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Oakhurst Dairy
Savanna.NET WMS & Plastic Bottle Caser Case Study
An integrated warehouse management system (WMS) and custom caser from Westfalia Technologies are helping Oakhurst Dairy, Maine’s oldest producer of milk and dairy products, handle increased capacity and maintain plant efficiency.
The upgrades were prompted by the need for more space created by an influx of new business, and a new line of 10-ounce containers developed for institutional and school customers. Rather than build a new facility or relocate, Oakhurst made the decision to retain its original facility and design a more efficient cold storage/distribution center.
Oakhurst anticipated doubling output, which would have required increasing storage capacity by more than 100 percent. Other issues persisted: trucks often had to wait for orders to be filled; production had to be held up for lack of storage; certain products had to be stored more than a mile away; and the plant was functioning out of a single cooler, which was more than 25 years old. Oakhurst saw the improvements as a way to be able to attract new business as well as serve existing customers more efficiently.
System Features:
- Savanna.NET® Warehouse Management System
- Pick-to-light module included
- Custom designed plastic bottle caser - 10 oz. bottles in offset pattern and vacumn load head and converts to quart bottles in single tier
- Capacity to hold up to 3 days of finished product
- 5 story cooler
- 2 raw milk receiving bays
The entire filling operation was upgraded by moving, replacing or repurposing every filler. Paul Connolly Jr., vice president of technology services and CIO for Oakhurst, designed the new production system with a number of proprietary operational components, including a “pick-to-light” system, which enables pickers to fulfill orders using hand-held computers.
The flow of product through the cooler racks is coordinated by Westfalia’s computerized WMS system, which also tracks inventory through the entire process to its destination. Cases of milk products travel from the filler lines to the cooler’s five-story rack system in 54-case blocks, while packaged products are palletized and stored on the fourth and fifth levels of the cooler. Finished product is transported down to the loading docks on the first floor.
“The WMS software facilitates storage and retrieval of product using the FIFO (first in/first out) method utilizing a pushback rack system,” explains Connolly. “All the hand-held computers, the computers mounted on fork trucks and the pick- to-light devices are employed and controlled by a C#.net software system built atop a Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Westfalia customized their basic software package for the specific requirements of the installation.”
The new fillers are supplemented by a custom-designed plastic bottle caser from Westfalia’s Deam Systems Division. This unit creates and tier loads 10oz bottles in an off-set pattern with vacuum load head, and converts to handle quart bottles in single tier using a cushion drop-load concept.
As with any upgrade, Connolly notes that the system at Oakhurst was not without initial glitches. “There was an error involving the electrical connections that were engineered to the pick-to-lights, which required us to re-terminate every connection to every light in the entire warehouse,” he says. “Westfalia stood behind the installation and provided labor to work with our team to fix the issue. All the work needed to be completed on a Sunday.”
Additionally, Oakhurst recently integrated a yard management system for truck movement. Future plans include the expansion of the software system and other plant upgrades.
“The Oakhurst Dairy project is a prime example of how today’s warehouse technology can help a company re-purpose an existing structure,” says Westfalia president Dan Labell. “The result is that they now have a more efficient, more ergonomic and ultimately, more economical operation.”
Download entire Oakhurst Case Study here.
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