Automation is important to plant growers. Yes, computers, automatic transplanters, flat fillers, and other advances have greatly improved the production phase of greenhouse operations. Shipping, however, is one area often forgotten, and in need of some help.

Todd Johnson, owner of Dallas Johnson Greenhouses in Council Bluffs, Iowa, needed a more efficient way to process orders in his almost 1 million sq ft greenhouse.

"In the past, our system was basically set up as a staging area with carts full of product and a walkway down the middle," says Johnson. He adds, "workers would manually walk up and down the aisles, filling specific orders. It was better than doing it straight out of the greenhouse production area, but it was still very labor intensive and time consuming."

Then Johnson heard about gravity flow rack. He decided to try the racks in his greenhouse. And after only three spring seasons with the flow racks, Dallas Johnson Greenhouses had nearly doubled its shipping capacity.

"During the busy season, we can process as many as 20,000 flats in a day," says Johnson. He adds, "before we went to this system, our record shipping week was $600,000. Our biggest week last spring was $1.1 million."

The system consists of two rows of flow racks – one on each side of the aisle. Between the racks there is a pair of conveyor belts and room for four pullers, two on each side.

All the plants are arranged alphabetically on the flow rack. Pullers take an order sheet, pull everything for an order, and place the flats on the conveyor. From there, the plants are run through a watering tunnel, loaded onto the carts, labeled, and put onto a delivery truck.

When first installed, the 150 ft long flow rack was located in the warehouse, but it has since been moved into the greenhouse. With the system in the greenhouse, flats can stay on the track indefinitely. When it was in the warehouse, flats had to be shipped within 2 to 3 days.

Today, order processing is very efficient at Dallas Johnson Greenhouses. "The rack system allows us to have a very fast turnaround time on any order. That has helped us get to the capacity that we do now."

Orders from surrounding towns can usually be filled the same day, and orders from stores from within a 400 mile radius can be filled the next day. Such swift shipping means the flats have a longer shelf life at stores.

Johnson couldn't be more pleased. "It's the most economic shipping system that I have seen. While it's still a quite manual process, it utilizes labor in the most efficient way."

Keneco, Inc.
800-932-0121
www.kenecoinc.com