Perspectives on Material Handling Practice

Papers the in the Perspectives Handling series have appeared 1992 in conference the present. proceedings As such of Material Institute between and they provide a point of reference as to how the industry is changing as well as insight into accepted practice during this period. In many cases the authors credited have either changed jobs or are no longer in the industry. Some companies as well have been the subject of mergers or reorganization with a new corporate identity.

HIGH VOLUME CASE PICKING

(A UNIQUE NEW APPLICATION FOR DEEP LANE STORAGE SYSTEMS)

SCOTT RICHARDSON, MANAGER NORTH AMERICAN DISTRIBUTION AND SCOTT TELK MANAGER NORTH AMERICAN DISTRIBUTION PLANNING Black and Decker 4041 Pleasant Road Fort Mill, SC 29715 ABSTRACT When developing a vision and concept of operations for a new world class distribution center, much effort and detail is focused on stipulating and estimating how the plant should and will perform. Design teams go to great lengths to ensure a process exists to meet not only every business and customer requirement that can be identified, but also every imaginable exception and operating condition that will be encountered. Even with huge amounts of experience, talent, vision, and lick most facilities are fortunate to have their arms around 75-80% of the situations, conditions, and combinations of complications that will be encountered. However, due to the complex nature of integrating customers, factories, layers of software, people and material handling equipment into one focal operation, various sets of circumstances can never be projected or predicted, just simply encountered.

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The start-up of Black & Deckers new 80,000 sq. ft. distribution center in Fort Mill, SC was a classic example of the above scenario. The highly automated facility, which features the latest in distributed software systems and material handling equipment presented a unique start-up challenge. Due to the synchronous nature of the various processes, all pick types (pallet, case, repack, non-conveyable) must arrive at the dock in a collapsed time frame, to enable outbound truck docks to turn quickly, while simultaneously maximizing transportation dollars (see Figure 1). As new products and order types were added to the mix, and higher through-put levels achieved, an array of obstacles and bottlenecks kept surfacing and moving from process to process as the operation strived to maintain a synchronized balance with rapidly changing workload complexions and order profiles. A variety of systems and material handling enhancements were employed to offset a variety of constraints. However, replenishment of the full case picking area was the most difficult to overcome. The major physical upgrade to this process was the installation of a deep lane storage system. Deep lane storage systems are typically used as a means to either increase space utilization and/or to support high volume pallet picking operations. In this unique application, a deep lane storage system with additional pushback rack was erected as pick faces for a pick to belt module. In effect, this allowed a huge buffer inventory of case pick to be presented to the pick face to allow additional time for replenishment to arrive; protecting service levels, particularly when a run on a SKU within a wave was experienced. The Loadback has allowed for up to 40% of all picks to come from a condensed area which required less replenishment travel time and physically concentrated the workforce in the department for more effective supervision.

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INTRODUCTION In the summer of 1992, while looking for ways to reduce costs within the distribution and transportation areas, Black & Decker began examining the idea of consolidating its distribution network. At this point in time, in the North American consumer products arena, Black & Decker was composed of five unique divisions operating out of fourteen different distribution locations. Most of these locations served one division only (Figure 2). Single Division Distribution Locations Pacoima, CA Price Pfister(Plumbing supplies) Anaheim, CA Kwikset (Locks and supplies) Bristow, OK Kwikset Chicago, IL Price Pfister Morrow, GA Price Pfister Raleigh, NC (Millbrook) Household Products Raleigh, NC (Triangle) Household Products Raleigh, NC (Longs) Household Products Raleigh, NC (Carolace) Household Products Columbia, MD Power Tools Multiple Division Distribution Locations Rancho Cucamonga, CA Power Tools, Accessories & Household Products Hampstead, MD Power Tools, Accessories Mexico City, Mexico Power Tools & Household Products Brockville, Canada Power Tools, Accessories & Household Products Black & Decker had successfully operated within this framework for years. Coupled with the

