What's driving retail DCs today
By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 11/1/2006
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[Click the PLAY button to start the video clip.]
With sorter shoes parallel to the centerline of the equipment, Dematic’s new S-L 300 sorter increases throughput despite lower sorter speeds. |
But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, eight other factors are compounding the degree of difficulty of staging, picking and shipping orders, according to Mike Kohdl, director of supply chain services for Dematic.
The eight are:
- Stock keeping unit (SKU) proliferation
- Multi-format retailing
- Store friendly delivery
- Increasing cost of transportation
- Reduced in-store inventory
- Productivity
- Accuracy, and
- Ergonomics, health and safety.
At a recent press day at Dematic’s headquarters in Grand Rapids, Mich., Gregg Vandenbosch, product manager of conveyor systems, and Bill Veit, sortation product manager, talked about two new products that help managers meet these distribution challenges.
The C-L series of modular conveyors feature DC-powered rollers that reduce power consumption by 30%, says Vandenbosch. The “plug-and-convey” modules require less installation time. Pre-configured integrated distributed controls, adds Vandenbosch, maximize performance and reliability.
Dematic’s next generation of sorters is known as the S-L 300. Veit says it sorts 300 cartons a minute using a new parallel divert technology that places the sort shoes parallel to the centerline of the sorter. This results in better package control, minimizing the chance a package will roll off the shoes and increasing sortation rates.
“The divert technology allows packages to be spaced much closer together, yet still be easily diverted effectively,” says Veit. “This improved efficiency results in increased throughput at overall slower sortation speeds, saving energy while improving package handling.”
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