Automating value-added services

While custom packaging, labeling and kitting are labor intensive operations, automation can make some value-added services more efficient.

By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 9/5/2007

From custom packaging to rainbow pallets for an end-of-aisle display, retailers are demanding more value-added services than ever. While many of these processes are labor intensive, automation can play a role in meeting the demand for new packaging and palletizing requirements, says Mike Kotecki, senior vice president of HK Systems.

“The first consideration is where you insert an automated materials handling solution in your supply chain,” says Kotecki. “For instance, you can build custom pallets at your manufacturing plant. But to do that, you need to have real control over your demand and your supply chain. If you insert the value-added process and the automation at a regional DC or a third-party logistics (3PL) provider location, you have a better chance of delivering the stock keeping units (SKUs) that meet the demand.”

For instance, delivering and storing a full pallet of soda, diet soda and decaffeinated soda that can later be repalletized into a mixed pallet is more efficient than anticipating demand and building mixed pallets at the bottling plant that may not meet a customer’s requirements later.

The second consideration is to determine what processes can be effectively automated. The most common are storage and palletizing operations.

Some DCs will depalletize full pallets at the receiving dock and store individual cases in an automated mini-load storage and retrieval system. The AS/RS not only maximizes space, it can also synchronize the delivery of cases to a palletizing station or automatic palletizer to build mixed loads or rainbow pallets, where different SKUs are layered on a pallet.

Rainbow pallets

In fact, the demand for rainbow pallets has led to the development of technologies that can store and redistribute products by the layer rather than the case.

On the order fulfillment side, automatic palletizers can be used to build mixed and rainbow pallets. “Traditional palletizing, however, works best when you’re dealing with predictable packages that are all the same size,” says Kotecki. “A gantry robot, on the other hand, can pick up and palletize a full layer of product right from a conveyor.”

The most common scenario today is a combination of automated and manual palletizing. “We’re seeing situations where automation is used to build a rainbow pallet that’s topped off by an operator adding a couple of mixed cases on top of the pallet,” says Kotecki.