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desire to reduce costs, the launching of the De Walt product line in the early 1990s increased throughput pressures on the network and strained it to the breaking point. To meet these challenges, a long term distribution strategy was developed: large bi-coastal DCs consolidate all 5 business divisions selective automation highly systematized In mid-1993, the decision was made to build a distribution center to increase capacity and at the same time consolidate several smaller facilities to reduce the overall cost. Enhanced service in terms of fill rates, order accuracy, and order turnaround time within the D.C. was also factored in as project goals. Also, consolidated shipment of multi-dimensional orders to the same ship-to destination as one shipment was a major design target. Not only to reduce transportation cost, but for ease of customer request of a Black & Decker shipment. This required all repacks, case picks, pallet picks and non-conveyable picks to arrive at the shipping dock not only for an order but for a planned consolidated outbound truckload. Targets for fill rates and order accuracy were 99.5%, while D.C. order turnaround was to be reduced to within 24 hours.

After extensive cost modeling and a site search process, the Charlotte area was selected to build this east cost DC. Construction in Fort Mill began in November 1993. Thus, the North American distribution network took the first step toward a bi-coastal multi-divisional strategy (see Figure 3). The facility was designed to handle current volumes with anticipated growth:

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Building Design Criteria Footprint Height Receiving Shipping Office Space

776,000 square feet 32 feet clear 26 doors 34 doors 17,000 square feet

Operating Design Criteria - Daily Requirements: Orders 10,000 - 12,000 Loose conveyable cartons 100,000 Full pallet picks 3,000 Loose repack units 140,000 Inbound trailers 70 Outbound trailers 120 SKUs 12,000 Pickfaces 15,000 Equipment Selection Loose Carton Picking Conveyor Full Pallet Picking

Loose Unit Picking

3 tiered 3 pallets deep picking modules (Unarco) 3 miles of accumulation (Rapistan) 2 shoe sorters (Rapistan) VNA wire guidance (Raymond) Turret and reach trucks (Raymond) Single deep pallet rack (Ridg-U-Rak) Bulk floor storage Carousels and carton flow rack (Raymond)

Systems Architecture Highly Integrated Transportation Planning System (TPS) - routing shipments Warehouse Management System (WMS) - planning work within the DC Distribution Control System (DCS) - carousel control Sortation Control System (SCS) - sorter and conveyor control

A detailed illustration of the system hardware and a total distribution system information flow chart are highlighted in Figure 4 and 5 respectively. Equipment began to be installed in July 1994. The building was completed by September. All equipment was installed by mid-November. Integration testing lasted through January 1995. Inventory was being moved into the building starting in November. On January 30, 1995, the Fort Mill DC received its first of orders and the real fun began.

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Technology Infrastructure (Figure 4) Service Platform Project Start 2 x Digital Axp 7620 1gb Memory 24gb Conventional 700m Solid state Open VMS 6.1 Now 2 x Digital Axp 8460 2gb Memory 62gb Conventional 1.4gb Solid state Open VMS 6.2

Storage

Operating System Database Terminals and PCs Radio Frequency Subsystem Local Area Network Wide Area Network Comments:

Oracle Version Oracle Version 7.0.16 7.1.3.2 100 VT420 100 VT420 CRTs CRTs 20 PCs 10 PCs 75 Vehicle 81 Vehicle 12 Handheld 38 Handheld Designed by Digital, FDDI Backbone, Cabletron Active Components T-1 Datalink with ISDN Dial Backup

Two Platforms with Primary and Development that also Serve as Failover Targets. Performance and Usage Driven Upgrade from 190mhz CPUs to (6) 300mhz CPUs (500% Increase in Power). All Production Disks are Host Mirrored with Some Controller Based Stripe Sets. Open VMS Chosen for Clustering and Stability. WAN Oversized to Support Timing Requirements and for Responsive XWindows Traffic Between Towson and Fort Mill.

