Syosset, N.Y.
SKUS: 13,000
Throughput: 10 million cases annually
Employees: 150
Shifts per day/Days per week: 3 shifts per day/5 days per week; 7 days per week during peak
Using shuttle technology and a unique case dispensing system, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits is moving nearly 10 million cases a year through its Syosset, N.Y., distribution center, with most customers demanding next-day delivery.
The facility receives (1) 10 million cases a year, which are delivered in truckload and container quantities. The facility receives 40 trucks a day during normal periods and as many as 50 per day during peak. Most product is received on slip sheets and transferred to pallets that receive a license plate bar code that is used by the warehouse management system (WMS) to determine a putaway location. Once received, pallets are staged for storage.
The putaway process is directed by the WMS. Depending on whether there is an immediate demand for product, pallets may be scanned into a rack or floor location in reserve storage (2); delivered to one of the case pick lines (3); or cases can be sent directly to the bottle pick room (4) where they are scanned into a location for split case picking, or conveyed to the shuttle system (5), where they are automatically inducted into the system.
During the day, pick locations are replenished according to rules that determine minimum and maximum inventory levels by SKU in the various picking areas; at night, during the active picking hours, pick locations are replenished according to demand.
There are four distinct picking processes in the facility.
Finally, some orders that are received early in the day can be put into the shuttle as buffer storage until picking begins in the evening. At that time, the WMS sends order information to the shuttle, which dispenses cases onto a conveyor system that delivers them to the sortation system (7).
Trailer loading and shipping: A total of 17 lines—nine from one area and eight from another—feed the accumulation and merge area (8). Once picking begins, cases are released, merged and combined in wave sequence to the sorter (9), which then conveys them in loading sequence to a dock door (10). Dock doors are feed by spiral conveyors. Trucks are floor-loaded on a first in/last off basis.
Read the Full Feature Article “Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits: Designed to Last”