Feature Handling & conveyors
Handling solution sorts small parts for Halfords
Halfords’ 320,000 sq ft Coventry DC operates an innovative small parts picking system, designed and installed by Dematic, which combines conveyors, a combination of picking technologies and an automated buffer that consolidates picked totes into store orders
Coventry, which now holds all of the retailer’s range other than bicycles and serves Halfords’ entire network of 470 stores across the UK and Ireland. This means ultra high throughputs are required from the new DC. The key to achieving this would be to create a small parts store for picking 10,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) of small products quickly and accurately into order totes and then consolidating them for delivery to the stores. Working together with Halfords, Dematic designed a solution that located a small parts picking centre on a double deck mezzanine. Running along the entire 165m length of the DC over the loading bay doors, the struc- ture facilitates marshalling below yet
T
o achieve highly efficient store order fulfilment Halfords’ recently consolidated two DCs into a single new Distribution Centre in
provides 70,000 sq ft of picking area in what would normally be unused space over the marshalling areas, allowing Halfords to optimise the warehouse. Dematic’s small parts picking solu- tion comprises a conveyor-based system with pick-to-light and pick-by- voice technology. On the mezzanine’s first level, 3,600 SKUs of faster moving small parts are picked from live stor- age lanes using fast and accurate pick- to-light technology. The simplicity of this system allows 300 lines per hour to be picked. The upper level of the small parts store houses Halford’s 6,000 slower moving SKUs, which are located in bins on inclined shelves. Voice picking technology allows 200 lines per hour of these products to be picked at a much lower capital cost than pick-to-light. This high rate is helped by concentrating picks into smaller areas so that each tote only
Dematic T: 01295 274624
www.dematic.co.uk Enter 404
Safe handling guide aims to reduce risk T
oyota Material Handling UK has published the latest edition of his popular award winning guide to safe manual handling. This guide offers both employers and employees guidance on the safest ways to lift, stack and move items in the workplace. The latest report from the Health and Safety Executive* (HSE) has found that there were over 46,000 incidents in the UK where manual handling task caused an injury that led to a worker being absent for three days or more. This represents 41 per cent of all work place injuries, making manual handling the most common cause of injury in the workplace. The Toyota Manual Handling Guide gives simple rules to remember when
handling loads, recommended lifting weight guidelines and advice on material handling equipment that could help reduce the risk to employees. Toyota believes the guide will help employers to ensure they are meeting their legal obligations to protect their workforce from injury. A comprehensive assessment checklist will help businesses to measure and assess their current manual handling practices and identify areas for improvement. Tony Wallis, operations director, Toyota Material Handling UK, comments: “Toyota has long been synonymous with new ways to reduce risk in the workplace. Our work in this area has allowed us to produce this comprehensive guide. We believe that this offers employers clear and simple advice to help them to meet their legal duties and to help reduce the huge number of injuries that stem from manual handling that are entirely preventable. If every business looked at the guide, reviewed their activity and focused on manual handling as a lost revenue, business in the UK could save hundreds of thousands of pounds per year in reduced absence and workplace injury. No-one can afford not to consider the content of the guide and we hope leaders will take time to review and implement some of the steps to help prevent accidents.” The Toyota Manual Handling Guide is available free of charge at
www.toyota-forklifts.co.uk *HSE Statistics, Over three-day injuries to employees by kinds of accident 2006/7 -
http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics
Materials Handling & Logistics MARCH 2011
travels to one or two zones for it to be filled up and travel distances for staff, who have their hands free, are reduced, thus giving a very efficient pick. As Vocollect reseller for the project, Dematic supplied a total of 60 voice terminals for the Coventry DC. Twenty of these are used in the pick-to-voice system while the remaining units are used for other operations within the facility. These are all controlled by Manhattan Associates’ WMS, which also feeds orders to Dematic’s DC Director WCS. This warehouse control system looks after stock profiling and integrates the pick-to-light and voice technologies seamlessly to achieve the most efficient pick possible. Completed order totes are sent to the Dematic Multishuttle Captive Buffer, which is designed to increase speed, accuracy and throughput. The auto- mated system’s intelligent controls enable complex sequencing that con- tributes to its flexibility and allows Halfords to build store-friendly orders, calling out whole or part store orders as required. The Multishuttle can also ensure that the heaviest tote is at the bottom of the stack when they get to a Halford’s store. Dematic’s small parts picking scheme helps achieve the high throughputs required at the Coventry DC while improved tote fill has halved the number of totes each store receives in an order to 30.
The entire small parts picking scheme is future proofed with room for another double deck mezzanine along the side of the DC, which could be linked into the current system thanks to the Multishuttle’s modular design, which allows more lanes to be added, without any change to the flow of Halford’s operation.
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