DC Velocity - September 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

built with an emphasis on water conservation. Besides choosing an air conditioning system that minimizes water consumption, REI took a number of other steps to conserve water wherever possible throughout the building. For instance, restrooms feature no-water urinals and low-flush toilets.

That thinking even carried through to the building’s landscaping. Working in conjunction with the Phoenix Botanical Garden and other environmental groups, REI designed an outdoor space that’s unusual for a logistics facility. It includes a walking trail that features native desert vegetation with the kinds of signage typically found in a botanical garden. The signs describe the plants, why they were chosen for the garden, and how they help the co-op meet its sustainability objectives.

“You will never see this at another warehouse. We made a choice to build a botanical garden for our employees and the community. It allows them to enjoy the outdoors,” Bingle says.

REI chose vegetation that is drought-tol-erant and requires little watering. An underground drip irrigation system provides what little water is needed. Underground irrigation is considered far more efficient than aboveground sprinkling systems, where water would quickly evaporate under the hot Southwestern sun.

Employees are encouraged to use the walking trail and to eat in the garden when weather permits. In addition, the facility’s cafeteria has large glass garage doors that look out onto the garden. On pleasant days, the doors are rolled up to turn the inside and outside areas into one large seating facility.

REI believes part of its corporate mission is to educate others on sustainable practices. It shares insights with other distribution operations on how a facility can be made both highly productive and environmentally friendly. For Bingle and his team, creating a sustainable distribution process and sharing it with others is just a natural extension of the cooperative’s mission in providing quality outdoor products. “Our approach is, we want to bring people into the learning experience of what we have created in this sustainable building,” he says.

action with the product other than loading it onto the conveyor and at goods-to-person workstations.

This automated storage and picking system uses individually powered shuttles to store and retrieve totes of products. Shuttles and conveyors then work together to deliver products to automated picking stations.

The goods-to-person stations are staffed by a small number of associates who can complete 4,000 unit picks per hour, compared with about 500 units per hour in a manual environment. Holding down the headcount in the fulfillment operation has translated to less demand on the cooling system, restrooms, and other building systems. On top of that, the shuttle machines, unlike human workers, do not need lighting to carry out their work in the racks.

The LED lights that illuminate
other parts of the building oper-
ate on occupancy motion sensors,
so they shut off when no workers
are present. In addition, skylights
were strategically positioned over
the main travel paths and over mez-
zanines to allow natural sunshine to
brighten the work areas.

To further reduce its environmental impact, REI’s Goodyear facility operates an extensive recycling program. There are individual streams for recycling plastic, paper, wood, and cardboard, Bingle says. In addition, paper plates and food products from the cafeteria are composted. Overall, some 97 percent of all materials are recycled, meaning that less than 3 percent of materials and waste is sent to landfills.