Automated Distribution Systems gets up to speed

A new DC allows Automated Distribution Systems (ADS) to continue growing.

By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 7/10/2007

How do you improve your position in the marketplace? If you’re a third-party logistics provider (3PL) like Automated Distribution Systems, you bring up a new facility that expands your reach and your capabilities. 

“We outgrew our original building in Edison, New Jersey,” says Bruce Mantz, executive vice president. “We could no longer keep up with the amount of volume and diversity of goods we were trying to move through the DC, and we didn’t have the land to expand.”

Instead, ADS bought a highly-automated 600,000 square foot facility in Gaffney, S.C. The new location expanded ADS’s reach. “With a facility in South Carolina, we can better service Florida and the Gulf Coast along with the southwest,” says Mantz.

On top of that, the new facility came equipped with an abundance of material handling equipment, including:

• carousels

• bomb bay, tilt tray and high speed sortation system

• e-commerce fulfillment tower

• automated crossdock system

 “There’s not much this building can’t handle from a materials handling standpoint,” says Mantz. “Being a third-party provider, that flexibility is a selling tool.” 

Getting up and running

The challenge, says Mantz, was to take a facility that had been out of commission and bring it up to speed to meet ADS’s needs.

“First and foremost, we had to identify how we could gain the most flexibility from the equipment in the DC based on the customers we were going to service and the products we were going to ship,” says Mantz.

New warehouse management system

Once that was done, the next step was to install a new WMS. “The facility came with a legacy WMS,” says Mantz. “But we realized that given the complexity of the products and orders we fill, that was not going to be what we needed.” ADS implemented a Tier I WMS that is totally integrated with all of the material handling equipment, along with the ability to create order picking waves by merchandise, by geography or by SKU.

 “Putting in the WMS gave us the flexibility we need to process orders,” says Mantz. “What’s more, we cross-train our people to work on all the main pick and pack devices. That allows us to balance our workload as business spikes up or down.”