VNA) configuration let the Nova Scotia Liquor
Corp. handle more products within the facility’s existing footprint.
Thinking inside the box
