A Flexible Supply Chain Upgrades Its Distribution Center
Even though the 200,000 square foot distribution center of Christopher & Banks was able to provide its stores with quick fulfillment, the transportation expenses their methods’ incurred were cost prohibitive. Additionally, there was a strong question to reduce transportation costs by repacking items to increase box consequence. The drive to repackage a generous part of the products place a strain on the aging gear and the unfilled capacity. The facility relied on a very ancient, inflexible conveyor system, which was a source of chronic maintenance and other operational challenges. Material handling systems are also frequently used in the warehousing and packaging processes.
Faced with a combination of aging gear, a paper picking system and an inefficient work flow, the company determined that upgrades were needed to continue to support just in-time delivery and preside over to consumer fulfillment operations. Christopher & Banks got help from a material handling consulting firm but the project was positioned on hold until the team was joined by a new give chain and logistics manager, Mike Tripp. Tripp came on board with the experience and knowledge to draw a plot for a more ergonomically sound, productive, and energy well-organized solution that met budget and throughput constraints. There are also pick to light conveyor systems that use color codes to distinguish different types of materials from each other.
The project was place out for competitive bids and the contract was awarded to Intelligrated in April 2009. The cost-effective proposal, which existing productivity gains at less than half the cost of other proposals, was place on a quick paced schedule for an August 2009 completion, before fall store deliveries started.
The Christopher & Banks facility’s retrofit is designed for a new linear flow that has a semi-automated fulfillment process. The sell is inspected and checked for quality in receiving areas, then delivered to staging areas via forklift. Operators make use of RF-scanning to upload the data of new sell into the pick-to-light system, where the product is then positioned into an ergonomically designed combination of shelf and conveyor support assemblies. In the distribution center, workers add items to master cartons asthey go along the Intelligrated gravity conveyor. The semi-automated process of fulfillment is a model of improvements over the ancient system, the elimination of lifting manually and floor clutter provides a quieter, safer solution that’s also quicker and more accurate.
Once individual store orders are finished, the cartons are pushed to a take-away conveyor belt onto a two-level Intelligrated motor obsessed roller (MDR) conveyor collection line. With features like zero pressure accumulation and run on demand self-determining zones, the conveyor decreases energy use and wear, removes product jams and allows the filling of the whole length of the conveyor. This allows the order picking to continue independently of shipping activity. Cartons go to a cental merge and sorter and then get routed to a any of three shipping lanes. On each lane, the cartons are sealed involuntarily, weighed, labeled at a work station, and went by conveyor belt directly into a trailer at the doors of the shipping dock.
A convenient overhead empty carton conveyor was agreed by Intelligrated as part of the upgrades to the facility. With the facility producing up to 4 tons of empty corrugate each day, the reworked empty carton line directly routes corrugate into a waiting receptacle outside, which is then sent for recycling.
