DISTRIBUTION Blockbuster Entertainment Distribution Center, McKinney, Texas
Narrow-aisle and wide-aisle racking, bar coding, carton flow rack for piece picking, and RFDC terminals all act in concert to keep Blockbuster's sortation system humming with product. A VHS video processing system makes 150,000 videos a day rental-ready for stores with only 15 DC employees.
By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 2/1/1999
'Go home happy' is the message Blockbuster Video relays to its customers. Delivering this motto is Blockbuster's state-of-the-art distribution facility, a consolidation of nine Dallas area warehouses, in McKinney, Texas.This 820,000 sq ft DC accurately ships up to 600,000 items to 4,000 U.S. stores. Blockbuster now claims a significant strategic advantage over its competitors in costs and customer service, as well as a close to perfect shipping accuracy rate, and real-time inventory information.
Central to the DC's great efficiency is a crossbelt sortation system. It gives the company increased capacity to receive, sort, and later ship to stores shelf-ready product-with tens of thousands of units processed each hour. In fact, the system sorts inbound returns and outbound shipments with such accuracy that paper reconciliations are eliminated.
Designed to convey and sort everything from a 4 ft box to a single video package or CD, the sorter system has 414 carriers traveling around the loop with 438 chutes and 95 stackers to which products are sorted. After sortation on the mezzanine level, products go to the shipping area with its palletizing loop on the level below.
A shipping area with four closing stations pack cartons headed to stores, or for returns, to vendors. Bar coded shipping labels are applied to cartons before they leave the DC through one of 30 shipping dock positions.
Other materials handling technologies complement the sortation system including: bar code labeling and scanning, radio frequency (RF) data communications, order selection by reach, swing reach, and order-picker trucks, a custom conveyor system for shelf-ready VHS video processing, and a warehouse management system (WMS).
The integrated, automated system cut costs and improved efficiency at every level of the company. Simply consolidating merchandise needed by the more than 4,000 U.S. video stores into one facility means that Blockbuster carries less inventory and can order just-in-time from suppliers.
The crossbelt sortation system has built-in flexibility, and Blockbuster management believes that adaptation to future home entertainment products will be easy. The crossbelt sorter already handles DVD movies.
Crossbelt sortation system, associated conveyors:
Rapistan Systems 616-451-6525
Narrow aisle storage rack: Pallet rack,
Interlake 630-245-8000
Carton flow rack: Interlake
Warehouse management system:
J.D. Edwards 303-488-4622
Industrial trucks: Raymond Swing Reach trucks and man-up order pickers, reach trucks 607-656-2311
Bar code scanning systems: Accu-Sort 215-723-0981
Radio frequency data communications:
Intermec 206-348-2600
Receiving and shipping docks: Levelers, vehicle restraints; Serco 972-466-0707
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