A Adaptive Supply Chain Upgrades Its Distribution Center
The 200,000 square foot distribution center of Christopher & Banks had been supporting quick fulfillment to its branches, but their methods’ transportation expenses were cost prohibitive. Furthermore, there was a strong drive to lessen expenses for transportation by having items repacked to increase box weight. The aging equipment and current capacity were stained by the drive to repack large portions of merchandise. The facility was dependent on an old and inflexible conveyor system that was also where operational challenges and lots of chronic maintenance came from. Conveyor and material handling systems are also utilized frequently in airports and freight handling businesses.
In the face of aging equipment, an inefficient work flow, and a paper picking system, the company thought that it needed an upgrade to continue supporting just in-time delivery and direct to consumer fulfillment operations. Christopher & Banks had help from a material handling consulting firm but put the project on hold until Mike Tripp joined the team as the new supply chain and logistics manager. Tripp joined the team with the know-how and experience to make a plan for a more productive, energy efficient, and ergonomically sound solution that met throughput and budget restrictions. There are also pick to light conveyor systems that use color codes to distinguish different types of materials from each other.
The project was put out for competitive bids and the contract was awarded to Intelligrated in April 2009. The proposal was cost-effective, it offered productivity gains for less than half the cost of the other proposals, it was then placed on a fast paced schedule to be completed on August 2009, before store deliveries for fall began.
The Christopher & Banks facility’s retrofit is made for a new linear flow that has a fulfillment process that’s semi-automatic. The merchandise is inspected and checked for quality in receiving areas, then delivered to staging areas via forklift. Operators make use of RF-scanning to upload the data of new merchandise into the pick-to-light system, where the product is then placed into an ergonomically designed combination of shelf and conveyor support assemblies. The workers at the distribution center add items to master cartons as they move along the Intelligrated gravity conveyor. The semi-automated process of fulfillment is a model of improvements over the old system, the elimination of lifting manually and floor clutter provides a quieter, safer solution that’s also quicker and more accurate.
When the orders are finished for individual stores, the cartons are moved onto a main take-away conveyor belt to a two-level Intelligrated motor driven roller, or MDR, conveyor collection line. With features like zero pressure accumulation and run on demand independent zones, the conveyor decreases energy use and wear, removes product jams and allows the filling of the whole length of the conveyor. With this, order picking can go on independently of shipping activity. Cartons move to a cental merge and sorter and then get routed to a any of three shipping lanes. On each shipping lane, cartons are automatically sealed, then weighed and labeled at a work station and conveyed directly into a trailer at the shipping dock doors.
Some of the facility’s upgrades include a convenient overhead empty carton conveyor given by Intelligrated. With the facility producing up to 4 tons of empty corrugate each day, the reworked empty carton line directly routes corrugate into a waiting receptacle outside, which is then sent for recycling.
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