System Report: Warehouse management system in control
At John B. Sanfilippo & Son, a warehouse management system drives manufacturing and distribution.
By Bob Trebilcock, Executive Editor -- Modern Materials Handling, 4/1/2009
The John B. Sanfilippo & Son new corporate headquarters has a conventional materials handling system and uses its warehouse management system (WMS) in two unconventional ways—it drives manufacturing and is the foundation of the company’s allergen and contamination prevention program.
Receiving: Incoming raw materials are palletized and staged in a receiving area for inspection. The pallet receives a license plate bar code label that is tied to a vendor lot number, the product type, and the weight of the product for tracking purposes in the WMS.
Raw materials putaway: After receiving, the pallets are delivered by lift truck to one of two storage areas: One is designated for tree nuts, including walnuts, pecans, cashews and macadamia nuts; another is shared between peanuts and tree nuts. Pallets are stored in three-deep pushback rack, single-deep pallet rack and in designated areas on the floor. Putaway is confirmed by scanning a location bar code.
Picking for manufacturing: Before nuts are roasted or processed in the manufacturing area, a work order drops from the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system into the WMS.
The work order contains a bill of materials that includes the raw materials, salt, seasonings and oils called for in the recipe along with the cans, jars, lids or other materials that will be used to package the final product.
The system then directs associates who pick and transport the materials to the manufacturing area: Nuts are retrieved from the coolers; spices, oils and seasonings from a separate storage area; some packaging materials are pulled from storage racks; while other packaging materials are retrieved from a horizontal carousel system.
During the various stages in the roasting process, the nuts are converted to work-in-process (WIP) and tracked by the WMS. Once all of the manufacturing and packaging is complete, a new stock keeping unit (SKU) is created in the WMS, which includes lot information for all of the materials that went into that batch. Finally, the product is automatically put in trays, shrink-wrapped and labeled, and palletized. At that point, a finished goods label is applied to the pallet.
Finished goods putaway: After palletizing, pallets are delivered to a semi-automatic stretch wrapper. Once they have been wrapped, the system directs a lift truck driver to one of 38,000 pallet positions in the pallet rack in the finished goods warehouse. As with raw materials, the driver confirms the putaway by scanning a location bar code on the rack.
Finished goods picking: About 70% of orders are full pallets; the remainder are mixed pallets. In either case, the system directs a lift truck driver to a pallet location. Pallets are then delivered to staging areas designated by customer. Finally, pallets are loaded onto a trailer at the shipping docks. Loading is confirmed by scanning a bar code label next to the dock door. At that point, the order is released in the WMS.
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