New systems for small parts handling have enabled a distributor in Canada to improve its throughput of repair items by 444% while warehouse staff has increased by only 6.2%. Horizontal carousels have proven to be this end user's path to better materials handling, greater picking efficiency.

Until recently, many small parts needed for customer service support were housed in an aging mini-load system at Finning, an Edmonton, Alberta distributor of repair parts. Finning supports customers using heavy, earth-moving equipment from Caterpillar and others with repair parts; these machines work Canada's oil, gas, and mineral deposits and its forests and farm lands.

"Components for the mini-load had become scarce and expensive, and two (of 8) lanes had been removed due to their age," says Lynn Stonehouse, distribution center manager. "As picking volume increased over the years, productivity fell because too many man hours were being wasted waiting to retrieve and replenish parts. Parts also couldn't be picked fast enough at peak times."

Finning decided to replace the mini-load with eight horizontal carousels on two tiers. The total system has two clusters of four 10-foot-high carousels. One cluster is on grade; the other cluster is on a mezzanine directly above the first cluster. Upper and lower level carousels are identical, and each level is served by a single workstation. Only two pickers man the carousels, one up and one down.

The carousels contain 32,000 line items or about 58% of the DC's total of all line items. Picking activity with the carousels now averages 200 line items per hour over an entire workday. This pick rate represents a 444% increase from the mini-load's pick rate of 45 lines per hour.

A pick light tower tells the picker which carousel carrier to pick from, the exact location of the pick, and the desired quantity. Up to 14 orders can be simultaneously batch picked. Then they are placed in corrugated totes at the workstation. Put lights direct the picker to place the correct quantity of parts into each tote. Computerized picking in this system has cut picking errors to well below 1%, far less than with the prior system.

"The carousels have greatly facilitated the handling of rush orders," says Stonehouse. A flashing red screen on the picking station computer monitors tells an operator that a rush order has arrived. "He can suspend regular picking, key the system to retrieve the rush item, scan it into a tote, and place the tote onto a takeaway conveyor. The elapsed time is only a minute or so," the DC manager says.

Remstar
800-639-5805
www.remstar.com