Sortation and shipping
High-speed sortation systems save space, improve accuracy and increase productivity in shipping.
By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 11/11/2008
Whether you’re talking about pop-up diverts, sliding shoes, tilt trays, bomb bay, or cross-belts, there are any number of ways to sort cartons from a picking area to a packing station or shipping lane. While each of those technologies takes a different approach to getting the job done, they also share several things in common when it comes to the shipping area, says Tim Kraus, sortation product manager for FKI Logistex.
Reduced footprint/reduced congestion: “If you’re not using a sorter with conveyor lines leading to the dock door, you have a lot of people driving around the dock on lift trucks,” says Kraus. “That creates congestion in the shipping area.” Most shipping sorters, on the other hand, are elevated above the floor, with conveyors leading to packing stations, a palletizer, or directly into a truck. “By having the sorter elevated, you have more room for lift trucks,” says Kraus. “If you have non-conveyables, like pallets, there’s room to maneuver; you have more room for accumulation and staging; and the noise of the sorter is kept away from the operators.”
Improved accuracy: With automatic data collection and fewer manual touches, sortation systems are more accurate than a manual operation. “In a manual operation, it’s easy for an operator to misread an SKU number, put a product or part in the wrong bin, or load it on to the wrong truck,” says Kraus.
Enable complex order fulfillment operations: Thanks to sophisticated warehouse control software, sortation systems allow distribution centers to assemble complex orders or intelligently load a truck in a first in/first out basis. “You can do that manually, but you’re relying on a supervisor to make some decisions and the operator to do it accurately,” says Kraus. “With a sortation system, the decisions are made by the software and the system sorts the product to the operator in the order it’s supposed to be loaded on the truck.”
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