Storage/Staging: Mezzanine makeover increases productivity

George J. Falter Co. distributes a variety of products to small stores, including candy, cigarettes and food items. To store a significant number of SKUs and support broken-case picking, the company installed a mezzanine with carton flow racking.
In 2011, an inefficient and cumbersome pick line in an existing mezzanine area was undersized, in disrepair and slowing workers down at the company’s Baltimore facility.

“Our old system had lanes with plastic wheel tracks that would get busted up, and product would fall through or get hung up,” explains Frank Falter, CEO of George J. Falter Co. “Plus, the layout of the area made it tough for employees to reach products easily and safely.”

In the first phase of the mezzanine project, the team focused on the upper level, the pick point for grocery products and dry goods before they are conveyed downstairs. “We had a combination of fast- and slow-moving products on top of the mezzanine,” Falter says. “We now have two sides of roller rack with flow rack flanking both sides of the stand-alone wire shelving for slower movers.”
The team then created a pick line under the mezzanine deck. “It’s cooler there, which is great for chocolate, and we figured we could model the flow upstairs to optimize the space under the deck,” Falter says.

The new design incorporated 32 bays of carton flow and approximately 45 wire deck shelving units, resulting in three pick lines: two upstairs and one U-shaped line downstairs, housing 3,000 SKUs.

Falter says he’s been able to reduce the number of pickers by a third, maximizing space utilization. “Manufacturers come out with new SKUs every month,” he says, “and because we can put any size box next to another, it creates more pick faces in the carton flow area.”

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