SMART FACTORIES & AUTOMATION
The 400,000 sq ft site h
handles the receiving, storage,
packing and distribution of products for Selfridges & Co. The Hams Hall facility services Selfridges’ four UK stores, its click and collect service as well as its worldwide e-commerce operation.
AUTOMATING PACKING AND SORTATION FOR E-COMMERCE DELIVERY
In 2016, AMH Material Handling was asked to produce a solution to increase speed, accuracy and throughput capacity by automating the process of packing and despatch over the three floor mezzanine site.
In order to automate the facility, AMH installed belt conveyors on level 2 to accommodate packing desks on either side. Personnel are able to package orders and then place them straight onto the conveyor belt without the need to manually move packaged deliveries. Items on level 2 travel towards the end of the mezzanine floor where they are automatically inducted into a powered decline spiral conveyor. On level 1 of the mezzanine, AMH utilised existing conveyor systems and upgraded the conveyor belts where necessary. Again, personnel are based at packing stations either side of the conveyors and place packaged parcels onto the two conveyors. AMH installed a number of powered roller accumulation zones between the two packing conveyors to provide a continuous flow whilst merging the two packing lines onto a single conveyor as they also join the powered decline spiral conveyor.
The ground floor of the DHL site is predominately used for the packing of large goods which can’t be handled by the spiral conveyor system. Once items are packed by personnel on workbenches adjacent to the ground floor packing line, they are then placed onto a conveyor where they travel to the despatch area. The conveyor at ground floor level was designed at a height which enables workers to continue processes underneath it. This provides
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Packaged parcels on level 2 are merged on the spiral conveyor with packed parcels from level 1. The parcels from both levels are then transported to the ground floor where they meet the ground floor packing line conveyor infeeds. All packaging lines are then merged onto a single conveyor line which transports parcels to the despatch sortation area. As parcels reach the despatch area, they pass through a five sided barcode scanner which sorts them by final destination. The sortation process is configurable by the user to sort by either region, carrier or store. Flexibility for the operation was key when finalising the functional design specification. Parcels are then diverted using 24v high performance diverts and sent down the correct chute for palletising.
P ged on the
A SOLUTION TO ACCOMMODATE E-COMMERCE GROWTH
In 2018, AMH Material Handling was asked by DHL to complete additional work to the Hams Hall site. Assam Khan, operations manager at DHL explains: “Selfridges’ e-commerce operation is continuously growing each year. As a result, we needed to expand on AMH Material Handling’s initial installation in order to keep up with the demands and meet worldwide customer delivery times. “Selfridges approached us and said they needed to increase their e-commerce throughput. As a third party logistics provider, it was down to DHL to source the equipment to achieve this. We realised that we needed to expand the number of workbenches on-site to increase throughput and therefore commissioned AMH to complete the additional work to accommodate this.
“We decided to move the store retail operation on the ground floor to the far side of the facility. This freed up a significant amount of space enabling AMH to install two additional conveyor feeds to the despatch line. This allowed us to add an additional 60 benches on the ground floor - significantly
FEBRUARY 2020 | FA 2020 | FACTORY&HANDL NGSOLUT ONS ORY&HANDLINGSOLI UTIONSI
essentially its Black Friday week. We had planned to process 50,000 units per day but we actually hit 58,000 units per day and we wouldn’t have been able to manage this without the extra workbench area installed on the ground floor. AMH also installed a maintenance platform for the raised despatch sortation system to provide safe access so any faults can be quickly and easily rectified.”
k Friday week. We had planned
FUTURE-PROOFING FOR CONTINUED GROWTH AND PEAK PERIODS
“This year, Selfridges came back to us and predicted another significant increase in e-commerce throughput for 2019. In order to prepare for this year’s CCE week, AMH came back onto site and replaced old obsolete belt conveyors on level 2 and installed new replacement conveyors to feed the powered decline spiral conveyor. This has allowed us to make both the ground floor and level 1 our main processing floors with the option of opening up level 2 as we need it. During peak periods all three floors run at full capacity for 24 hours a day.
“AMH also extended the despatch platform and installed an additional two new chutes – taking the total of despatch chutes to six. The despatch chutes cover all our UK and worldwide couriers as well as in-store click and collect.
“The new three floor automation system has increased efficiencies not only by making room for additional workbenches, but also by improving the site layout and allowing us to store products more efficiently. This reduces walking distances for personnel and avoids the need to pick orders across multiple floors. Furthermore, the despatch sortation system has removed the requirement to manually sort parcels by destination which would have been problematic with the growth Selfridges is experiencing.
AMH Material Handling
www.amhmaterialhandling.com
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