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Narrow Aisle Plus Carton Live Picking
Ravensburger are the UK's largest manufacturer and supplier of
children's jigsaw puzzles, based in a production and warehouse facility
at Bicester.
Recently they decided to look into reorganising their operation
to increase the efficiency and capacity in their existing warehouse,
rather than move to larger premises which would involve increased
logistical problems and great expenditure.
STS Storage systems were asked by Ravensburger to design a new
warehouse scheme to improve their operation.
Due to the short shelf life of some of their products an area of
the warehouse scheme had to be dedicated to this, so that these
items could be picked and dispatched to meet the 'Just In Time'
requirements of their customers, also due to the approaching
Christmas run, the speed at which their products could be dispatched
was crucial.
With this information in hand STS determined that live storage
was the key to the success of this scheme.
To hold medium to fast moving stock, a 50M run of five
level carton live storage was proposed, replenished by a fork lift
truck and picked by hand in a centralised aisle, ensuring first
in first out stock rotation.
The fast moving stock was to be held on the other side of the 50M
long centralised aisle, on live roller beds at ground level, picked
by hand directly from pallets, into the aisle and replenished from
behind, via. lateral man-up narrow aisle order-pickers, which
service this and the four pallet high F.E.M. STS pallet racking,
where the bulk stock was held.
STS decided that to increase the density of the bulk stock, in
a smaller area than previously used, the F.E.M. STS pallet racking
was to be arranged in a narrow aisle configuration, pallet input
into this bulk area is undertaken by the narrow aisle order-pickers,
guided by floor fixed rails, which deposit pallets onto the pick
& deposit (P&D) stations at the end of the aisles, and are
then collected by smaller order-pickers, which collate orders and
replenish the five level live storage block, this configuration
gave an additional 500 product locations in an area 30% smaller
than had been previously required. This was achieved by reducing
the aisles between the racks from 2.3M to 1.8M.
Previously the warehouse order-pickers frequently had to travel
in excess of 300M to collate an order, now that the order picking
area has been contained to one 50M aisle, the order pickers now
only travel a fifth of the distance that they used to, which has
meant that now they can pick twice as much stock in each working
shift than before.
Ravensburger also had a requirement for some shelving, so that
small quantities of slow moving stock could be stored, this
was achieved by one 50M run of adjustable shelving, serviced
by a narrow aisle orderpicker in the same aisle used to replenish
the five level block of live storage.
The installation period was set for Ravensburger's 2 week summer
shut-down, the existing racks would have to be dismantled and replaced
with the new racking in this period, so that the scheme was up &
running for when the staff returned from holiday, causing no inconvenience
to Ravensburger or its customers, STS achieved this installation
deadline with time to spare.
“In addition to affording better utilisation of floor space
for warehousing purposes, reorganisation has also provided added
room to expand both the existing manufacturing area in addition
to the packing and despatch section, which is now housed adjacent
to the picking area. Operationally everything now flows around the
complex in one logical direction and with no crossovers”
John Porter (Production & Warehouse Manager)
Financial gains have also directly resulted from the decision to
reinvest in the existing premises.
“While we initially looked at all our options, it soon
became patently obvious that reconfiguring our existing operation
was far the best, and cheapest option.”
Colin Bendel (Logistics Manager)
“Having taken into account former and future sales to determine
stock levels, throughputs, picking profiles, etc. and by making
better use of existing space, we are now realising numerous benefits
at relatively low cost, when compared with the alternatives.”
“We now have much more visibility as to what stock is where
at any one time, and we now have the ability to pick twice as much
stock each working shift than before, and we are now in a position
to more accurately control stock, meet our delivery dates and respond
instantly to whatever the market demands.”
Peter Taylor (Operations Director)
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