The combination of high-density automated storage systems with goods-to-person picking has brought new efficiencies to distribution, especially e-commerce fulfillment. Quite simply, order selectors who can stand in one place to pick can fill more orders than those who have to walk through a facility to do their work. In Mindelheim, Germany, Grob-Werke GmbH & Co. KG, a family-owned manufacturer of machines and assembly systems for manufacturing operations, turned to that same combination to streamline the way it picks and kits materials in a new logistics center to replenish assembly stations in its adjacent manufacturing plant. After all, if you think…
Grob’s new logistics center, the company’s term for its parts and raw materials warehouse, is adjacent to a 1.2-million-square-foot manufacturing facility. A pallet-handling automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS), a mini-load AS/RS, conventional storage and goods-to-person picking methodologies provide the fulfillment engine that delivers parts to the assembly line. Meanwhile, a vision system captures information about the items being picked and the amount of product left on a pallet or in a storage container. That information is used to improve the quality and accuracy of picks and to drive replenishment. Receiving and putaway: Trucks are unloaded and processed in the…