AN AMERICAN
BULLDOG
Finally, the right baler at the right price. The American 3560 CD is a stout machine
designed and built with the quality you’d expect from American. It’s been created
especially for distribution centers, low volume recycling centers and other
facilities that need a reliable small baler. It’s compact and powerful like a Bulldog
and a true performer in its class. With the vision and tenacity of an eagle,
American Baler takes performance to new heights. Proudly built in Bellevue, Ohio,
USA.
INTEGRIT Y I QUALIT Y I RELIABILIT Y I VALUE
800.843.7512
AmericanBaler.com
company relies on its Epicor Prophet 21
warehouse management system (WMS)
working in conjunction with the Swisslog
“SyncQ” software that manages material
flow in the automated storage system.
To facilitate product movement,
Radwell repurposed more than two
miles of conveyors and diverters to
transport bins between various parts of
the building, including receiving, production, AutoStore induction, and product boxing.
Parts for which the company has
received advance ship notices or other
documentation are placed on a conveyor and sent to one of 22 processing
stations. A separate set of 40 processing
stations handle bulky receipts and what
are known as “blind receipts.” These are
items sent to the company without notice
by customers hoping to sell off any parts
from old equipment that may still hold
value. Workers identify the parts and take
photos of them for inventory purposes.
The faster-moving parts are then conveyed to the AutoStore, while bulky parts
and slower-moving items head to pallet
racks, where wire-guided turret trucks
supplied by Crown perform putaway
duties. The pallet area has 10,000 pallet
positions and can hold 38,000 bins. When
items in the pallet racks are needed for
orders, workers gather them using order
picker trucks.
The facility also has an air tube system
that it can use to whisk small parts around
the facility. The system consists of 31 stations where items are delivered swiftly in
the air tubes, similar to systems used at
drive-through bank windows.
Items that need repairs are sent to 12
stations where they are evaluated and
then directed to one of 12 specific work
areas for repairs by type—for example,
small drives, large drives, robots, PLCs
(programmable logic controllers) and
controls, and circuit boards.
Products for the AutoStore are con-
veyed to the five input stations, where
workers remove each item from the trans-
port bin, check it, and scan it into the
AutoStore software. They then place the
item into an AutoStore bin that a robot
has delivered to the station. Random
parts are added to the bin until it is full
or reaches a weight of 65 pounds.
A robot then picks up the bin and
deposits it in an open slot on the top
of one of the stacks.
The WMS works with the SyncQ
software to analyze incoming orders
and determine the location of bins
containing the required parts. The
software then assigns robots to shift
bins to other locations to allow
access to the desired bin.
When parts are needed for orders,
the robots deliver the bins to four
picking stations, which are part of
the Swisslog “Click&Pick” system. A
display screen shows which part or
