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Late last June, Koerber Group announced its fostered entry into the U.S. market with the acquisition of DM Logic, a provider of WMS and logistics software and integration services. At the time, Stephan Seifert, CEO of the Group Executive Board of Koerber AG noted that “With DMLogic, we gain another experienced partner to advance our long-term internationalization and growth course.”…
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Up on a 19,000-square-foot mezzanine in a distribution center in western New York, order selectors at either end of a pick module are directed by voice as they walk through their zones, picking slow-moving SKUs. There’s nothing special about that process at the Rochester Drug Cooperative, which goes to market as RDC. It’s the kind of piece-picking solution you see…
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Location: Rochester, NY Size: 60,000 square feet plus a 19,000-square-foot mezzanine Products: Pharmaceuticals and overthe-counter drugs Throughput: 15,000 lines per night Shifts per day/ Days per week: 2 shifts per day/6 days per week Employees: 45 Read the full RDC Systems Report here. In its Rochester, N.Y., distribution center, a mobile piece-picking robot augments voice-directed picking operations on a mezzanine…
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It’s Day Two at the Material Handling & Logistics Conference in Park City, Utah, an event I have been attending for close to 15 years (and, full disclosure, I was a member of the planning committee). My morning began with two conversations, one with Harry Moser, the founder and president of the Reshoring Initiative, and another with a supply chain…
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Clockspeed. If you’re not familiar with the term, it was coined by Charles Fine, an MIT professor, to define rapidly evolving industries – those with a fast clock speed that he likened to fruit flies that are born, mature and expire in a very short time. He argued that “in business today, all advantage is temporary. In order to survive-let…
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How does the old saying go—“It’s all over but the shouting!” Earlier this month, the KION Group AG announced that it had successfully completed the acquisition of Dematic. In the announcement, Gordon Riske, CEO of KION Group, said it marked the dawn of a new era for his company, Dematic, and their combined companies. “The transaction brings together the world’s…
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At Whirlpool Corporation‘s 2.4-million-square-foot plant in Clyde, Ohio, a fleet of 54 blue robotic tuggers wind their way around the floor, automatically delivering parts every 20 to 30 minutes to some 24 drop-off locations on the assembly and sub-assembly lines. Operating in a three-shift, five-day-a-week operating environment, the mobile robots are a key component in the lean and continuous improvement…
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As one of the world’s largest manufacturers of cosmetics, skincare, hair care and hair coloring products, L’Oreal operates a number of different types of distribution centers, ranging from facilities that primarily handle full pallets to case and piece picking operations. Each has its own set of demands and approaches to order fulfillment. “What’s impacting our operations the most is the…
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They say necessity is the mother of invention. Both necessity and invention are currently on display at Quiet Logistics, a third-party provider of e-fulfillment services for familiar names in the premium branded fashion and apparel industry like Bonobos, Zara and Mack Weldon. Start with a walk through of a 300,000-square-foot distribution center near the Fort Devens Army Base in Devens,…
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Quiet Logistics; Devens, Mass. Size: 500,000 square feet in 2 DCs Products: Premium branded fashion and apparel Throughput: 55,000 units per day SKUs: 150,000 Employees: 350 Shifts per day/days per week: The facilities operate 24 hours a day, 6 days per week, using 3 staggered shifts per day In one of its two distribution centers in Devens, Mass., Quiet Logistics…
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There’s been a lot of discussion around our magazine, as well as across the industry, about the future of materials handling. Following my trip to Atlanta for Modex 2016 earlier this month, I had a few thoughts to add as fodder to the discussion. The future of materials handling is ….. Materials handling. Anyone walking the floor couldn’t help but…
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It’s April and the off year from Promat, which means I’m in Atlanta preparing to attend the Modex show that will open tomorrow morning. I flew in early today so that I’d have a chance to visit the show while exhibitors were putting the final touches on their booths. Based on a quick walk through, here are a topics I…
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Disruption and innovation. They are two of the most commonly used words to describe business today, and they often go hand in hand. Established businesses worry that their tried-and-true business models will be the next to be disrupted by a start-up, just as Borders was done in by Amazon and the entertainment industry has been upended by the digitization of…
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The process of storing, retrieving and marrying up lenses and eyeglass frames in VSP Optics Group’s lab in Folsom, Calif., is elegant and deceptively simple. The solution brings together automated storage and robotics while warehouse execution software (WES) is the critical component that makes it all work. Step 1: The process begins when VSP receives an electronic order from an…
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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…
From geometry preparation to AI-assisted analysis, integrated CFD workflows…
Software-based GripperAI manages mixed picking through basic geometry
Safety, communication and motion control components enable smooth operation
North America’s largest robotics and automation event winds down
