Del Monte Foods: Best in class

Modern Materials Handling - October 2010SPECIAL REPORT
Data capture and mobile computing 30 EQUIPMENT REPORT
Carousels improve picking 34
®
PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTIONS FOR DISTRIBUTION, WAREHOUSING AND MANUFACTURING
October 2010
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Dematic Group, a leading global supplier of integrated materials handling solutions and services, has successfully completed the acquisition of HK Systems, a North american automated materials handling and software solutions provider. this strategic union was made final on Sept. 15, 2010.
John K. Baysore, ceo of Dematic North america (www.dematic.us), will be responsible for leading and developing the newly combined company in the united States and canada. With more
than 20 years of executive experience, Baysore will lead Dematic in the design, delivery and support of a more robust and diversified solution offering to the company’s customers. the newly combined company will be called Dematic, with its North american headquarters in Grand rapids, mich. the expanded manufacturing foot-
print will allow Dematic to domestically manufacture automated storage and retrieval machines and automated guided vehicles in addition to conveyor, sortation and order fulfillment technology.
mmh.com Modern Materials Handling / O c t O b e r 2 0 1 0 3
Lift trucK DiStriButor Barclay Brand ferdon is supporting National Breast cancer awareness month by raising money and awareness. the distributor is displaying a pink painted Yale lift truck on its front lawn through the month of october, and they plan to participate in the american cancer Society’s “making Strides against Breast cancer” walk in Woodbridge center (Woodbridge, N.J.) on oct. 17.
“We have pledged to match all of the donations made by our employees,” said Skip russo, president and ceo of Barclay Brand ferdon. “i am proud of the people
who work for Barclay. although it has been a tough economy for all of us, our employees have really stepped up to make a difference in our community. We’ve also had a great response from our vendors in support of this effort.” Barclay Brand ferdon is a distributor in New Jersey and New York for all warehousing equipment and support services.
Pink lift truck supports breast cancer awareness month
1,913 the number of exhibiting companies at PaCK eXPo international, oct. 31 to Nov. 3 at mccormick place in chicago.
dematic group completes acquisition of HK systems
new player in the carousel market
FAST FACT
UP FRONT B r e a k i n g n e w s y o u s h o u l d k n o w
CeMa report says booked orders were down in July
a NeW proviDer, Sapient automation, is entering the market for vertical and horizontal carousels and vertical lift modules (vLms), according to ed romaine, chief marketing officer for Sapient (www.getsapient.com). romaine announced the formation of the new company
at the fall meeting of the material Handling industry of america (mHia) in palm Springs, calif. the new company is a subsidiary of mDci, a provider of industrial automation solu-
tions to the u.S postal Service. “We launched the company in January,” romaine said, “and we’ve spent the last nine months ramping up.” While the company is a new player,
romaine said Sapient has completed its first sale to an industrial facility in the healthcare industry.
iN itS LateSt moNtHLY report, the conveyor equipment manufacturers association (cema, www.cemanet.org) reported its July 2010 Booked orders index was 131. the index in July is down 36 points or 22% from June 2010’s index of 167. While down from June, the July 2010 index represents an increase of 49% from the July 2009 index of 88.
What does this mean? Bob reinfried, cema’s executive vice president, said the conveyor industry had a very good month. While down from June, July 2010 was still better than July 2009. it’s too early to tell if numbers will continue to climb. cema is forecasting an increase of 2% to 3% for the North american conveyor market in 2010.
Baysore
forklift trucks.
HEAD OFFICE(REP. of KOREA) Tel.: 82 2 746 4526 Fax: 82 2 746 7444~5 E-mail: [email protected] www.hyundai-ce.com
HCE AMERICAS(U.S.A) Tel.: 1 847 437 3333 Fax: 1 847 437 3574 www.hceamericas.com HHI EUROPE(BELGIUM) Tel.: 32 14 56 2200 Fax: 32 14 59 3405~6 www.hyundai.eu HHI BEIJING(CHINA) Tel.: 86 10 8321 3377 Fax: 86 10 5143 8502 www.hyundai-bj.com
DUBAI BRANCH OFFICE(U.A.E) Tel.: 971 4 425 7995 Fax: 971 4 425 7996 E-mail: [email protected]
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FORKLIFT LINE-UP
LPG Forklift 1.5 - 4.5Ton Battery Forklift (Counter Balanced) 1.6 - 5Ton
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PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTIONS FOR DISTRIBUTION, WAREHOUSING AND MANUFACTURING
VOL. 65, NO. 10
DEPARTMENTS & COLUMNS 3/ Upfront 7/ This Month in Modern 16/ Lift Truck Tips: Level the playing field 38/ Focus On: Palletizers 42/ Supplement: Warehouses/DCs 50/ 60 seconds with...
NEWS 9/ MHIA: Growth is back 9/ HighJump to acquire TrueCommerce 10/ Final thoughts on Supply Chain Reset 13/ Industrial real estate market making
progress, challenges remain
14/ Crown unveils 20 electric lift trucks to operate with fuel cells
COVER STORY SYSTEM REPORT
18 Best in class Del Monte Foods’ new Topeka DC brings laser-guided AGVs from manufacturing into distribution. The result is a best-in-class materials handling system that minimizes costs with room to expand in the future.
22 Automatic guided vehicles streamline operations Laser-guided AGVs move product from the manufacturing plant and through the distribution center.
FEATURES PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTION
25 Tilt toward safety and productivity Aluminum parts manufacturer uses ergonomic lifting equipment to prevent worker injury and increase production.
SPECIAL REPORT
26 Top 20 automatic data capture suppliers The ADC market took a significant hit in 2009, but the recovery may already be underway.
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
30 In sync: Data capture and mobile computing Using a combination of diverse technologies—often in one compact package—gives users the edge in asset management and operational efficiency.
EQUIPMENT REPORT
34 Carousels: Turning picking into productivity Not just for high-density storage anymore, today’s carousels are delivering product to the person while increasing productivity, reducing labor, saving space and cutting energy costs.
60 seconds with... Joan Barrett Kellogg, p. 50
®
PHOTO: BLAINE FISHER/GETTY IMAGES
Keith Arntson and his team at Del Monte put a fl eet of laser-guided AGVs to work at their DC.
handling system that minimizes costs with room to expand in the future.
60 seconds with... Joan Barrett Kellogg, p. 50
BLAINE FISHER/GETTY IMAGES
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MICHAEL LEVANS GROUP EDITORIAL
THIS MONTH IN MODERN
While it may be at a much slower pace than predicted, growth is actually taking place whether
you’re feeling it or not. In fact, we kick off this month’s issue with the latest report from the Material Handling Industry of America that forecasts equipment orders to grow 12% to 14% in 2010 if the current momentum persists (page 9).
Mind you, those new numbers are coming off 2009 when orders saw a 34.3% decline from 2008. But any way we position the latest forecast, we can’t help but see it as positive news for the industry overall. It may even help to crack a few smiles.
But while numbers don’t lie, they can often be deceiving. Even though it appeared that equipment orders fell off a cliff two years ago, that didn’t mean that materials handling professionals went into hiberna- tion in terms of executing improvement projects.
In his thoughtful wrap up of HK Systems’s recent Material Handling and Logistics Con- ference (page 10), executive editor Bob Tre- bilcock recounts a number of conversations that he had with attendees who were eager to share the details of the projects that they completed over the past 18 months or moved to the front burner over the past six months. There was a local authority looking to put in a new AS/RS; the Federal Reserve Bank was investigating storage systems; and even a specialty foods manufacturer looking to expand a fl eet of AGVs.
