Third-party provider Automated Distribution Systems (ADS) efficiently uses carousels in its distribution center in Edison, NJ. The units are used for both picking and accumulating orders of shoes for its major client, Sears.

'The carousels are modular, so they give us the ability to do many different things without being locked in,' says Bruce Mantz, director of logistics for ADS.

Fifty-six carousels are used for picking. These are arranged in 14 pods with four carousels per pod. The system holds as many as 16,000 stockkeeping units (SKUs) at any given time. At least 12 pairs of shoes of each SKU are always kept in the system. Lights direct picking here, as carousels spin to the proper storage location holding the needed shoes.

Higher moving SKUs are stored at waist level to make them easier to pick, while slow movers are placed in upper and lower storage locations. Heavier items are also placed in easy-to-reach locations to minimize back strains from lifting. Most operators can perform between 400 and 550 picks per hour from the carousel system.

Carousels are also used for gathering orders. In this put-system application, the items are placed into system shelves that act as temporary storage. Twenty-four carousels make up the ADS put system, arranged in twelve pods with two carousels per pod.

Cases of items are brought to the system and are scanned. The carousels spin to the location where products are to be gathered, with the locations representing stores or orders needing shoes. Light bars and quantity indicators show the operator which shelf is to be used. The operator then simply puts the indicated number of items into a carton staged within the storage location until it becomes full. Operators are able to perform 500 to 750 placements per hour in this carousel put system.

Full cartons are then pushed off onto a takeaway conveyor. The cartons pass a weighing system that checks the weight of the container against a known weight of what should be inside. Any differences are checked to assure that no shoes are missing from the carton.

'We set our carousels up by division - men's, women's, and kids',' explains Mantz. If Sears calls up and says they are having a sale on kids' shoes, we can get those out without having any negative impact on the men's or women's stock.'

While the carousels hold a large amount of stock, they consume only 100,000 square feet of the 408,000 square foot buildings. This allows ADS to move more product through its facility than major competitors with larger DCs.

The facility runs two shifts each day with a year-round workforce of 150. The light-directed carousels have made training these workers much easier while at the same time assuring a high rate of processing accuracy-currently at 99.85%.