Kuecker Equipment Inc.

Case Studies: Retail Department Store Distribution Center

Project:	Upgrade Facility - New Conveyor System from receiving to shipping and put-to-light system.	Click on any of the thumbnail photos below for a "slide show" of installation photos
Conveyors:	Automotion, Inc.
Put-to-light:	Innovative Picking Technologies, Inc.
Scanners:	Sick
Project Overview: KEC implemented four phases of distribution center improvements for a discount / department store retailer. The first phase was a new shipping sorter. The second phase was a new receiving system that included a receiving pre-sort, cross dock lines, trash conveyor and a new distro area. The third phase was a put-to-light distro system for hard lines and softlines store distro. The fourth phase was new processing lines and new trash lines merging all the trash lines in the facility into a new baler system. Light directed hang / pack will compete the final phase of the distribution center renovation.

After implementing the new receiving and sorter systems, the customer was able to triple shift throughput in terms of cartons shipped reducing overtime and labor costs.

Receiving System

Flat processing lines feed a receiving pre-sort. The flat face arm receiving sorter routes cartons to shipping, distro area or strapper. The receiving area also has a belt throw line for manual depalletizing and a direct-from-dock cross-dock line. A trash line goes from the flat processing lines, through the distro area to the baler.

Put-to-light System

A put-to-light system was implemented to add speed and accuracy to a paper based store distro. Hard lines (small items, fragrances, etc.) distro was the first area to receive the put-to-light technology. Items are staged on sloped gravity conveyor surrounding the distro line. The operators scan in items and the light system shows the distribution quantity for each store. The operators walk down the line and distribute the quantities in each store carton as directed by the lights. When cartons are full they are pushed off to the center take-away conveyor where they proceed to shipping after going through the strapper.

Soft lines distro was the next area to implement the put-to-light technology. The operation is the same except the distro line is double level. The final phase of the put-to-light implementation is a hang pack area where lights direct the distro of hanging garments into Gaylord type pallet boxes.

Shipping System

A sliding shoe sorter was implemented in shipping. The sorter feeds palletizing loops which are a conveyor oval. Operators build store pallets by sorting off the palletizing loop. When a pallet is complete it is pushed back on the pallet flow tracks which allow accumulation of seven pallets per store. Photo-eye accumulation conveyor was utilized throughout the facility reducing jams and side-by-side cartons adding to the efficiency of the sortation and shipping system.