“I don’t think companies plan multi- million dollar investments in automation if
they think the apocalypse is right around the corner,” observes Trebilcock.
My fi rm belief that innovation never goes out of style—no matter what the economic environment may be—has been further validated in the system reports that have graced Modern’s covers over the past two years. Offi ce Depot, Kroger, Crate & Barrel, Patagonia, Bon-Ton Stores, The Ap- parel Group, IKEA…and the list goes on. Each of these innovation mavericks has put precious time and strategic thought into materials handling projects that will put them in a distinct competitive advantage as the economic fog begins to clear.
It’s safe to say that the brutal economy never once stopped Keith Arntson, vice president of distribution operations for Del Monte Foods, from thinking how to he could help take miles out of the food giant’s distribution network by applying a few new innovations inside his To- peka, Kan., DC. In fact, after reading this month’s System Report (page 18), you can say that Arntson has fl ipped over a few materials handling axioms en route to a stunning success.
This month I’m going to leave Modern readers with a challenge. After reading the Del Monte success story, I’d like you to share with us a few of the innovation projects that you’ve conducted during the past 18 months. We believe that innovation never goes out of style; now help us spread the good word and inspire a few of the late adopters. Please send me an email on your better idea(s): [email protected].
Innovation never goes out of style
MMH1010_Editorial.indd 7 10/13/10 2:54 PM
• Automation
Critical Industry News at Your Fingertips!
Critical Topic areas help you develop strategies and expand your knowledge. Each topic provides you with the news, information, and resources you need — each day.
CRITICAL TOPICS
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IT’S STILL A FAR CRY FROM 2007, but the materials handling industry is growing once again. Following a 34.3% decline in equipment orders in 2009, the Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA, www.mhia.org) is forecasting equipment orders to grow 12% to 14% in 2010 if the current momentum continues.
A variety of factors are driving growth in manufacturing, warehousing and distribution on a global basis, especially an increase in industrial production in the fi rst half of 2010 despite factory utilization rates that remain very low by historical comparison.
“Consumer demand has not returned,” Hal Vandiver, executive vice president of business development for MHIA, told Modern during the association’s fall meeting. “But in the fi rst two quarters, the economy shifted from recession into recovery mode, fi lling supply chain pipelines, re-establishing inventories and re- sponding to pent up demand.”
While Vandiver expects the industry to continue to grow by 11% to 12% in 2011, drags on the economy continue. “Forecasts are now calling for a combination of reduced GDP, corporate profi t, business investment and output growth with industrial utilization remaining below 75% until
late 2011,” Vandiver said. “This is largely due to uncertainty. Consumers, inves- tors and business owners need greater confi dence in the economy’s ability to sustain positive growth.” For those reasons, Vandiver doesn’t expect a signifi cant return to the kinds of numbers the industry posted in the past up until 2007.
In addition to
a growth in orders for new equipment, Van- diver forecasts material handling shipments to grow 3% to 4% in 2010 and another 10% to 11% in 2011. Domestic demand, defi ned as shipments plus imports less exports, will grow by 1% in 2010 and by 10% to 11% in 2011. Exports will be stronger than imports in 2010 and 2011, refl ecting stronger industrial growth in emerging markets outside North America.
m m h . c o m MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 0 9
Company Briefi ngs | Bob Trebilcock
The age of automation Expressed as an equation: The industrial age + the information age = the automation age
mmh.com/blogs/automation
BY BOB TREBILCOCK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
ECONOMY
MHIA: Growth is back MHIA FORECASTS 12% TO 14% GROWTH IN NEW EQUIPMENT ORDERS IN 2010.
0%
-34.3%
HIGHJUMP SOFTWARE announced today that it has reached agreement to acquire TrueCommerce, a provider of business-to-business integration solutions. TrueCommerce provides a comprehensive end-to-end suite of trading partner connectivity solutions including electronic data interchange (EDI) translation and data mapping software, transaction network and on-boarding services. HighJump Software (www.highjump.com) ranks
No. 11 on Modern’s 2010 Supply Chain Management Software annual list with $85 million in revenue. TrueCommerce’s solutions enable trading partner connectivity for 3,000 customers, feature predefi ned integration to many major ERP systems, and can be deployed in either SaaS or on-premise models.
The TrueCommerce trading partner integration solution complements HighJump Software’s existing supply
M&A
Elettric 80 is a global provider of end-of-line automation solutions. These solutions are called Freeway® material handling system.
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Freeway® is based on a simple idea:
C
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chain application suite which spans from supplier to store shelf and includes warehouse management systems, transportation management systems, route accounting systems, manufacturing execution, mobile sales and ERP data collection. Trading partner collaboration is increasingly important as organizations strive to reduce costs and improve service levels. By combining integration solutions with application functionality, organizations are able to ensure consistency in business processes and accuracy of information exchanged with trading partners.
“TrueCommerce has fi lled a unique need in the market for simple, robust and affordable EDI solutions for small and midsized businesses,” said Nick Manolis, TrueCom- merce CEO. “I am excited for the TrueCommerce team to join HighJump, while continuing to provide excellent service, support and product innovation to our customers.”
“Combining HighJump and TrueCommerce creates a unique and compelling solution offering within the supply chain software market,” said Russell Fleischer, HighJump Software CEO. “Our view is that supply chain applications must allow users to connect with a broad ecosystem of trading partners to maximize value. The TrueCommerce solution platform, and our previous move to cloud-based applications, will help translate this vision into reality for our customers.”
SUPPLY CHAIN NEWS ANALYSIS
Final thoughts on Supply Chain Reset conference BY BOB TREBILCOCK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
DESPITE SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENTS, doing business in in materials handling remains a challenge. At the same time, many of the leading customers are investing in supply chain software and automated materials handling systems to improve their businesses. That suggests better times are coming.
Tom Brokaw punctuates the 25th anniversary of the Material
Handling and Logistics Conference by HK Systems.
mmh1010_news.indd 10 10/13/10 10:49 AM
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keep enough labor to run his primary distribution center. Two presentations drove this point home. The fi rst was from an executive with Tim Hor- tons, the Dunkin Donuts of Canada. The company’s beautiful new DC in Guelph, Ontario, is underperforming projections even though the AS/RS is
living up to its promises. The reason: The company can’t fi nd enough labor willing to work in its case picking and palletizing operations. The other was by Terra Winston, a consultant, who presented a case study about a project at PepsiCo to develop the next wave of supply chain leaders. Her
Those are the two high level take- aways from Supply Chain Reset, the annual logistics conference held last month in Park City, Utah, sponsored by HK Systems, now part of Dematic.
“Lousy” was the most common response to the dinner-time question: “How’s business?”
At the same time, the roll call of end user companies that said they had projects in the works or on the drawing board was both a Who’s Who of American business, with names like Coca-Cola and Kraft, and companies many of us may never have heard of or think of as customers of our solutions. For example, I sat on the van from the airport with a guy from the Los Angeles metro- politan transportation system looking for a new automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS). The Federal Reserve Bank was there, investigating storage systems. I rode in the van back to the airport with a woman from a producer of honey in Texas who had both an AS/RS and automatic guided vehicles in her facility and was looking to expand her system.
Those are signs of a growing confi dence: I don’t think companies plan multi-million dollar investments in automation if they think the apocalypse is right around the corner.
One other anecdotal data point: Marc Ducharme, a vice president and partner with Axium, a supplier of robotic materials handling solutions, told me that 2009 was a dismal year for implementations, but that his company has been swamped with RFPs in 2010. An RFP is not an order, but it’s a sign.
