The materials handling system managing the movement of raw materials and finished products through Valpak's new St. Petersburg, Fla., facility is almost completely automated: For the most part, the role of materials handlers is limited to loading and unloading trucks. That level of automation will allow the company to accommodate future growth while remaining as lean as possible.

Receiving and putaway: Postal supplies, inserts and envelopes arrive at the receiving/shipping docks on pallets and are unloaded by lift truck operators. To validate the pallets and receive them into the inventory management system, an operator in a processing area scans a bar code. Once a pallet has been validated, it's picked up by an automatic transfer vehicle (ATV) that delivers it for putaway into an automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) .

Picking: To fill an order, pallets of the various inserts that will go into an envelope are retrieved from the AS/RS and delivered to an output station. The pallets are delivered by an ATV back to the processing area . There, an operator picks the amount of material needed for that order to a tote. Once a tote is full, it is weighed, conveyed, and then delivered to a mini-load storage and retrieval system that acts as buffer storage for work-in-process. If the pallet still has inserts, it is returned to the AS/RS .

Printing: In addition to supplied inserts, a Valpak mailing includes coupons printed in mini-magazine formats ranging in size from 8 to 44 pages that are printed at the facility. The system automatically winds 10,000 units onto a print reel. The print reels are conveyed to a second AS/RS for temporary storage.

Order fulfillment: To complete a mailing, the system brings together envelopes, supplied inserts and the mini-magazines at a collating area for processing into envelopes. Palletized envelopes are retrieved from the main AS/RS , totes of supplied inserts are retrieved from the mini-load AS/RS and reels of printed mini-magazines are retrieved from the second AS/RS and are delivered by an AGV to a collater . After the envelopes are formed, a robot places them into a USPS mail tray. Once a mail tray is complete, it is placed on a conveyor and sent back to the mini-load system for temporary storage.

Shipping: When enough mail trays are ready to build a pallet, they are retrieved from the mini-load system and sorted to one of four robotic sleevers and then to one of two robotic palletizers . After palletizing, a cardboard cap is placed on the load. Then it's strapped in two directions, labeled and stretch-wrapped. Ready for shipment, it's transferred by an ATV to the AS/RS . There it remains in storage for one to four days. At the time of shipment, two pallets at a time are retrieved from the AS/RS, automatically stacked and strapped, and then delivered by conveyor to the processing area. Finally, the stacked pallets are loaded onto the trailer by a lift truck at shipping.