Case Study: A “Grande” Undertaking
A major coffee distributor based out of the Pacific Northwest purchases and sells coffee, espresso, pastries and coffee-related accessories through their retail stores, as well as supermarket chains. The company’s goal is to establish themselves as the most recognized and respected “brand” in the world. To achieve this goal, the Company plans to continue to rapidly expand its retail operations, grow its specialty sales and other operations, and selectively pursue opportunities to leverage their brand through the introduction of new products and the development of new distribution channels.
Challenge
- This Company had an outdated conveyor system with little automation for their picking operations. All shipping sortation was manual and time consuming.
- They were incurring high maintenance costs as a result of keeping their old conveyor operational.
- The Company wanted to increase throughput & reduce high labor costs.
- Bastian had to find a way to install the system without disrupting ongoing operations.
)
Bastian's Solution
- In conjunction with BMH’s sister company, ASAP Automation, a simulation was conducted to verify throughput rates of the new design. This helped demonstrate that the proposed design was the right solution for the Company. It also showed bottleneck areas and required manning levels.
- A Hytrol highspeed shoe sorter (ProSort 400) was installed to support the required throughput rates. This design had three (3) picking accumulation lines feeding a sawtooth merge which fed the shipping sorter.
- Accusort scanners and an In-line scale were also utilized in order to achieve the highest read rates possible and divert “out of weight tolerance” packages to quality control.
- BMH installed a temporary conveyor system which allowed the Company to continue operating at full volume during the transition.
Results
- The design throughput rate of 94 Cartons per Minute was achieved. BMH’s system actually allowed for 100 Cartons per Minute, exceeding the customer’s expectations.
- Staffing levels were reduced by approximately 20%, and the Company was able to cut back on overtime.
- The Company was able to maintain operations during the transition and fulfill orders to retail stores across the country.
