Becton Dickinson Material Handling Case Study

Key Technology

• 300 ft double-sided shoe sorter with 22 diverts
• Three 4-level pick modules utilizing Pick-to-Voice (PTV)
• Six-lane high speed sawtooth merge
• Over 8,000 feet of Intelligrated Conveyor
• Portec fiber glass chutes for small foot print vertical product movement
• Over 25,000 sq ft of Wildeck mezzanines
• Multi-camera scan tunnel (Datalogic)
• 4 Inline Lantech stretch wrappers with associated pallet conveyor
• 2 Print and Apply Machines for UPS shipments
• BMH Warehouse Control System (WCS)
• Interface to Red Prairie (WMS)

Business Challenges

• Optimize the BD distribution network based on transportation costs and order cycle time
• Develop a new automated distribution facility in the Indianapolis, IN area utilizing 3PL Genco to operate the facility
• Absorb a greater percentage of the total demand as compared to current day

Results

• High volume, high throughput system
• The sorters run at 550 ft per minute
• System throughput measured at 185, peaks of 200-205 at maximum throughput
• BD is now fully equipped to handle customer demands

Multi-Media

Videos

BD Webcast

BD MSS

BD Print Apply

BD Stretch Wrapper

Renderings

System Rendering

System Overview

BD Picking

BD Print Stations

BD Shipping Lanes

BD Stretch Wrappers

Case Study Video- Script

This project was a BMH systems project out of Plainfield, Indiana. Essentially the project was three pick modules, four stories each, and they weaved around through a five-lane sawtooth merge and into a shoe sorter. It was all intelligrated conveyor. Off the shoe sorter we have about 123 feet of conveyor per lane before it goes down to the pallet builds. We also built a UPS area where they converge off the sorter and they can process the orders and send it through our print and apply machine for all their UPS packages. In the future they may open it up to FedEx and DHL, but right now it's strictly UPS shipment.

Becton Dickinson is a medical technology company that sells a broad range of supplies from things you might have at home like a thermometer to needles, catheters, and other medical supplies. The distribution system was run by a 3PL company called Genco. They're nationwide and in Canada, and they partnered with Becton to build their facilities with this one being the most complex technology.

A quick detail about the schedule: Installation ran from February to May of 2006. After a very short devoid period where we had to ramp up a lot of teams from systems and controls, and we entered an FDA validation period. Rockwell was the one that helped us out with that. We had about a month between our system validation and the whole system validation. WMS was completed in June and once that was finished, we had a go-live date of October of 06. We were able to meet our dates even when there was a little fluff with the WMS side of the operation to achieve the go-live date for Becton Dickinson which was their biggest concern within the scope of the project.

The entire project consists of intelligrated conveyor, about 8000 feet winding through the pick-modules. We have a 300 foot double sided- shoe sorter and over 25000 feet over four stories of mezzanine, two wheel decks, one multi-scan tunnel, and four stretch wrappers at the end of the food conveyor. The big detail in the project was a high volume, high throughput system. The sorters are running at about 50 feet per minute and system throughput was at approximately 185 with about 200 to 205 as a max throughput.

The sawtooth area was all ceiling hung. We built a mezzanine area from the ceiling so it was time consuming and challenging. We had to build a platform for Midco that gave maintenance access to the accumulation lines and the sorter.

The HMI shows the fourth level weaving down to the third level and exiting, and then all the pick modules will feed into the sawtooth merge and it wraps around into the double sided sorter. We provided flush lanes and hold lanes for the sawtooth. If you notice there's a top level accumulation, then a vertical spiral, the about 90 feet of accumulation after that. This really helps to provide and replenish for BD's purposes.

The sawtooth merge provides for very tight merging. It uses logic to have sezo gaps in the merging process and to make the throughput. That's our camera system Three cameras on the top, left and right to read barcodes as the product passes. One gives the sku and one gives the lot so that we can route the product to the appropriate lanes. The sorter for intelligrated was great. They provided a lot of on site help not only with installation but bringing the sorter up. It was very tight with only about enough space for a shoe in between. The boxes will divert off that top level accumulation and inot the mezzanine which is like I said about 90 feet. It really allows them to run which is ogod for accumulation and future sorting. The hand scan pallet positions are a little slower because they have to hand scan every box and put it inn the right location before building said pallet. We tried to provide more accumulation for this reason so that the workers can have a continuous flow of product. They're slowly figuring out how to assign operations and personnel to all the lanes as well as picking. It's a growing process between them, the 3PL and BMH.

BMH installed Landtech in-line stretch wrappers with four identical systems including a TGW Pallet conveyor. We have two levels of accumulation prior to this installation and Becton Dickinson has a validated stretch wrap material they have to use at all of their DC's which was slightly different than what the company had originally design to use for this machine and they did a great job of working with BMH to made sure that the validated orange wrapping could be used on the pallets. It's pretty high speed and it picks up once it's hit a few turns. Because of that we had to saw some footers in case the concrete broke or cracked. It was the first time that some of our team had worked with in-line stretch wrappers. Once it discharges from the safety section, you have three more accumulation zones, so you really can keep up with the workload giving the fork lift driver time to pick it up and move it the dock door. You can continuously feed it through.