A few other observations: Retaining labor and talent could
be the most important issue facing the industry in the future: A week or so before going to Utah, I had a con- versation with a vice president of supply chain for a major retailer who told me he is interested in automation because he simply cannot fi nd and
mmh1010_news.indd 11 10/13/10 10:49 AM
12 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 0 / MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING m m h . c o m
point: the talent shortage isn’t limited just to the shop fl oor.
Retrofi tting is a viable solution: You know the old saying: Every- thing old is new again. Wegman’s, a Midwestern grocer, and Rubber- maid both gave strong presentations about how they replaced ag- ing AS/RS cranes to breathe new life into their DCs. Meanwhile, Anheuser Busch gained new effi ciencies in its Columbus, Ohio, facility by upgrading a warehouse control system.
Everyone loves pallets: Based in Iowa, Green Line Armor is offering a heavy-duty hybrid wood/plastic pallet for permanent pallet pools. The 48- x 40-inch pallet has heavier stringers and more deck board coverage than a grocery pallet. The lead boards on the top and the bottom of the pallet— those most likely to get damaged by a lift truck—are manufactured from heavy plastic. The pallet has a passive RFID
tag that is used by Green Line Armor to identify the pallet and manage warranty services. Active RFID tags were installed for John Deere, the company’s largest customer, to track the location of work in process stored on the pallets between manufacturing processes. Eric Renteria, the company’s president, said the pallets, which come with a 10-year warranty, can be purchased or leased
in a pooling model. New players are get-
ting into automation: Kip Tygard, whose company makes the Tygard Claw, a lift truck attachment for mixed case palletizing, is investing R&D money to develop an automated version of the Claw. That’s not a big shock: Tygard is an OEM. But I also had conversations with two very large end users in the wholesale food distribu-
tion business that have designed their own automated systems—one has built and implemented its own AS/RS design for freezers for years, the other has designed its own case picking application that it intends to put out for bid to the materials handling community. Both say they may commercialize their solutions in the future.
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able to make better decisions—especially in the case of the unexpected. “When a shipment is held up at the port,” says Prashant Bhatia, director of solutions management at SAP, “it can trigger logic back to say that I’ve got a problem. I can no longer allocate that inventory on that particular shipment as I thought I could.”
3. One database, one system, one supply chain. In the last few years, software providers have been pulling all of their products onto a single supply chain process platform. “It’s fairly new,” says Lamphier. “Various components have been integrated into that supply chain process platform longer than others, but actually moving our WMS onto it has been a more recent development—just within the last quarter or two.”
SAP uses its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system as the central repository of information of supply and demand, as well as inventory, for the entire supply chain. And the modules all
talk to each other. Transportation management systems (TMS) in conjunction with the event management modules help optimize freight, determine pick-up windows, determine carriers, keep track of in-transit times and create ASNs.
That ASN not only gets sent back to the ERP for visibility, but it also gets sent to the WMS where the system uses the information to plan labor, equipment and resources at the receiving dock. When the physical product arrives, logic within the WMS, based on the receipt of goods, determines matches against actual demand.
Smarter, speedier equipment With more retailers crossdocking
over 50% of their items at the case level to their stores, equipment innovations have centered on conveyor sortation systems, print and apply mechanisms, and automatic identifi cation technologies. Here are three new equipment
advances: 1. Smaller gaps and self-regulat-
ing conveyors. In the last year, the sliding shoe sorter has undergone note- worthy transformations. “By doing a parallel divert, we can now run the packages closer together and get a higher throughput on the same system,” reports Ken Ruehrdanz, manager for Dematic’s distribution and warehousing markets.
The sliding shoes that used to physi- cally push the cartons off the sorter at an angle can now run those shoes in parallel, enabling smaller gaps between cartons—which were previously from 6 inches to 8 inches—down to 3 inches.
With more dense traffi c on conveyors, crossdock operators can run their conveyors at a lower speed while still achiev- ing the same throughput. Slower speeds equal less wear and tear, decreased energy usage and less maintenance.
Another conveyor breakthrough is automatic speed control. “The whole
m m h . c o m MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 49S
MMH100401sup_Crossdock_ID 49 4/8/2010 11:36:20 AM
Leading customers are investing in software and automated
systems to improve business, according to attendees of the
Supply Chain Reset conference.
THE INDUSTRIAL REAL ESTATE market is taking steps in the right direction, according to a report recently issued by global real estate fi rm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL, www. joneslanglasalle.com), which reported the national average vacancy rate for the North American industrial real estate sector fell from 10.6% in the fi rst quarter to 10.4% in the second quarter. Despite the slight decline in vacancy, the fragile economy still looms large due to declining consumer confi dence, the drying up of economic stimulus funding, and the potential threat of a double-dip recession, the report noted.
“We have seen a positive absorption in the vacancy rate in the second quarter, but we are very concerned
going forward,” Craig Meyer, managing director and leader of JLL’s Logistics and Industrial Services Group told Modern. “Any kind of sustained, demand-driven component in the industrial real estate market is going to be driven by jobs. We are just not seeing any of that. It is going to be a long, slow recovery.”
Looking at base indicators like the Institute of Supply Management’s Manufacturing Index, Consumer Confi dence data, and industrial real estate vacancy and absorption rates, there does not appear to be what Meyer labeled as a strong indication of a positive upswing on the horizon.
The report says that a need to restock inventories that were running at 50-year lows resulted in large companies strategically capturing high
quality logistics space at cyclically low rates. And with slow levels of leasing activity and sparse construction, industrial real estate options— especially in the Class A large block sector—are limited in some markets.
And the swift correction in inventories during the second half of 2009 and fi rst quarter of 2010 has left inventory levels lean and ready for expansion, provided sales rebound in the coming months. Should this occur, it could lead to increased industrial and logistics real estate leasing activity.
The report also pointed out that the initial recovery in the economy was largely driven by improvements in the manufacturing sector and cyclical adjustments in inventories. But with the recovery now becoming more broad- based, the recent slowdown of inventory building could have more of an impact on the industrial property sector than the offi ce sector, the report noted.
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14 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 0 / MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING m m h . c o m
“We are also concerned about seasonality with the holiday season coming up,” said Meyer. “The indica- tions we are getting are that we may not see as much preparation for that as we hoped. A lot of retailers are saying they are restocked and if consumer confi dence is going down, they are not going to build up inventories. And for larger, big box companies, they will see declining values in rents, but the availability of product for them to lease is diminishing.”
As a result, Class A big box distribution space is becoming more diffi cult to fi nd in this economy, said Meyer. But the build-to-suit market could come back for major retailers, as evidenced by a new 1-million-square- foot DC space deal by Amazon.com in Harrisburg, Pa. and a 1.4-million- square-foot location in Phoenix.
But for a mid-sized industrial building in the 100,000-to-150,000- square-foot range Class B-sized build-
ing, Meyer said there are an infi nite number of these on the market.
Looking ahead, Meyer said there will still be downward pressure on pric-
ing, a double-digit vacancy rate, and no increases in lease rates, which, he noted, are actually weakening a little bit and tend to lag a recovery.
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CROWN EQUIPMENT Corp. has qualifi ed 20 of its electric models to operate with various fuel cells, bringing the total of qualifi ed combinations of fuel cell packs and trucks to 29. In 2009, Crown (www.crown.com) was the fi rst lift truck manufacturer to introduce a fuel cell qualifi cation program.