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FACILITY START UP During the two year time period from conceptual design to the first order being shipped, a detailed start up plan was developed. This plan outlined and tracked every detail about the facility plan, implementation and start up for the building, equipment, system and people. Black & Deckers business volume varied throughout the occurred in quarterly cycles with peak shipping occurring in March, June, September and December. Due to the large retail sales in the months preceding the holiday season, heavy volume occurs September through December. That transfer of inventory and orders was planned to occur in stages. Only a portion of the total business would be transferred into Fort Mill at a time. After that piece was digested, another would be moved into the new building. Because of this spiking in the latter part of the year, it was decided to make the first transfer in late January or early February - the lowest volume of the year. The Household Products Group was selected to be transferred first due to its simpler processing and handling requirements. The fewer SKUs were involved and all processing was done in either full carton or full pallet increments with the volume split roughly between the two. Only Household would be handled in February to allow any bugs to be worked out of the system. A small Portion (about 25%) of the Power Tool and Accessory business would be moved in March due to the quarter end occurring that month. During the low month of April, the bulk of the remaining Power Tool and Accessory business would be moved. The last 25% would wait until May for transition. This would allow the summer for all problems to be worked through in anticipation for the holiday shipping months. (See Figure 6 for SKU breakdown by division).

Design Assumptions: Active SKUs (Figure 6) Business Unit Household Products Power Tools Accessories TOTAL SKUs 300 2500 5600 8300

85,00 Storage Locations (33,000 Double High) Repack : 8,000 SKUs Pick to Belt: 4,000 SKUs Non-Convey: 300 SKUs The phased approach was designed to allow a steady stream of people to be hired and trained rather than a large amount all the one time. Systems, equipment or other problems could also be worked out at lower volume levels with lesser impact on customers. And then January 30th arrived

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As anyone who has ever been through a start up can tell you, at the very least it was a very interesting day. For years, Black & Decker was used to shipping tens of thousands of cartons per day. On this day, it took 50 people 15 hours to ship 30 cartons. Not a stellar beginning. Although it wasnt a day to write home about, it was all up hill from there. Through the next 12 months, volume increased steadily as problem after problem was overcome. Capacity barriers at 2,000 - 5,000 - 10,000 - 20,000 and 30,000 cartons per day were experienced. Each of these barriers were overcome using a combination of system modifications, training and process improvement. Training was not just for the hourly associates. It was also for the management team as we learned to manage the building and the flow of work. Patterned loosely after previous facilities, the new building was designed to work synchronously. In other words, all parts of the building had to flow and work together otherwise, work from the faster areas had to slow down for the slower area to catch up. The system was designed this way to enable the customer to receive one pallet/one shipment even if they ordered a drill bit (not conveyable, needs repacking), a drill (conveyable) and a workmate (not conveyable). The goal was to have all of the items for the order arrive at the shipping dock at the same time. On a daily and hourly basis, the work load and people in each area had to be examined and balanced to insure that product kept flowing through the building. This was an educated step for many members of the management team. ICEBERG EFFECT Debugging, start-up and testing is a orderly progressive affair normally performed by the vendor with little or no input from the owner. The purpose of this work is t satisfy the vendor that the system will satisfactorily perform for acceptance tests conducted for the owner. Each subsystem will must be independently processed and any deficiencies corrected prior to continuing. After sub-system requirements are satisfied, each one must be integrated with others to prove interface compatibility. Finally, all sub-systems are tied together to form the total system. The total system must then be stress tested for short durations and the results documented and deficiencies corrected. The total system must then be stress tested for a longer duration. When the system appears to be functioning as specified, the system is accepted. Taking over a major automated Distribution Center when the vendors leave is very much like taking over as Captain of a ship, hopefully not the Titanic. Everything is new and looks neat and clean. However, below the surface, obstacles that will cause great pain and suffering are lurking. These obstacles take on different forms in every new project but they are always there. Ramp-Up and Obstacles - Each sub-system performed as planned and the total integrated system gave every impression of working. New businesses were brought in and daily capacity increased. Problems were encountered in mechanical equipment, controls and software. Most of these problems were corrected without major difficulty, they did however cause orders not to be completed within the allotted time and the backlog started to grow.

