Racking in frame for success
March 1st 2011 A BITO solution shows the importance
of storage systems in ensuring the
success of picking implementations
Racking from BITO Storage Systems is playing a key role in
maintaining the flow for highly accurate order picking at
Alliance Healthcare's 56,000 sq ft distribution centre in
Exeter. BITO integrated its CLS around the picking conveyor
loop and A-Frame picker, installed in the new DC by systems
integrator Knapp.
BITO has installed a Carton Live Storage (CLS) system to feed
both an automated A-Frame picking system and manual pickers
building orders for delivery to pharmacies, hospitals and
dispensing doctors throughout the south west – twice daily.
Alliance Healthcare's Exeter Service Centre supplies some 9500
medical product lines and picking has to be quick and accurate.
Moving into the new building in January this year to
accommodate a new automated order picking system, the
company is now reaping its benefits in terms of accuracy and
speed of operation.
The picking process begins when Alliance Healthcare's
standalone, company-wide order and delivery system releases
orders for picking. It instantly selects the appropriate size tote to
avoid having just one item, or a small order, rattling around
inside a large tote and causing delivery vehicles to carry lots of
empty space.
As each tote is barcoded, the system can track them as they
pass readers and direct them to the required location for the
items on each order. Once despatched onto the transport
conveyor the order's tote goes first to the A-Frame, a unit that
comprises rows of dispensing channels holding vertical stacks of
the fastest moving products. The tote waits beneath the AFrame's
dispensing conveyor to receive the fast moving items it
requires, which are ejected from this automated picking system.
About 70 per cent of picking at the Service Centre takes place
on the A-Frame; the remaining products are picked manually.
Orders requiring products from the A-Frame only are taken
directly to despatch. If other items are required for the order, the
tote continues to the two manual picking areas: one aisle for
medium speed goods, where products are picked directly from
the CLS and another aisle for slower goods where products are
picked from both CLS and BITO shelving.
When the tote arrives in these areas on the transport conveyor
it gets pushed off at the appropriate station onto the picking
conveyor, which runs beneath the CLS pick face on one side of
each of these aisles. The picker, wearing a wrist-mounted scanner
with an LCD screen, scans the bin and pick information is
displayed on the scanner's screen, enabling quick and accurate
location of the correct product on the flow shelves. Once picked
the tote is scanned again to let the system know the pick is
finished at that location. It goes back to the transport conveyor
and continues to the next station.
Once the order is complete it goes to despatch where it is put
on the required delivery vehicle.
The density of storage provided by CLS allows products in the
manual pick areas to be close to hand and each person picks only
within a small area, avoiding long, time consuming walks. In the
previous facility, this manual pick stock was stored in ten rows of
conventional racking, each about 30 metres long. One person
would have to walk up and down the aisles picking a single order,
which could take up to five minutes to complete. In the new
facility it takes a matter of seconds.
BITO's Carton Live Storage also ensures all the picking in the
Service Centre has a constant feed. Each of the A-Frame's
channels has a separate number and location that corresponds to
a position in the flow rack face opposite, allowing stock to be
found quickly when the channels are being refilled. As soon as a
carton is empty of product, it is removed and a full carton flows
down the lane to replace it. The flow racks themselves are
replenished from bulk storage locations in pallet racking bays,
which are located either above or opposite the feed face of the
flow rack. Top selling lines are located where they can be reached
by hand at ground level across the aisle to feed the flow lane.
Other lines are lifted down by forklift.
BITO's CLS saves time on putaway, allowing stock to be
delivered directly to the shelf; when a pallet comes through goods
in, the flow rack is replenished first and the remaining stock is
located in nearby bulk storage position. Carton Live Storage gives
Alliance the flexibility to store different sizes of cartons as well as
fast moving products that won't
fit on the A Frame. More articles from BITO Storage Systems Ltd: | 