Eric Jensen, Crown’s manager of new technology, research and development, told Modern that the company’s fuel cell qualifi cation program duplicates its own testing, and is conducted at a 25,000-square-foot research facility near Dayton, Ohio. Through the testing process, engi-
neers evaluate fuel cell performance and monitor whether issues develop that affect the truck’s operation.
To qualify a fuel cell pack and truck combination, Crown’s engineers review key performance metrics for a battery- powered truck, such as traction, plug- ging, and lift and travel speeds. Then they replace the battery with a fuel cell power pack and measure the same indicators. Through modeling and application testing, the research team determines design modifi cations needed to ensure the fuel cell-powered forklift matched standards to which the truck was designed.
LIFT TRUCKS
Crown unveils 20 electric lift trucks to operate with fuel cells
mmh1010_news.indd 14 10/13/10 10:49 AM
“We’ve been steadfast in our position that deployment of a fuel cell forklift fl eet must be carefully evalu- ated and tested for appropriate use in a warehouse,” said Jensen. “This research-based approach means that our customers can confi dently know they have the right truck for their chosen fuel cell, allowing them to meet their performance, safety and
environmental sustainability goals.”
Crown continues to work closely with fuel cell manufacturers and customers to qualify trucks as new fuel cell pack models are intro- duced. “Forklifts are a key early market for fuel cells,” said Lisa Callaghan Jerram, senior market analyst for Fuel Cell Today, a leading analyst
fi rm providing market-based research on the fuel cell industry. “Based on our market research, we have found strong growth in this sector in the past three years.”
Because fuel cell powered electric forklifts give off exhaust in the form of moist, warm air, IC truck customers are looking to this technology
so they don’t have to deal exhaust issues, Jensen said. Another advantage pointed out by Jensen is a fuel cell powered truck’s ability to effec- tively operate in a cold environment because they generate their own heat and the power doesn’t fall off like a traditional battery.
While the upfront hardware cost of fuel cells is more expensive than a traditional battery, Jensen pointed out the potential to capture savings in labor, battery changes, battery rooms, and heating and venting. With fuel cells, he said, a facility doesn’t need a battery room and all that goes in to running it properly. Instead, there is an ongoing savings associated to using fl oor space for production or other value-added operations.
“Fuel cells have always been talked about fi ve years into the future, but we have customers who are [currently] planning installations around this product,” said Jensen. “The future is here.”
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GraphicCaption
In the right application, tuggers and carts can be a fast and efficient solution.
Level the playing field
Football season is underway, and fans are hoping for breakout performances
from stars and rookies alike. On the gridiron, an overpowered player can be a distinct advantage. In the warehouse, however, too much power can lead to waste, danger and sluggish performance. For some corpo- rations, this fact has prompted consideration of fork-free environments, where versatile and custom-built carts and tuggers can do the work faster and more efficiently than their big- ger cousins.
Disposing of expensive and powerful equipment in favor of carts may seem counter- intuitive, but Jill Burrow, marketing manager for Topper Industrial, says certain warehouses might benefit greatly from the switch. For operations requiring multiple trips between the same areas, carts can cut travel time significantly. According to Ed Brown, president of Topper Industrial, a tugger can pull as many as 13 carts. In addition, says Brown, carts and tuggers can be easier to use than many forklifts.
“A forklift costs five times as much, but a forklift operator also costs five times more than a tugger operator,” says Brown. “Anyone can grab a tugger and go.”
Once a forklift drops off a pallet, in many cases a picker must bend to access product or arrange for the pallet to be lifted. Carts, on the other hand, can be configured with swiveling or angled platforms to allow pickers fast and comfortable access to products. Worker safety issues tied to forklifts that operate in tight areas, such as poor visibility when driving in re- verse and dock mishaps, can also be greatly reduced.
“Companies looking at carts are looking at the cost of equipment and the cost of maintenance, but they’re also looking at safety,” says Brown.
In addition to ergonomics and safety, a fork-free zone might help a warehouse reduce product loss and equipment damage. Carts provide a secure cradle for moving product, while some fork-borne loads are prone to top- pling. And forklifts, often 10 times as heavy as a tugger and cart setup, have a way of proving their strength by leaving dings and dents on storage racks and other hap- less stationary objects.
With carts and tuggers, Brown says most companies see a return on investment within a year. In football, a first-round draft pick can cost millions over a multi-year contract before he produces the desired results. For companies not looking to attempt such a Hail Mary, tuggers could prove an efficient alternative.
Josh Bond is a contributing editor to Modern and can be reached at [email protected].
16 O c t O b e r 2 0 1 0 / Modern Materials Handling m m h . c o m
lift truck TIPS
modern system report
del Monte Foods
Four conveyor-topped vehicles ferry loads from an adjacent manufacturing plant.
MMH1010_SystemRptDelMonte.indd 18 10/12/10 3:23 PM
del Monte Foods’ new topeka dC brings laser-guided
agVs from manufacturing into distribution. the result is
a best-in-class materials handling system that minimizes
costs with room to expand in the future.
utomatic guided vehicles, or AGVs, have been a staple of materials handling in a manu-
facturing environment for decades. It’s not uncommon to find a fleet of 20 or more vehicles delivering product to the assembly line in a large automotive plant.
But, AGVs in a distribution center? Not so much. In DCs, they have largely been relegated to moving product from the plant to an adjoining DC. That may be about to change, if the 420,000-square-foot distribution center opened by Del Monte Foods in Topeka, Kan., last October is any indication.
There, Del Monte has put to work a fleet of 39 laser-guided AGVs (Elettric80, us.elettric80.com).
• Four conveyor-topped vehicles
ferry loads of pet products from an adjacent manufacturing plant to a transfer conveyor in the distribution center. There, the loads are automatically placed on pallets and staged for putaway in the DC. Each vehicle can carry four loads at a time.
• An additional 35 fork-equipped vehicles handle most of the tasks usu- ally performed by lift trucks in a conventional distribution center. They automatically put loads away into storage locations on the floor or in pallet rack, replenish pallet pick locations in pick aisles, and deliver full pallet picks to a staging area in the shipping area.
Both vehicle types use a laser- guided navigation system to direct travel through the facility. Lift trucks still play a role loading and unloading trailers at the dock and filling orders for mixed-case pallets.
BestINclass
“This was a greenfield facility, which gave us a unique opportunity to design a facility that leverages innovation and technology from day one,” says Keith Arntson, Del Monte’s vice president of distribution operations. “We believe this is one of the largest, if not the largest, installations of AGVs in a distribution center in North America.”
After less than a year of operation, the system is delivering a number of benefits, including exceptional uptime, accuracy and reduced product damage.
“The system is performing at 99.99% uptime, which was higher than we expected, and the system has been 99.99% accurate,” says Arntson. “Our damage rates are significantly lower than in our conventional facilities.”
Streamlined operations The Topeka distribution center was first conceived as a network optimization project. The manufacturing plant in Topeka had no warehouse space. Instead, pet products manufactured in Topeka were shipped to forward distribution centers in Chicago, Texas and Georgia.
Some of that product, however, would end up retracing a route back to the Midwest to fill customer orders. About three years ago, Del Monte began looking at ways to take miles out of its network. The goal was to lower
the delivered cost of its products and reduce the lead times it could offer to customers. “Once we completed the network study, the Midwest offered us the greatest opportunity for supply chain efficiencies,” says Arntson. “We still ship product to forward DCs in other parts of the coun- try, but in the Midwest, we can ship directly to our customers.” Likewise, the DC acts as a forward DC for other complementary Del Monte products that are not manufactured in Topeka.
