Have you ever scrounged around your garage trying to remember where you placed those winter tires for the car? Imagine what it would be like to face the problem of lost tires by the thousands every day. That is exactly the situation at Carlisle Tire & Wheel. The ride was a little bumpy at this manufacturer of industrial tire products until it recently upgraded its distribution center.

"We came from a 250,000 square foot facility with no locator system to where now we have an effective management system," says Dick Hock, inventory control manager. "Where some places have FIFO – first in first out, we had FIST – first in still there."

Hock says that countless hours were spent looking for inventory under the old systems. Today, items can be found quickly, thanks to a versatile warehouse management system (RT Systems, www.rt-systems.com). Coupled with wireless orderprocessing, a new sorting system, conveyors, and an efficiently designed three-level pick module, Carlisle increased productivity 20 times its previous levels.

"Before the upgrades, we picked less than one-half a tire per man-minute. Now it is 10 tires per man-minute," says Hock. "We came from the stone age of distribution into the rocket age."

Accuracy has also jumped dramatically. Prior to the new systems, the company experienced shipping errors costing up to $10,000 monthly.

"Our recent internal audits show 100% accuracy," says Sam Stover, distribution manager. "We also went from a 3-week backlog to being capable of a same day shipping schedule."

As a result, the new system is expected to pay for itself in just 18 months.

Founded in 1917, Carlisle Tire & Wheel (CT&W) produces tires for lawn and garden equipment, golf carts and trailers. The company's tires range in size from 4 to 16 inches with some 25,000 manufactured daily at a local plant in Carlisle, Pa. Wheels and other products are also produced at plants in South Carolina and California.

Customers include OEMs of mowers, golf carts, and trailers such as Cub Cadet and Yamaha. Large retailers such as Wal-Mart, Pep Boys and Discount Tire also sell replacement tires.

This is the busiest time of the year for the distribution center, as it is during the early part of the year that retailers prepare for the warm outdoor season. Some 65,000 tires ship daily.

Tires are manufactured at the plant just a few miles away and hauled to the distribution center. Upon arrival, the trucks pull up to the facility's 10 receiving docks. Dock levelers allow lift trucks to easily enter the trailers.

Most tires are received in either gaylord corrugated containers on pallets or wire racks with plastic tops and bottoms. An average of 900 pallets and container racks arrive daily. Each carries a bar code, attached at the manufacturing facility, that a lift truck driver scans upon receipt. Instantly, the scanner/radio frequency (RF) device displays the appointed storage location assigned by the WMS.

The majority of receipts, with the exception of items needed for immediate replenishment, head directly to reserve storage. Almost all are stored in the reserve area at floor level with the exception of tire tubes, which are stored in a small amount of pushback pallet racking.

Upon arrival at the designated storage location, the lift truck operator scans a location bar code into the RF device.

If a received item is needed right away in a forward pick area, the lift truck driver will be informed through the RF unit where to take the receipt.

Replenishment takes place continuously throughout the day primarily from reserve storage.

Stock keeping units (SKUs) are categorized at Carlisle as A-D, with A representing the fastest movers and D the slowest. All A and most B items are placed into the back of the new three-level pick module that features pushback pallet racks. The remaining B, and the C and D SKUs are floor-stored. Some are held in wire racks.

Orders are first processed at Carlisle's facility in South Carolina. Data is then transmitted to the WMS at the Pennsylvania distribution center for fulfillment. The day's work is based on customer-requested shipping dates, including same-day shipments.

The WMS creates about 15 waves daily from the orders, grouping together similar SKUs. Batch and product labels are printed at the direction of the WMS. Each stack of labels contains: a header label describing the wave and batch; a task label explaining to the picker which SKUs to select and where they are found; and bar code labels for placement on each tire as it is picked. Hock says that moving to the new paperless system has made picking easier, resulting in greater accuracy and productivity.

"In our peak seasons, about 50% of our workforce is temporary," he explains. "We wanted to get away from paper and have a system that is easy for them to use."

Most picking occurs in the three-level module that holds the faster moving items. Workers first scan the task label on each batch sheet with their RF scanners. The device displays SKUs, quantities and locations to pick. At the location, the worker scans its bar code and begins picking. Each tire sidewall receives a label prior to deposit on a takeaway belt that winds through all three levels of the module. If a particular SKU is getting low, the operator keys in a replenishment request directly from the RF device. Picks continue until all selections in the wave have been completed.

Similarly, picks of slower-moving products come from the wire racks and other floor locations in the remaining B, C and D areas. These are placed onto wheeled carts. Again, workers scan task labels along with locations, attaching labels to each product as it is chosen. The carts travel to a bulk induction station, where each tire is placed onto a belt. The induction station is actually the beginning point of the conveyor that snakes through the module.

Any orders requiring a full pallet of tires may bypass the forward pick areas completely. These are picked from reserve storage and taken by lift truck directly to shipping where they are scanned, labeled and staged.

Often, however, customers require specific labeling for their tires. In this instance, formatted labels are printed and the pallet load is taken to the bulk induction area instead of directly to the dock. Each item is pulled from the pallet, labeled and placed onto the induction belt. Similarly, cartons containing tire tubes are pulled from the pushback racks in reserve storage. These are also brought to induction.

After feeding through the module, the belt carries all tire picks and cartons to the facility's pop-up sorter. A fixed scanner mounted over the front-end of the sorter belt reads the bar code of the label on the tire or carton. This information tells the sorter onto which of 30 lanes to direct the item. As the item approaches the correct lane, rollers pop up from the conveying surface and redirect the tire or carton down the gravity-fed spur.

Packers at the bottom of the lane place each item into a carton or a gaylord box depending on tire size and quantity in the order. Larger tires may also be stacked onto a pallet.

Once all items for an order have been diverted, a green light illuminates to signal to a lift truck driver that the load is ready to be taken to the staging area by the docks. The driver gathers the load, and, if necessary, takes it to a stretch wrap station before taking it to staging.

At staging, all outbound cartons are accumulated and then loaded by lift truck or pallet jack onto over-the-road trailers parked at the nine shipping docks. Most tires today ship directly to a customer's store, which is a change seen in recent years.

"We went from sending a lot of 2,500 pound shipments to customer distribution centers to now where we have mostly 350-pound carton shipments to stores," says Hock. "For instance, we ship anywhere from 200-500 shipments a day directly to Wal-Mart stores."

Impressive as the change has been, Carlisle Tire & Wheel is just now beginning to see the results of its upgrade.

"The success story we have had has only been in about 6 months," says Stover.

"We have been quite pleased so far," adds Hock. "We still have a long way to go in tweaking this system, but we are way ahead of where we were a year ago."

After many years of working at a much slower pace, the employees have also adapted well to the system.

"They are pleased with the changes," Hock says. "They would much rather pick something quickly than spend 20 minutes looking for it."

Hock adds that Carlisle Tire & Wheel has achieved its objectives of increasing productivity and shipping accuracy.

Click on this icon to read how Pep Boys distributes tires and auto parts.