Sometimes it's best to alter standard practices when a unique situation presents itself. And that's exactly what information technology products distributor Ingram Micro did when it built its new 800,000 square foot distribution center in Mira Loma, Calif.

Its materials handling systems are 'built almost completely from spare parts,' says Terry Tysseland, senior vice president of operations, North America. It uses 'experienced' equipment, he adds, 'except for some additional horsepower from a sortation standpoint.' In addition, extensive system integration work needed to be done to allow the DC to operate at performance levels expected at other company facilities.

The equipment came from four Ingram Micro facilities, one DC each in the California cities of Santa Ana, Fremont and Fullerton, and one in Miami, Fla. A sudden change in market dynamics made those facilities unnecessary at the height of the IT turndown. And as a $22 billion a year supplier of information technology products with 49 distribution centers around the world, Ingram Micro decided to take this unconventional approach under dire market conditions.

The Mira Loma DC, which is a new building, has 104 dock doors for receiving and shipping. It stages pallets in 28,500 rack locations and split cases in 30,000 pick locations. Operating 24/7, the facility has a peak capacity to process 56,000 cartons daily.

Mira Loma can ship a mix of less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments as well as small parcels. Outbound LTL items account for about 20% of all shipments, while parcels are 80%.

On the inbound side it's a reverse mix by total volume. Receiving takes in about 500 to 700 small parcels a day, says Gill, while 400 to 600 pallet loads arrive daily.

Mira Loma averages 4 hours from the time of order receipt to the time that the specific order goes onto an outbound truck.

The performance of this DC, Tysseland points out, 'rivals our distribution center in Jonestown, Pennsylvania,' which received the Modern Materials Handling Productivity award in distribution in 2001.

Through use of surplus equipment, explains Jonathan Chihorek, vice president of systems and engineering, Ingram Micro was able to reduce the total cost of the Mira Loma DC project by 20%.

Equipment installed in Mira Loma, however, wasn't just any surplus conveyor, storage rack and other types of handling equipment pulled from unknown sources. These items came from other DCs within Ingram Micro's own U.S. operations, Chihorek says.

Because the equipment had been used in the company's own DCs, 'we had a very good feel for its quality,' he says. 'We had first-hand experience with the preventative maintenance run on the equipment. We had a good level of comfort with our plan for using it.'

IM uses a five-year planning approach. In 1997 'we saw we would be out of distribution capacity by 1999,' he recalls, 'due to double-digit growth then in IT markets.'

Southern California was identified as an area for new DC capacity. So in 1999, IM's board of directors approved a plan to build the Mira Loma DC from the ground up with all new materials handling equipment and systems.

But by late 1999 and early 2000, 'the business climate had shifted significantly. Our fixed assets in our distribution centers exceeded IT market demands,' Chihorek says. Yet the company still wanted 'to go ahead and improve the quality of our distribution.' Thus, it was decided to both downsize existing capacity and to build new capacity simultaneously.

As a result, the Mira Loma project—with the systems integrator already chosen—was put out for a second bidding round, based on a revised plan to pull in surplus materials handling assets from the other DCs.

One challenge in this approach, recalls Frank Gill, senior director, Southern California operations, lay in 'achieving our objective of maintaining world-class service levels.'

The Fullerton DC remained in full operation, for example, even as equipment assets were relocated. One tactic to maintain service levels by a downsized Fullerton involved 'extending our reach from our other DCs through transportation programs,' Gill says. Shipping suppliers delivered to customers beyond the usual destination limits.

One systems integrator was chosen for the new facility, the same one selected on the first bid round (Siemens Dematic, 877-725-7500, www.siemens-dematic.us). Its proprietary materials handling control system also was selected to integrate controls for the varied subsystems. This control system interfaces with Mira Loma's warehouse management system (WMS) and in turn the WMS links with a legacy software system.

'From a hardware standpoint, connecting all the handling system pieces together is rather straightforward,' explains Gill. Software integration is far harder. Much more difficult are all the issues and problems arising from the software controlling the varied pieces of hardware. 'The key ingredient to a successful integration lies in the materials handling control system,' he declares.

'You wouldn't know that the equipment is surplus to walk around Mira Loma,' Tysseland adds, except for one very visible fact: That's the different colors painted by five manufacturers on their individual brands of conveyor. And since this is a DC with nearly five miles of conveyors, these color changes create something of a rainbow effect.

Considerable experience by IM staff in running DCs of 500,000 square feet or more clearly helped the Mira Loma project succeed.

'We were able to leverage our learning from the Jonestown distribution center in the design of Mira Loma,' says Chihorek. The two DCs are similar in design, but the flows of materials differ, notes Gill. Mira Loma 'is the most evolved of all of our distribution centers,' says Chihorek.

Click on the icon to read about Ingram Micro's Jonestown, Pa. facility. (3PL powerhouse - from September 2000)

Ingram Micro Distribution Center
Mira Loma, CA
Products:  Information technology products
Start-Up Date:  April 2002
Distribution Space:  800,000 sq. ft.
Hours of Operation:  24/7, 3 shifts
Capacity:  56,000 cartons daily
Stockkeeping Units:  24,000

Receiving to shipping

Receiving (1) numbers 69 dock doors to bring in inbound shipments. Goods inbound are directed to those dock doors closest to the staging/storage areas to which they will be moved. These areas are static pallet rack (2), bulk floor storage (3), push-back rack (4), non-conveyable pallet storage (5), small parcel receiving (6), returns processing (7), and a security cage (8) . After parcels are received, they are sent to the three-levels-high, 110,000 square-foot, repack-and-pick module, returns or security cage.

Outbound parcel orders are selected in the module (9) in a pick-and-pass process or are similarly selected from the security cage (8). From either area, parcel orders are conveyed to small parcel shipping (10) where they are sorted to a specific outbound dock door and outbound carrier truck.

Full cases are picked from areas (2), (3), (4), (5) and (8) and and moved by orderpicker trucks or conveyor to LTL shipping (11) where sortation directs them to the appropriate conveyor lane and then to an outbound truck, or to small parcel shipping (10) .

Data entry by RF terminals and bar code scanning of pallet loads, parcels, and cases throughout these steps provides real-time tracking and tracing of every item within the DC.

Not shown is a 52,000 square foot billing mezzanine area above areas (6), (7) and (10).