Once the decision was made to locate in Topeka, the Del Monte team worked with a design and integration firm to develop materials handling processes and systems that would mini- mize the amount of times the product was handled in the facility, maximize labor and easily scale as throughput at the DC grows in the future.
“We were tasked with building a best-in-class DC that utilized proven innovation and produced the lowest delivered cost so we could remain competitive in the market,” Arntson says.
To meet those goals, Del Monte
modeled a range of options, from a traditional warehouse to an automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) to the AGVs. Careful attention was also paid to everything from the lighting to how the trailers were laid out in the yard.
To learn more about AGVs, the team visited a number of manufacturing sites that were using laser-guided vehicles, in part because no distribution center was using the technology to the extent that it would be used by Del Monte. According to Arntson, the laser-guided technology stood out for three reasons.
First, it was precise. “Our AGVs don’t just take a load to location X,” Arntson says. “They go to a specific location on the floor to within a centi- meter and they do that time and time again.” That precision not only meant more accurate inventory and storage information, it also meant that product
“The system is performing at 99.99% uptime, which was higher than we expected, and the system has been 99.99% accurate.” — Keith Arntson, vice president of distribution operations, Del Monte
Lift trucks are limited in use to the docks and case picking.
20 O c t O b e r 2 0 1 0 / Modern MateriaLs HandLing mmh.com
was unlikely to be damaged as it was moved around the facility.
Second, AGV technology was mature, proven and predictable. “The feedback we got from end users made us realize that this was no longer bleed- ing-edge technology,” Arntson says. “We saw vehicles that had been fully operational in a 24/7 environment for years, and were very efficient and successful.”
Third, because Topeka would be a 24/7 operation, Del Monte could more easily justify the capital investment.
In the end, AGVs offered the best opportunity to meet the goals for the new DC. What’s more, the technology could easily scale in the future. “If our business grows in the future, all we have to do is add another vehicle to keep up with demand,” says Arntson.
Putting AGVs to work Installing a fleet of 39 laser-guided vehicles involved more than unloading them from the truck and flipping a switch. For starters, to get the most from the vehicles, the location, layout and installation of the storage areas, including the rack system, had to be very precise. “If you install racking in a traditional warehouse you can be a little off,” says Arntson. “The specifications have to be spot on to work with AGVs.”
Exactness is necessary because the vehicles are so precise that any devia- tion in the level of the floor or the location of a rack can throw off the navigation system.
More importantly, says Arntson, Del Monte wanted to do more than
just maximize the labor requirements for the new facility; the company also wanted to get the same kind of operational efficiencies from the vehicles that it would get from a Tier 1 warehouse management system (WMS) managing tasks in a conventional warehouse. “What’s important isn’t just that you’re using automated equipment,” he says. “It’s also how well you utilize the equipment to accomplish tasks and drive down mission times.”
In Del Monte’s facility, the WMS and the AGV control system work together on task interleaving; when a vehicle completes a task, the system chooses its next assignment based on the next closest task to be completed. That minimizes empty travel time and maximizes the use of the equipment.
“We have a large tele- vision monitor in the control room that shows where the vehicles are at all times and allows us to watch the entire building operate,” says Arntson. “That allowed us to identify bottlenecks in our original design, and then prioritize tasks and imple- ment strategies within the WMS to drive down mission times.”
That work was done collectively by Del Monte, the systems integrator and the AGV provider. “We were able
to get through the learning curve very quickly,” says Arntson. “In a matter of three or four weeks, we had fine-tuned our processes and had full task interleaving in place.”
With nearly a year of operation under their belt, Arntson says the project is meeting its goals. “We set out to build a best-in-class distribution center that allows us to reduce waste at all levels with a low delivered cost,” Arntson says. Beyond that, he adds, “we have significantly reduced our network miles, which is a sustainability play, and we’re closer to our customers to respond to their swings in demand. We’re now best-in-class on many of our customer score cards out of that site.”
Del Monte relies on more than 30 fork-equipped AGVs for putaway and pallet picking in the
distribution center.
MoDern MAteriAls HAnDlinG / O c t O b e r 2 0 1 0 21
22 O c t O b e r 2 0 1 0 / Modern Materials Handling mmh.com
dock. The load is palletized, scanned, and staged for pick up and putaway.
Putaway: Palletized loads are picked up by one of 35 fork-equipped vehicles. The AGV is then directed to a rack or floor storage location (4) based on pre-defined locations in the facility’s warehouse management system (WMS). Locations are prioritized based on whether the product is a fast-, medium- or slow-moving item. No bar code scan is required to confirm the putaway by the vehicle since
A fleet of 39 laser-guided automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) has streamlined the materials handling processes and reduced the number of touches in Del Monte’s highly automated new distribution center in Topeka, Kan.
receiving: The Del Monte distribution center receives product from the adjacent manufacturing plant (1) and at the shipping and receiving area (2) from other Del Monte manufacturing facilities. Locally manufactured product is automatically loaded onto a slip sheet, stretch-wrapped and staged on
a discharge conveyor (1). One of four conveyor-topped vehicles interfaces with the discharge conveyor to pick up a load. Each AGV can carry four loads. Once the vehicle has picked up all of its loads, it travels through a 75-foot breeze- way connecting the DC to the plant and drops the pallets at a transfer station (3a). There the slip-sheeted loads are placed on a pallet, automatically scanned and staged for pick up and putaway. At the receiving dock, slip-sheeted loads are unloaded by lift truck and placed on a transfer station (3b) on the
Automatic guided vehicles streamline operations Laser-guided AGVs move product from the manufacturing plant and through the distribution center.
By Bob trebilcock, Executive Editor
del Monte Foods topeka, Kan.
size: 420,000 square feet of distribution space
Products: Pet products
eMPloyees: 50 in distribution
1
1
North American Representative
904-826-4490 / Fax 904-826-4491
Retrofit of large vehicles with new controls and wiring done on site.
New offboard AGV system software,
traffic control and I/O’s as well as system expansions.
Stack pallets up to
36’ high in warehouse
Custom AGV Specialists, New or Retrofit
mmh.com MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 47
programmable optical sensors for safe operation near pedestrians and in confined spaces. The AGVs follow a self-adhesive magnetic tape for simple setup with no floor modifications. Toyota Material Handling, 800-226-0009, www.toyotaforklift.com.
Robotic pallet truck handles 8,000 pounds The vision-guided GP8 robotic pallet truck frees skilled employees by performing non-value-added work by auto- mating pallet transport. After an operator positions the vehicle’s 96-inch long forks under the pallet, the industrial mobile robot transports pallets to an assigned location, automatically positions them, and returns to the original starting point—or other pre- assigned location—for more work. The vehicle handles up to 8,000 pounds and stores 25 miles of learned routes.
AGVs
Transfer Arm
ReactionArm Shown with Optional Pedestal Mount
LodeArm Shown with Optional Trolley Mount
Powered by a 24-volt DC battery, the vehicle travels at a maximum speed of 3.5 miles per hour. Seegrid, 877- 733-4753, www.seegrid.com.
Roller forks handle palletless loads
Using a patented roller fork mecha- nism, the pallet-free automatic guided vehicle eliminates the need for pallets within a facility. The vehicle handles loads on slip sheets and offers stacking and push back rack capability. It may also be used for pallet handling. The automated system reduces labor costs, product damage and operational costs. HK Systems, 262-860-6715, www.hksystems.com.
