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Case Studies
The
case studies described below demonstrate the range of our experience and
capability.
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A recent
study led to the design and implementation of an "automated carousel
order picking system" for Aeroquip, a major national manufacturer
of hose fittings. The carousels were fed from manufacturing by an AGV
system. This system enabled the client to reduce a three shift operation to
two, abandon a fleet of 15 order picking trucks, close thirteen branch
offices and reduced space and manpower. This innovative design compresses
the order to delivery time by making the product within the distribution
process. This facility has become the backbone of the firms business-to-business supply chain solution.
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Note: A feature story
about this installation for Aeroquip, Inc. has appeared in Materials
Handling Engineering.
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Synthesized data from a business plan led to the design of a
new 200,000 square foot facility supporting Fresh Direct, an
e-commerce venture designed for the direct delivery of fresh food and
groceries daily. This facility is a food processing plant as much as it is
a distribution center. The facility choreographs the selection, and
consolidation of up to 8,000 customer orders daily for routed delivery in
cooled vans.
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The design of a 6,400 unit load position AS/RS and 5 vehicle
AGV system for Central Paper Company, Newark, New Jersey. The AGV
system moves product to and from the AS/RS system and delivers pallet and
partial pallet loads to four order processing stations. The system
drastically reduced the cost of damaged goods experienced by the previous
lift truck and rack system in addition to enabling Central paper to take
customer orders until 5:00 p.m. each day and deliver the goods the next day
within a six state area. Order accuracy has been maintained at 99.3% or
higher.
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Note: A feature story
about this installation for Central Paper Company has appeared
in Materials Handling Engineering.
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A totally
mechanized and paperless 450,000 square foot facility for the distribution
of footwear to Sears' regional centers and retail stores satisfied the
requirements for Automated Distribution Systems (ADS), a 3PL. This
facility replenishes 800 stores daily with JIT deliveries. This effort is
accomplished in a carousel environment utilizing both pick and put
techniques and achieves very high productivity per man hour. Inventory and
order accuracy ratings have been 99.9%. The installation will pick, pack,
manifest and sort over 165,000 pairs of shoes daily on a single eight hour
shift, and requires 45 less people, 25,000 square feet less in space and a
smaller capital investment than a conventional tilt-tray sorter solution.
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Note: A feature story
about this installation for ADS/Sears has appeared in Modern Materials
Handling.
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The design of a barcode based warehouse control system for Electrolux,
a major manufacturer of premium price vacuum cleaners. The system included
robotic palletizers, paperless picking, and a
carousel system for service parts to customers and carton sortation.
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Multiple 250,000 square foot regional facilities designed
for the same day distribution of over 400,000 SKUs of industrial supplies
and hardware by MSC Industrial Direct. Each facility contains
multiple storage and picking venues including tri-level mezzanines, high
bay shelving, VNA pallet storage, multi-station order consolidation,
packing and manifesting and parcel sortation.
Picking zones and slots are highly profiled for maximum productivity.
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Note: A feature story
about this installation for MSC Industrial Direct has appeared in
Warehousing Management.
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Jacmel, a jewelry
manufacturer, required a high-speed sortation
system to distribute products for store orders for the major retail chains.
A custom designed small parts sortation device
was installed to sort 11,000 units per hour into 200 store slots, allowing
the client to satisfy major store distributions of EDI orders within a
seven-day window that includes manufacturing, picking, packing and shipping.
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Sigman / Kaiden was subcontracted
to assist in conducting an economic examination of "lease-buy"
options and fleet size optimization for a global fleet of materials
handling equipment at the DDC. The study examined methods of
determining utilization, projecting fleet size, and suggested
reorganization of the management and measuring devices. An overall
opportunity for a 30% fleet reduction was uncovered.
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