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The first reaction is to blame the vendor. The vendor comes in and checks the system and sometimes finds a deficiency in the design or maybe the vendor finds the system functioning properly and says the problem must be with other equipment or systems that are interfaced with him. Very often the vendor says that the system was not designed to handle, process or function in the manner you are requesting. OOPS, a failure to involve operations personnel in the design and functionality of the system. This Is probably the most devastating thing that can happen in a project. It is generally the hardest to change. It almost always involves addition hardware and software and worst of all you have no one to blame but yourself. Capacity Wall - The corrective actions were put in place and facility capacity starts to grow and just as we reach our peak months, we find we have hit a capacity wall. Again, blame the vendor, why cant we get more than 25% of the design volume through the system. There is one thing that many people fail to comprehend and that is that no matter how much brute force you throw at an automated system, you are only going to get so much through-put out the door. It was at this point that we realized we needed help in determining the extent and solutions to our problems. We contracted Allen Zeiler Technical Consulting (AZTEC) to inspect the material handling equipment and Garr Consulting to probe the Warehouse Management System (WMS). We looked deeper into how we were using the system, starting at the shipping dock and working back all the way to wave planning. We stopped and analyzed each bottleneck along the way and made adjustments as follows: With the queue lanes available we found that we could not release cartons fast enough from the Primary sorter. The Primary sorter has 50 lanes and each lane can hold up to three pallets worth of cartons. The problem was that the waves were too large and lanes were not being filled, at the same time future waves were being released and they had no place to go. It was decide to reduce and restrict a wave to utilize half of the Primary sort lanes (25 lanes). The other 25 lanes could then start queuing up the next wave when it was released. This we termed flip flopping as we would flush half the lanes while we filled the other half. This one adjustment literally increased our through-put by 100% and allowed us to meet projections for the end of the first quarter of 1996. Repacked cartons posed its own set of problems. Part of the original justification for the project was to reduce freight by consolidating orders. Hence, repacks are palletized with full cases. Repacks are stored in 20 horizontal carousels with one associate operating 2 carousels in what we call a pod. A conveyor circles the carousels with diverts into each pod. The problem is that piece picking is slower than picking full cases and the system did not allow us sufficient visibility into the orders to properly plan the wave. We do have five holding lanes so repacks should theoretically stay five waves ahead. Unfortunately, some waves will have a small number of repacks and the holding lanes soon become full, then a large repack wave occurs and the next thing you know, repacks are behind and full carton picking has to be shut down in order for repacks to catch up. We somehow got through the first quarter without making significant changes in this area. However, this area was only producing about 75% of what would be required in the forth quarter and solutions would have to be found. Carton Pick to Belt (PTB) was having problems getting replenishments to the pickface in a timely manner. Rack was cleared out in the proximity of the PTB area to hold fast