MMH100401ProdFocus_ID 47 4/8/2010 11:35:13 AM
system suppliers
WareHouse ManageMent systeM: eXe technologies (infor), 678-319-8000, www.infor.com/solutions/scm/wms
lift trucks: yale Materials Handling, 800-233-9253, www.yale.com
Bar code scanning: accu-sort systems, 215-723-0981, www.accusort.com
the system is nearly 100% accurate. Once the AGV drops off a pallet load, the system knows that it is available for the next task.
Picking: As with receiving, picking may be done using automation or conventional processes. Full pallet picks are handled by the AGVs. The system directs a vehicle to a floor or rack storage location (4). The pallet is then delivered to a staging area (5) in the shipping area or to replenish a pick location in one of the pick aisles (6) that run the length of the building.
Mixed-SKU orders calling for mixed pallets are fulfilled using conventional processes. The WMS deliv- ers picking instructions, including the location and the quantity of cases to be picked in the pick aisles (6), to order selectors on RF devices. Cartons are picked to pallet. Once the pallet is complete, it’s stretch-wrapped and
staged (5) in the shipping area. shipping: Once pallets are built,
stretch-wrapped and staged in ship-
ping, the system directs lift truck operators to load the pallets onto trailers (2). M
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MM1010 ppxx RoboVTS.indd 1 9/30/10 5:23:56 PMMMH1010_Ads.indd 24 10/12/10 10:53 AM
modern productivity solution
Kaiser Aluminum, which has been providing aluminum components to the aerospace, man-
ufacturing and industrial markets since 1946, produces several different types of aluminum automotive parts at its facility in South Carolina. During the manufacturing process, parts are transported to workstations in large wire baskets for further processing like stamping, bending and heating. To get a part, a worker bends over and reaches down into a basket to lift it out. As the level of parts in a container drops, workers must bend lower and reach deeper.
This action can not only cause fatigue and strain, it can rob valuable time from the production process. Concerns about the potential for employee back injuries and production-line bottlenecks led Kaiser management to investigate ergonomic solutions for their workers and an improved production process for their business.
Company managers met with equipment suppliers to evaluate the current manufacturing process and identify solutions. During the equipment evalu-
ation phase, an animated 3-D video showed exactly how tilters (Presto Lifts, www.prestolifts.com) could solve ergonomic and production issues.
The tilters permit workers to pick out parts by bending only slightly, using a push-button, handheld pendant or pedestal-mounted controls to hydraulically adjust the unit to the most convenient angle (up to 89°) as the container is depleted so parts are kept within easy reach. With unrestricted access to the contents, there is virtually no risk of back injury.
Kaiser purchased a variety of tilters, some of which also lift. All models are designed to provide easy access to parts in large containers. Workstations vary, so different models were chosen to keep parts at the most convenient level at each location. A full container can be easily placed on any unit with a hand pallet truck or lift truck.
Since installing the ergonomic lifting and tilt- ing equipment, management reports that bottlenecks have been eliminated and production lines have sped up. M
TilT Toward safeTy and producTiviTy
By Lorie King Rogers, associate editor
Aluminum parts manufacturer uses ergonomic lifting equipment to prevent worker injury and increase production.
MMH1010_ProdSol.indd 25 10/13/10 9:41 AM
By Bob trebilcock, Executive Editor
Top 20
but the recovery may
declined through much of 2009, all of the categories VDC tracks began to grow again modestly by the end of the year. Emphasis again on the word “modest.”
With business on the ropes, most major players focused on maintaining
the status quo; there were no major mergers or acquisitions last year, and no real departures from technologies or markets.
Likewise, the 2009 market leaders included familiar faces: Once again,
modern special report
R eality bites, and in 2009, the automatic data capture business was bit hard. The total market for industrial automatic data capture (ADC) solutions
came in at roughly $15.2 billion in 2009, according to Massachusetts-based VDC Research Group (www.vdcresearch. com), down about 15.5% from the more than $18 billion spent on industrial ADC in 2008.
But it was a tale of two years, and a modest recovery may already be underway, buoyed by investments in RFID technology and 2D imaging solutions, according to Drew Nathanson, VDC’s director of research operations. The emphasis is on the word “modest.” “There is still a lot of uncertainty about the economic recovery and that impacts this market,” says Nathanson.
The ADC market includes handheld and stationary bar code scanning and imaging devices, bar code printers, consumables like bar code labels and RFID tags, RFID solutions for the supply chain, and ruggedized mobile computing solutions for the factory and warehouse.
As Nathanson notes, the recession didn’t hit the ADC industry until the fourth quarter of 2008. And while there is no question that solution providers
Top 20 ADC suppliers by revenue ($ millions)
Rank Company Total 2009 Revenues Web site
1 Motorola $1,074.0 www.motorola.com
2 Zebra $434.3 www.zebra.com
3 Intermec $365.0 www.intermec.com
4 Datalogic/PSC $328.4 www.datalogic.com
6 SATO $223.0 www.satoamerica.com
7 TEC $166.9 www.tecamerica.com
9 SAVI $147.9 www.savi.com
11 Printronix $113.8 www.printronix.com
13 LXE $89.0 www.lxe.comw
14 Vocollect $85.5 www.vocollect.com
16 Siemens $63.5 www.usa.siemens.com
18 Mobilecompia $54.5 www.m3mobile.co.kr
20 Unitech $38.1 www.ute.com Source: VDC Research Group
automatic data capture suppliers
tings, like hospitals, libraries or resorts. Nor do we include companies that only manufacture consumables like bar code labels and RFID tags.
While the overall market for ADC solutions totaled $15.2 billion, each of the industry segments experienced their own dynamics last year that may have been different from the overall market.
Mobile computing The market for ruggedized mobile computers reached $1.9 billion in 2009, says David Krebs, VDC’s director of the mobile and wireless computing practice. Approximately $500 million of the market is attributed to solutions on the plant or DC shop floor, or in port and yard applications, while stationary devices for lift trucks accounted for about $180 million in 2009. Both figures represent significant declines from 2008, with the handheld market down about 24% and the lift truck-mounted market down by roughly 31%, a figure that comes close to mirroring the decline in lift truck sales last year.
However, the market has begun to improve. Krebs estimates that the market for handheld devices will grow by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.4% through 2014, with the lift truck market growing by 5.8% per year.
The economy, rather than any new technological development, dominated the news in this space last year. “Business conditions across the board were very challenging,” says Krebs. “And, when it comes to the warehousing, manufactur-
ing and logistics space, these are increasingly mature markets. While there is some growth in emerging markets, the replacement and upgrade market is driving much of the business, not expansion.”
However, Krebs is watching the impact of smart phone technology on ruggedized mobile computers. “The rapid growth of the iPhone and Android operating systems in the consumer market is beginning to impact the industrial market,” says Krebs. At the same time, he adds, most of the initial applications have to do with field service. “While the products they design for those environments could impact warehouse products, I think the warehouse is one of the last places you’ll see these devices take hold,” he says.
The market for wearable computers, a category that includes voice recogni- tion technology, totaled $175 million last year, a drop of about 10% from 2008. Adoption of voice and wearable solutions saw a big run-up in 2007 and 2008, especially in consumer packaged goods industries. While Krebs continues to see a great deal of interest in voice, it is still a niche market.
“One of the challenges to adoption has been the high cost of dedicated voice terminals versus a voice-enabled mobile computer,” he says. “Still, we’re seeing interest, especially in multi-modal environments that leverage voice, bar codes and other ADC technologies.”
