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Product: Sporting Goods & Apparel Design Challenge: Our customer made the decision not to add bricks and mortar so they were ultimately forced to go to outside storage, which naturally incurred additional handling costs. Wondering if there might be a way to bring the storage back inside economically, they began to examine alternatives to the 11,000 pallet locations of single-deep, |
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static pallet rack used to house pallet loads of finished products (in this case inflated balls). An obvious answer was to eliminate the aisles. The need for FIFO (first-in-first-out) storage precluded the use of a push/pull system however, they were interested in deep gravity flow given the benefits in space savings and stock accessibility however, they were skeptical because of the range in pallet weights ranging from 160 pounds to 2,400 pounds per pallet. Solution: CSS worked with Wilson to design a flow rack layout configuration to accommodate the sports equipment maker’s throughput requirements and quantity of SKUs received. An evaluation of the existing facility’s layout, lift equipment, and the applicable finished goods package sizes and weights allowed the creation of a dynamic staging system in which all unit pallet loads regardless of their weight flow in a controlled fashion. We also conducted physical tests using actual Wilson products to confirm that pallets would flow smoothly. Exactly controlled horizontal beam elevations in the supporting rack structure ensure that the proper slope is maintained throughout. The system itself consists of 160 lanes each of 10 deep and 15 deep pallet flow rack, four levels high. Each lane houses a unique SKU. The fact that Wilson has large volumes of relatively few SKUs allowed for deeper-than-usual flow lanes, which has a positive impact on throughput. Wilson reported an astonishing 30% increase in order throughput. Both their picking and put-away productivity has increased and they are saving on storage space. The new system also increased cycle counting and improved inventory accuracy |
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phone: 770.514.0711 fax: 770.514.0622 e-mail: innovation@creativestorage.com