March 28 2013
By: Richard (Rocky) Ruane
Director of Warehouse Operations
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Q: Describe the business problem/challenge that you were trying to solve in seeking an automated storage and retrieval system.
A: The challenge we faced was the fact that we were working out of 3 warehouses to receive and deliver our products to our customers. This was a totally inefficient operations but we made it work.
Yet, with the growth of our business we started to see that we could be limited in our ability to service our customers during our high peak times. We were designing a warehouse which would give us the efficiencies that we needed that would match our go to market strategies as we continue to grow our business.
We worked with our material handling partners and designed a building that met all of our criteria but on a much smaller footprint than a conventional warehouse. The designed also included 8 pick modules that were replenished by the cranes. This design also led to us being more efficient and a significant savings from a manpower needs perspective. Our receiving docks were set up in front of the ASRS which gave us the efficiency of not having to drive throughout the warehouse to put away all of our inbound product. We cut our receiving time of our primary product significantly.
Q: What impact did this problem have on your business?
A: The challenge that the situation caused was the fact when we shipped 50,000 cases we had to replenish 50,000 cases the next day. We were actually transferring cases from one building until midnight to fulfill orders going out the next day.
Q: How have you addressed this issue in the past?
A: We understood the issues and certainly discussed the solutions but we were not ready to pull the trigger just yet.
Q: How did you hear about Westfalia?
A: We felt we had a good feel for the solution and we researched several companies and Westfalia was one of them.
Q: How did you decide to use Westfalia for your solution?
A: The feeling was that Westfalia was the most efficient and robust solution out of the companies out in the market.
Q: Briefly describe the solution and how it was deployed.
A: The system takes up only 110K square feet yet is able to store 1.3M cases. Also, designed within the ASRS is 8 pick modules of our highest volume product. The system replenishes the modules which are 4 pallets deep with several cluster pick areas. This solution fulfills 75% to 80% of our case needs for our customers. Each module was designed to utilize 2 man crews based on the footprint of the module. this was a stark contrast from our previous solution. We can also expand the system to a point of being able to store 2.2M cases if needed in the future.
Q: Tell us how the solution helped solve your business problem/challenge.
A: We worked with our material handling partners and designed a building that met all of our criteria but on a much smaller footprint than a conventional warehouse. The designed also included 8 pick modules that were replenished by the cranes. This design also led to us being more efficient and a significant savings from a manpower needs perspective. Our receiving docks were set up in front of the ASRS which gave us the efficiency of not having to drive throughout the warehouse to put away all of our inbound product. We cut our receiving time of our primary product by 15 minutes to 30 minutes per load.
Click here to read the entire case study.