Atlantic Power, Inc. originally used two facilities to handle its inventory of Briggs & Stratton small gas engine parts. However, lack of automation at both sites made order processing slow, and missed shipping deadlines were common.

The company moved operations to a new, larger facility and installed a total turnkey system to solve its materials flow problems. Beyond accumulation and belt conveyors and related controls, pallet racks, flow racks, shelving, totes, workstations and software are all part of the system. Now Atlantic Power picks, packs and ships products faster, with a higher level of efficiency. The new order picking and fulfillment systems provide maximum throughput with minimum staff.

Orderpickers receive pick lists that contain a batch of eight orders. They pick items from flow racks or shelving areas, placing the items in totes and sending them to pack stations by conveyor. Larger items are picked from bulk storage areas. They are placed on other conveyors that merge with the tote conveyors prior to reaching pack stations.

There, workers remove products from totes and pack them into cartons for shipment. Empty totes are placed on a lower-level conveyor, which takes them back to picking areas to be filled again. Finished cartons are placed on a takeaway conveyor, which sends them to manifesting stations. The cartons are scanned for entry into the UPS shipping system and conveyed to an automatic case sealer.

Of great importance to the success of the system are the accumulation and slug-indexing belt conveyors, says vice president Gary Bucciantini.

The accumulation conveyor feeds six packing stations. When zones at any of the packing stations become open, products automatically shift to fill the space. This process keeps a steady flow of products in front of packers. Workstations are designed to maximize accumulation and provide ergonomic flow for packers.

Slug-indexing belts are used to accommodate the variation of carton sizes and accumulation required for efficient shipping. When cartons interrupt a photo-eye beam, that causes the conveyor to index forward one carton length. The conveyor stops again when the beam is re-established. Once the first belt conveyor fills with cartons, they are moved as a slug to the next belt conveyor, which is the same length as the previous one. The indexing belt conveyors eliminate carton jams by preventing narrow cartons from accumulating side-by-side.

Line-shaft-driven live roller conveyors are used because of the large number of conveyors in the compact packing area. The conveyors minimize noise, enhance worker safety and reduce the number of drives needed.

"This spring, which is our peak season, we saw more volume in number of orders than we projected," Bucciantini says. "The system was able to accommodate the high throughput with no back orders and no overtime required."