Case Study Conveyors & Automation
Wine seller T
The installation, now fully operational and complete with high-bay pallet racking, Live Carton Storage (KDR), shelving, integrated conveyor systems, case-picking, single-item zone-picking and carton shipping sortation, has given The Wine Society a 40% increase in productivity since going live. Warehouse One, the original building, is now the store for maturing wines; Warehouse Three contains reserve pallets of stock held in Warehouse One; Warehouses Two and Four are the heart of operations. It is in these two warehouses, containing medium- to fast-moving products, where SSI Schaefer installed the high-bay pallet racking system and the picking, packing and sortation system, the latter of which is on two levels.
FLATTEST, HIGHEST IN EUROPE Warehouse Four currently boasts the flattest warehouse floor in Europe and the highest Very Narrow Aisle (VNA) racking serviced by fork lift trucks in Europe. The high bay pallet racking system that has over 12,000 pallet locations stands at 15.3m tall with eight pallet levels inside the 20m-high build- ing. The VNA racking is serviced by Linde fork lift trucks, which extend to the highest point of their range and can handle up to 1,250kg per pallet lift. Man-up trucks pick from levels one to six, and fork lift trucks bring down pallets from levels seven and eight. Full-case picking is effected from pal- lets in Warehouse Two; cases are put on conveyors, brought down by
7million
bottles of wine stored at The Wine Society’s Stevenage depot
34 May 2012 Storage Handling Distribution
lowerators to conveyors on the ground level and merged with single-item picks (in cases); the single-item picks are made in one area surrounded by KDR for fastest movers and shelving for the slower movers. All cases enter a carton sortation sys- tem with 13 lanes, two routes per lane; this means The Wine Society can pick and sort 26 van routes in one pick wave. The Wine Society’s own van fleet does 70% of all deliveries. The sortation system also carries cases from the upper level and delivers them to the pick area, via dedicated lanes, for replenishing the shelving and KDR.
BEST SOLUTION
Peter Styne, operations manager, The Wine Society, said: “Once we had chosen SSI Schaefer as our preferred partner on this project, we worked closely with them to develop and design the best solution for our business. We operate a fleet of dedicated delivery vans which resulted in the need for us to develop a routing sortation system. The Schaefer solution, designed to include the high bay, has proved perfect for our needs.”
www.shdlogistics.com
SSI Schaefer has provided The Wine Society with a much-needed high-bay storage solution and a picking, packing and sortation solution within its Stevenage distribution centre in Hertfordshire.
Grape expectations: An efficient system brings wine to a carton sortation system.
Wine box: The SSI solution facilitates full-case picking and single-item picks.
The busier the operation gets, the more efficient it becomes, because more people operating in smaller zones means they spend less time walking and more time picking. The Wine Soci-
ety works just one dayshift with 30-90 operators, depending upon season. SSI Schaefer also installed a trash conveyor to remove empty cartons from the building, which are subse- quently compacted and recycled. The existing distribution centre in Steve- nage, which has been operational since 1965, has undergone steady expansion over the years and now has capacity to store over 7,000,000 bottles. Prior to its current location, wine was stored at three separate locations across London, includ- ing below the London Palladium in Soho. The Wine Society, founded in 1874, is a multi-award winning member-owned co- operative. Over 100,000 members have access to excellent wine at fair prices, with any profit made ploughed straight back into the business. Its team of six buyers continually travels the world, discover- ing new producers and exploring new regions so that members really can have access to a lifetime’s supply of wine. n
www.ssi-schaefer.co.uk
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