Throughput soars with sorter
Shoe distributor Nine West uses available mezzanine space to install two tilt-tray sorters and increase throughput while keeping pace with its growing business.
By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 10/1/1999
When Nine West, America's largest distributor of ladies' footwear acquired a line of accessories, including purses and wallets, it had a dilemma at its feet. The company wanted to distribute the accessory items from the same New Jersey facility that handles shipments of shoes for more than 850 stores. However, they appeared to be out of space.The 500,000 sq. ft. distribution center had already been expanded several times to accommodate growth in the shoe lines. It currently supplies 1,100 company-owned retail outlets as well as leading department stores.
Nine West project engineers would have to be creative in designing an area where the company could shoe horn its accessories and the necessary automated handling equipment into already cramped quarters.
They found the answer by looking up - upstairs that is, to the third level of an existing mezzanine. Automation and two new tilt-tray sorters have since quadrupled potential output while increasing order accuracy to 99%.
The first two levels of the mezzanine contain flow racks for open stock items and the new accessory line. The third level had previously been used for store returns and staging. At only 50,000 square feet, there was little room for the extensive sortation system Nine West needed.
"Instead of playing with feet, we were playing with inches," recalls Jim Henshey, director of distribution administration.
Designers also had to anticipate an expansion in the accessory business. When purchased in 1996, it was a $17-million-a- year business. That increased dramatically to $107 million by 1998.
Most picking had been done by hand prior to the upgrade. An average 16-hour day would yield from 20,000 to 30,000 units. The goal was for a system that could do over 80,000 units.
"We couldn't add more pickers, they would just be running into each other-there just wasn't enough room," says John DiMartino, vice-president of distribution at Nine West.
Clearly automated sortation was the answer. And the only available space for it was on the third level.
Nine West receives shoes and accessories from manufacturers located in the Far East, Europe, and Brazil. A total of 44 million shoes passed through the distribution center in 1998.
Most of the shoes arrive as full cases and are stored in pallet racks. Open cases and accessories go to the mezzanine flow racks.
Picking is done in waves. About 150 items are picked from the flow racks in each wave and are sent by conveyor to the third level. When they arrive, shoes go to one de-casing area and accessories to another. At those locations, shipping cases are removed.
Next, items are scanned with radio frequency data communication (RFDC) hand-held terminals to verify total count and individual stock keeping units (SKUs). The warehouse management system (WMS) assigns each item needed for a specific order to a destination chute of the new tilt-tray sorter. The items are then inducted onto the trays of the sorters-shoes on one sorter and accessories on the other.
As a tray reaches the chute assigned to a particular order, the tray tilts, sliding the item gently into the chute. Once all items for an order have been received a light illuminates at the chute, signifying completion.
Next, a worker grabs a cardboard box from an overhead trolley and places the items for the order within it. From there, the boxes are sent by take-away conveyor to a sliding shoe case sorter where they will join the full cases of shoes that have already been picked from the pallet racks. The sorter drops orders onto spur lanes for final processing before shipping.
By placing the tilt-tray sorter on the third level of the mezzanine, Nine West met its objectives.
First, they kept the operation all within the center. "You don't spread yourself out," says DiMartino.
Secondly, the automation allows for faster turnaround. "The main goal is to get the orders out to customers as quickly as possible and when promised," DiMartino adds.
Another benefit of the system is the ability to grow as the business expands. The design parameters will allow up to 100,000 units to be sorted within a 12 hour period, numbers that double the current output. Labor costs are also controlled, because production can increase without adding people.
As a result, this already big shoe business can grow even bigger.
Conveyors & Trolley
Buschman 513-881-5329
Tilt tray sorters:
Crisplant 800-805-0560
Flow racks:
Kingway 800-554-6632
RFDC scanners:
Telxon 800-800-8008
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