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moving stock keeping units (SKUs). This helped gain through-put but created a lot of double handling. The Replenishment Manager (Software) had been written to call for replenishment at the time a wave was planned. This flooded the area with product before there was a place to house it. Consequently the Replenishment Manager was turned off and replenishments were called for on an emergency basis. This had its own set of problems in that some waves would call for more product than a pallet flow lane could hold and then the associate would be waiting for product to complete the wave. By creating the holding rack (described earlier), we accomplished the task of getting through the first quarter. With the quick fixes that we implemented in the first quarter, total through-put had more than doubled. Fortunately, the end of the second quarter was to be about the same as the first quarter. The problem was that the third quarter was going to require greater through-put and we had discovered another wall. The Team had been observing the changes incorporated in the first quarter to determine what had to be done in the next five months to push the wall back once more. The following Items were approved as projects: Replenishment is the Culprit - Rewriting the software for the Replenishment Manager was going to be a fairly large undertaking with limited resources and other software projects that higher priorities. The best available solution appeared to be changing a portion of the current three deep pallet flow pickfaces to a deeper controlled flow pickface. It was determined that addition racking could be added to the existing flow rack and gain an additional five pallet positions for a total of eight pallets deep. Additional Queuing Conveyor - Bu putting the fast movers in the deep lane picking system, it was determined that there would need to be additional conveyor between the PTB module and the sortation system. It was determined that about 180 feet of additional accumulation conveyor would have to be installed to handle the volume. No-Reads and Mis-Picks - Cartons being conveyed out of the pick modules were not being rejected until they were on the loading dock. This caused last minute problems on the dock and required runners to get the right product to the right Queue lanes in short order. This was not working and it was decided that no-read and mis-picks would be rejected earlier in order to re-label or re-pick and accelerate the cartons return to the sortation system. No-Reads at the Secondary Sort (Palletizing lanes) - It was determined that if all the real problems were being taken care of at the Primary reject. The reject for the secondary should convey to a point just upstream from the scanner where an associate could take corrective action and re-induct the carton. The Repack Area - This area needed to become more ergonomically friendly and designs were submitted to rearrange the area reusing most of the existing conveyor. Hard copy packing lists would be replaced by scanners to verify orders. Totes would be purchased allowing consistency in the size of footprints being conveyed to reduce jams. (See Figures 7 and 8).

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NEW CAPACITY WALL DISCOVERED During the second quarter the above enhancements were ordered and installed. Work-around plans had to e established and cut over mythologies employed. The system had stabilized at 45,000 to 50,000 cartons per day. It was anticipated that with the new equipment, the system would achieve rates of 65-70,00 cartons per day. However, during the second quarter pallet picking and receiving activity has been low, and has masked the depth of the replenishment problem, allowing the system to muscle replenishments, making these product moves to the pickface the best task for virtually all rolling equipment. Also, at the higher sustained volumes, we began to see continued floor cuts on certain SKUs throughout the day. Upon analysis, we found that some location would historically turn once a week until the upsurge in demand, and then they would turn as high as 10 times per day. This resulted in a lot of stock outs. This fact was aggravated by the Transportation Planning System (TPS) and WMS. The systems would group orders together to minimize shipping costs and maximize productivity. The system would group all the picks for one SKU within one wave. Instead of spreading the 3,000 picks across 8 hours, all the picks would be grouped into the same 30 minute wave. It was physically impossible for replenishments to keep up. Another unfortunate side effect happened when these high demand days occurred and replenishments could not keep up for the locations. As resources were focused on these high demand locations, the resources were frequently pulled from other tasks causing stock outs to occur in normal locations. Once production planning was smoothed out to spread the work across the day, another rock emerged from the lower lake. Replenishments were not being released and worked in a logically sequential fashion. When the replenishment module was written for WMS, it envisioned and designed so that the replenishment would arrive at the pickface the exact moment that it was needed. A lofty goal. To accomplish this feat, the replenishment had to be worked on before the product was picked. There are four major control points on the life of a wave: at planning, at release for picking, at picking and at closing. The replenishments had to be released for work at one of these points to keep it in synch with the wave. At closing and picking were too late for the replenishment to arrive when needed. It was decided that at releasing and at picking were too close together to allow time for the replenishment to be accomplished. At planning was the replenishment release point. Unfortunately, this became a serious problem. Although the time period between wave release and wave picking was short, the time between wave planning and picking sometimes became lengthy. Yet the replenishments would be released when the wave was planned and associates would begin working them. This caused a lot of product to arrive at the pickface too early. Priorities also became meaningless. When a location was projected to go bellow empty, the replenishment would be bumped to top priority. A top priority that was needed for a wave being picked could be superseded by a phantom top priority from a future wave.