Scanning and printing The markets for bar code-related hardware saw some of the most significant
Motorola (www.motorola.com/us) led with an estimated $1.074 billion in revenue. Motorola was followed by Zebra Technologies (www.zebra.com) with $434.3 million. The top five was rounded out by Intermec Technologies (www.intermec.com), which recaptured the No. 3 spot with $365 million, Datalogic/PSC (www.datalogic.com) with $328.4 million, and Honeywell with $308 million, according to estimates provided by VDC. Printer maker SATO, which had been No. 3, dropped to No. 6 with $223 million.
Collecting the data This is Modern’s ninth-annual look at the leading manufacturers of ADC hardware and solutions. Because the industry includes public and private companies, this is the second year in a row that we asked VDC Research Group to compile the data: Since their analysts are cover- ing this technology every day, they are closer to the market.
To make our list, companies must sell in North America, though the chart includes worldwide revenues. Modern does not include resellers, systems inte- grators or other companies that do not manufacture ADC hardware. Since our readers are primarily focused on supply chain solutions, we do not include companies whose primary focus is the retail checkout counter or non-industrial set-
modern special report
“Business conditions across the board were very challenging, and when it comes to the warehousing, manufacturing and logistics space, these are increasingly mature markets.”
—David Krebs, VDC’s director of mobile and wireless computing practice
MMH1010Top20_ADC2.indd 28 10/13/10 9:43 AM
Rank Company Bar code printers
Handheld scanners
Source: VDC Research Group and Modern Materials Handling
declines in 2009. Handheld scanners dropped 22.6% from 2008 to $627.5 million, the second drop in a row, while the market for industrial fixed scanners declined by 25% to $660.4 million, according to Tom Wimmer, director of VDC’s AIDC and RFID practices. Meanwhile, the market for industrial printers, which includes bar code printers and the RFID printer/encoder market, declined by 22% to $1.6 billion. While all three markets have begun to recover, Wimmer is predicting five- year compound annual growth rates of between 5.6% (printers) to 6.1% (handheld scanners).
The one bright spot was in the 2D and camera-based imaging space, which grew by an estimated 20% last year. “What that says to me is that end users are beginning to get excited by imaging technology and the benefits it can provide,” says Wimmer. Imaging technology allows end users to capture more data using 2D bar code symbology or capture images for merchandise returns, work- in-process or quality control.
As with the mobile computing and voice spaces, there was very little business news. And, as with mobile computing, the most important trend is the interest in multi-modal data collection. “We continue to see new processes driven and controlled by bar codes being complemented by voice and RFID,” says Wimmer. “These are viable solutions in the materials handling space, and it’s going to continue to grow.”
RFID If there was one major bright spot in the ADC market last year, it was RFID. How good was business? “It’s going gang-busters,” says Nathanson. “The RFID industry certainly bounced back quicker than the bar code, mobile computing and printer industries.”
The total RFID market came in at roughly $3.6 billion, including an estimated $3 billion in the industrial and transportation space. That was up about 7% from 2008, says Nathanson, who expects the market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19.5% to $7.5 billion by 2014. By the end of 2009, many suppliers were reporting full pipelines, with some backlogs in the RFID tag and tran- sponder markets.
The key driver is early adopters are seeing real value from the additional data that can be placed on an RFID chip versus a bar code, from the visibility that comes from tracking an item throughout the supply chain or its life cycle, and from reductions in theft and counter-fitting. “Apparel manufacturers, in particular, are looking to RFID
to track their product from the point of manufacture through the point of sale so they know when something enters the supply chain and when it is removed,” says Nathanson.
Just as companies are combining bar codes and voice to create and control new processes, RFID is being used with sensors to not only track the location of an item in the supply chain, but to monitor important environmental conditions, like the temperature in the cold chain, and even carbon emissions for sustainability.
“Companies that made an early commitment to RFID now see it as a competitive advantage,” says Nathanson. “They are using the down economy as an opportunity to continue to invest and get new economies over their competitors.” M
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ith ongoing pressures to drive costs out of manufacturing and dis-
tribution processes, facilities increasingly rely on a blend of data capture and mobile computing technologies to gain better control of assets and inventory. The application of a single solution—such as RF bar code scanning, imagers, voice-directed picking or radio frequency identification (RFID)— developed into a blending of technologies embedded into a single device for maximum labor flexibility and operational efficiency.
Users need data capture and mobile computing solutions that generate enhanced supply chain visibility and overall business efficiency improvements, says Mike Liard RFID practice director at ABI Research (www. abiresearch.com). “To do that, suppliers have become more ‘technology agnostic,’ offering a broader range of automatic identification data collection (AIDC) solutions for use in combination as complementary technologies.”
“The technologies are used not just to find assets, but also to track the mis-
sion-critical things that get tied to your process,” Liard adds. “People are looking beyond labor cost reduction to overall cost reduction—a more holis- tic approach.”
Further, “there’s been a trend to have devices that can operate 24 by 7 by 365, or with essentially no downtime,” says Tim Eusterman, senior director of industry marketing for Intermec (www.intermec.com). “Companies call it ‘sweating the assets,’ and they’re looking get the most utilization out of the least amount of investment in mobile computing.”
Multi-modal capabilities Feeling the pressure to run as lean as possible has companies examining every angle of their spending.
“Along with that, there’s a reduction in information technology (IT) staff and IT spend,” says Dave Peddemors, vice president of North American sales for Psion Teklogix (www.psionteklogix. com). “Users upgrade because they can’t support their old systems any-
MODERN information management
By Sara Pearson Specter, Editor at Large
Using a combination of diverse technologies— often in one compact package—gives users the edge in asset management and operational efficiency.
W
more; they may not have an IT staff person in every single location. So, companies are looking at modularity and the ability to deploy one platform across multiple applications.”
In response, vendors are providing smaller, faster data capture and mobile computing devices with multi- modal functionality—combining RF scanning, imaging, RFID tag reading, voice-directed picking and other AIDC elements into a single unit. One device has one operating system, battery pack, holsters and modular accessories to
simplify management of the tools, Peddemors says.
A single, multi-modal device also offers flexibility, says Intermec’s Eusterman. “Some mobile computers can be used on a forklift for receiving, putaway and replenishment, then can also be a wearable device for a voice picking application. Or, in a receiving situa- tion, if a user is more comfortable with a pistol grip, that can be attached to con- vert the device to a hand held,” he says.
More units are incorporating imager cameras as well, according to Motorola’s
Mike Maris, senior director of transportation and logistics (www.motorola.com/ enterprise). “Especially at the docks, the ability for a receiving clerk to take pic- tures of a delivery in real time, combine it with a voice recording, and send a mes- sage to the buyer to confirm the accuracy of the receipt through the mobile computer is a real timesaver,” he says.
Browser-based interfaces Operators of mobile computers have become quite familiar with browser-based navigation and smart
modern information management
Wearable mobile computing devices are increasingly being enhanced with greater processing power and more memory to accommodate full color images that show a visual of the product to be picked, the correct location of a pick, or the appropriate scheme to follow in building a pallet load.
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phones. Because of that inherent comfort level, warehouse devices are also sport- ing these interfaces—making them both more accessible to new users and easier to train employees on.
Additionally, warehouse management system (WMS) solution providers have begun offering the ability to present full color images on mobile computers—showing a visual of the product to be picked, the correct location of a pick, or the appropriate scheme to following in building a pallet load, to name a few.
To accommodate these features, “the devices have more processing power and more memory,” says Keith Bernhardt, LXE’s director of product management (www.lxe.com). “If you have a higher powered proces- sor, you can deliver more com- mands faster for quicker traditional picking. If the device is a thicker client, you can’t afford to slow down just because you have a few more features.”
