Storage/Staging: Beverage distributor’s automated system builds mixed pallets

Pepsi-Cola of Central Virginia (Pepsi CVA) distributes around four million beverage cases in Virginia each year, but with business continuing to increase, Pepsi CVA knew it needed to improve operational efficiencies and increase its order accuracy.

To achieve these goals, the company installed an automated order fulfillment system including a case sequencing and dispensing system used primarily to buffer and sequence product for order fulfillment. The technology helps automate the process of building mixed pallets for distribution, a process many retail stores are requesting of beverage distributors.

As customers place orders, they are received through a software program that breaks the orders down into pallets and tells the system how to sort and build each order. The highest-moving stock keeping units (SKUs) are sorted and released by the case sequencer, while slower-moving SKUs come from a mini-load automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS).

For palletizing the order, the system uses three methodologies: a clamp truck to pick up all layers of the same SKU, an automatic palletizer to build all of the layers that are of the same order but different SKUs, and a manual operation to place any oddball SKUs that need to go on top of a package. The orders are then automatically stretched wrapped and taken to a loading dock to prepare for shipment.

“We’ve come to appreciate are the structured environment of the automated equipment,” says Tony Howard, warehouse manager at Pepsi CVA. “Automation has also reduced our overtime. The system runs, it doesn’t get tired, and it continues to run until the work is done.”

Other benefits include improved order accuracy, higher throughput, and reduced employee turnover. The new system handles more than 400 SKUs, while producing mixed pallets at 1,500-2,000 cases per hour. The new system also allows Pepsi CVA to be ASN (advanced shipping notice) compatible, all while reducing labor costs by two-thirds.

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