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During slower volume days and periods, the facility could muscle through these problems. As throughput increased and demand requirements doubled, the problem with replenishment timing and volatility of SKU became a new capacity wall.

THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION An aggregating factor to the inability to predict a new facilitys operating behavior prior to reaching steady state is that new issues and obstacles continue to surface along the start-up ramp. As problems are resolved and bottlenecks eliminated, higher throughput rates, and closer to optimal performance levels continuously lower the water, only to expose new rocks which hinder the flow to the next level. After months of fire fighting, and as consistent operating levels were approached, it was discovered that replenishment to the case picking area was the remaining limiting factor preventing the operation from obtaining its full operating throughput capacity. This was caused by the overly complicated designed algorithm which used a future, time phased replenishment strategy, coupled with lumpy SKU velocity by pick wave, this created by the Transportation Planning System. With the replenishment problem obviously being created through a culmination of multiple contributing factors, no one fix would completely correct the situation. Finally, a threepronged approach was agreed upon to solve the problem. This included: Producing Planning - Enhancements were made to the pick wave planning process which would balance the demand for a SKU within parameters to prevent slugging of pickfaces. (Lumpy demand using an average days worth of stock in one 20 minute wave). Warehouse Management System - Logic changes were made to the replenishment algorithm itself. Specifically changing the strategy from replenishment task creation at time of wave planning to wave release --- and a change from a pickface stock allocation concept to a simple min/max concept with priority bumping. Deep Lane Storage System - A Loadbank deep lane system was erected as pickfaces at a pick to belt module. This created a buffer inventory case pick stock to be presented to the pickface which protected against stock outs as heavy replenishment quantities were allowed more time to arrive. (For Loadbank specs and elevation see Figure 9).

Loadbank Deep Lane Pickface System (Figure 9) Structural Dimensions Height: 8 Pallets Deep, 33 Feet Long Width: 4 Feet, 1.5 inches per Pickface System Height: 28 feet w/ 5 Pallet Levels 3 Picking Levels

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2 Storage Levels System Capacity Picking Lanes:51 Locations / Level 153 Total possible SKUs 1224 total Pallet Capacity Pallet Return: 7 Locations / Level 21 Total Lanes Pushback Lanes: 58 Locations / Level = 116 Total possible SKUs 116 Total Possible SKUs 348 Total Pallet Capacity Working Requirements: Operation at 50 - 120 degrees Fahrenheit Unit Load Weight Maximum = 3000 lbs. Nominal Load Size = 48 in. long x 40 in. wide x 52 in. high Safety Decking within Lanes will Accommodate Minimum Load = 300 lbs. Minimum Air Supply = 80 psi with 2 air drops

Controls Controlled by Cattron System RI Interface 3 Decoders of 15 Outputs each User control Methods: Hand Held Transmitters w/ 4 Digit Activation Code for control from Change. 15 Push Buttons for Control from discharge end. Adjustable Timing Circuit: Parameter Min(Sec) Max(Sec) ON 0.1 3.8 OFF 4.2 25.5 Duration 10 300

CONCLUSION Even with huge amounts of experience, talent, vision, and luck most facilities are fortunate to have their arms around 75 - 80 % of the situations, conditions and combinations of complications that will be encountered. Due to the complex nature of integrating customers, factories, layers of software, people and material handling equipment into one focal operation, various sets of circumstances can never be projected or predicted, just simply encountered.

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By taking a well proven and seemingly low tech technology and applying it in a new way, we were able to solve a specific and complicated problem in a very high tech environment. The software enhancements coupled with the deep lane installation resulted in a 20% increase in productivity in the pick to belt operation, as in an example of how unique and new applications and configurations of existing, and proven equipment can offer affordable solutions, with productivity gains, and minimal capital investment.

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