Look for newer devices to also sport higher resolution screens, says Psion Teklogix’s Peddemors. “Vendors are developing high-visibility, high-resolution screens that represent the product very well and allow you to get a lot of legible, readable data in that screen factor,” he adds.
Interconnectivity Bluetooth technologies continue to be employed with mobile computing and data capture devices, says LXE’s Bernhardt. “To enable the interaction of different equipment, Bluetooth con- nects scanners to vehicle mounted and hand-held computers, so operators no longer have to be tethered to a forklift,” he says.
The technology also enables operators to wear hands-free devices, such as
ring scanners on their fingers or voice- enabled headsets over their ears, that communicate back to a computer worn on a belt. “That combination allows the wearer to be really mobile, more efficient, work faster and make the operations move much more smoothly,” Bernhardt adds.
Also enhancing interconnectivity, says Tom Burke, vice president of product marketing at Datalogic Mobile (www.datalogic.com), are the location- based service technologies that can be integrated on mobile computing and data capture devices.
“The combination of global positioning systems (GPS) with cellular technologies and Wi-Fi positioning systems opens up a lot of opportunities to know
the position of a person relative to a position within a facility—with- out putting in an expensive, dedicated, location-based system,” Burke explains. “These solutions also allow you to instantly know a vehicle location for tracking parcel deliveries.”
The systems seamlessly main- tain the wireless connection, enabling an appropriately equipped mobile worker to complete tasks inside the warehouse and then out in the yard.
For even more productivity, operators can be outfitted with a fast-output mobile printer that wirelessly networks with mobile computers and prints human-readable or bar code labels for shipping, returns or store location loading.
“If you outfit the worker with a mobile printer, you can really cut down on travel time to fixed printers and eliminate confusion in locating loads that are some distance away,” adds Intermec’s Eusterman.
RFID’s re-emergence Although still considered by some to be a four-letter word, RFID tags and reader use is
exploding as a component of data capture for asset management—including inventory, work-in-process, parts, returnable packaging, tooling and vehicles, says ABI Research’s Liard. While the trend is fueled partly by an increase in the technology’s reliability and a corresponding decrease in per-tag and reader costs, companies are evaluating RFID based on return on investment and total cost of ownership.
“The value of the tagged asset is certainly going to come into play, but there’s also the factor of preventing the loss of assets, or having trouble find- ing these assets during mission-critical times,” Liard says. “The value proposi- tion is tied to the business process and the larger efficiency picture.”
to give users the ability to deploy one platform across multiple applications, mobile computing vendors are providing smaller, faster data capture devices with multimodal functionality.
Warehouses and manufacturers are looking for mobile computing solutions that enable them to better manage inventory, assets and labor, agrees Toby Rush, president and CEO of Rush Tracking Systems (www.rushtrack- ingsystems.com).
Rush’s company offers a solution featuring an RFID reader mounted to the top of the lift truck for indoor position monitoring and real-time visibility of the truck, and an RFID reader mounted on the front of the vehicle or on its forks automatically scans the load being moved. “By taking away the handheld bar code scanner and not making a person scan, a facility can gain speed and accuracy by elimi- nating errors,” Rush explains.
In addition to inventory and shipping accuracy improvements, users of these systems also benefit from analyzing the data collected to yield better labor and fleet management, adds Rush. “It’s like having a little industrial engineer
riding on every forklift, doing time studies all day long.”
Information dense bar codes With growing use of information-dense bar codes—such as two- dimensional (2D) ver- sions that store information both horizontally and vertically, and compact GS1 DataBar (formerly known as RSS, reduced space symbology)—additional information can be stored in the mark. Application identifiers contain more information than ever before, such as serial numbers, lot numbers and expiration dates that yield better product identification, quality
control and traceability. To accommodate these bar codes,
data capture devices now incorporate imagers that have become as fast at
reading them as laser scanners read a traditional one-dimensional bar code, says Motorola’s Maris. “The imagers are essentially cameras that take a picture of the bar code and translate the dots and squares; for traceability, it’s a technology that’s starting to find real purpose.”
Computing in a cloud With more WMS vendors looking to offer their software as a service (SaaS— also known as cloud-based computing), most mobile computing device manufacturers say the effect on their technologies will be negligible.
“Most devices now have an integrated browser and fairly high speed interface to the network,” says Datalogic’s Burke. “SaaS requires a certain functionality from your browser, and if you have an old one that hasn’t been updated, you’re going to have some compatibility issues.”
It’s also important to verify that the devices have the ability to lock the browser onto a single application, preventing users from accessing the Internet or control panel, as well as keeping the network secure.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of cloud-based computing will be the ability of a smaller level of user to take advantage of warehouse automation, says LXE’s Bernhardt. “Certainly SaaS allows smaller deploy- ments to take place in larger numbers,” he adds.
For mobile computing and data capture device manufacturers, that will likely lead to an increased availability of pared down, more common configurations of products that don’t require as much customization. “They’re not going to be looking for so much specialization and variety, but will still find significant improvement in their operations overall,” Bernhardt says. M
With growing use of information-dense bar codes, data capture devices now incorporate imagers that have become as fast at reading them as laser scanners read a traditional one-dimensional bar code.
location-based service technologies can be integrated on a device, allowing companies to instantly know a vehicle location for tracking parcel deliveries.
ertical and horizontal carousels have been moving product through warehouses and distribution centers for more than 25 years. In addition to creating dynamic high-density storage, carousels can be cred- ited with increasing productivity, reducing labor, saving space and
cutting energy costs. The concept of carousel technology hasn’t changed much over the years.
That might be because a carousel is a robust and dependable piece of equipment, and it is mechanically pretty simple, says Jack Lehr, vice president of sales for automated systems for SSI Schaefer (www.ssi-schaefer.us). What is changing is how users are applying carousel technology. “About five years ago, however, engineers in the United States started to recognize that the goods-to-person process is hands down the most efficient picking process,” says Lehr.
So, if you have a picking operation, are carousels the right solution? “Any manufacturing plant, warehouse or distribution center currently using a traditional static rack and shelving system should investigate the possibility of incorporating an automated solution like a vertical or horizontal carousel,” says Christina Hilligoss, marketing and commu- nications manager for KardexRemstar (www.kardexremstar.com).
And, that investigation should cover a few key areas. Paul Roy, vice president of marketing and product management for
V By Lorie King Rogers, Associate Editor
Not just for high-density storage anymore,
today’s carousels are delivering product to the
person while increasing productivity, reducing
labor, saving space and cutting energy costs.
Carousels: Turning picking into
pRoductivity
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MODERN equipment report
Turning picking into
System Logistics (www.systemlogistics.com) rec- ommends asking: Am I currently using labor to pick from shelving? Do I have space and accuracy issues? Do I need to get orders out the door faster?
If you answered “yes,” to any of those ques- tions, it might be time to consider a carousel. “Carousels can go anywhere shelving can go,” explains Hilligoss. “If you’re looking to save space, a vertical carousel might be the solution. If you’re looking to increase productivity, horizontal may be the way to go.”
Either way, the starting point is a return on investment (ROI) estimate. “Carousels have an average ROI of about 18 months,” Hilligoss says. Whether your return is shorter or longer may depend on your current operations. For example, are you renting space off site to store product? How many people will you be able to retrain and relocate?
Common characteristics Both vertical and horizontal carousels share key components that are vital to an operation’s bottom line:
• They incorporate dense storage technology to house product and components, and carousels can save as much as 85% of the space used to store items in traditional, static shelving and rack systems.
• Carousels bring products to the person performing a picking or putaway activity, and they eliminate the need for associates to walk to retr

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