Storage and order picking equipment are essential for maintaining efficient material flow. Creating the ideal system will give manufacturers a massive increase in storage capacity and pick rates within the space they have available, says Edward Hutchison, Managing Director of BITO Storage Systems.
Without effective and reliable storage and order picking systems, production and assembly lines will grind to a halt. The Just In Time (JIT) supply of parts, semi-finished products and raw materials to production machines requires flexible and scalable warehouse storage and retrieval systems, whether manual or automated, working in combination with continuous units, such as overhead conveyors and conveyor belts, or discontinuous systems, such as Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMRs), Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) or forklift trucks.
Such systems must not only provide a smooth flow of parts through the plant, from storage to feed the line, but also accommodate future growth. And with assembly areas claiming priority over space in most factories, storage and order picking will often need to fit into a constrained footprint. Fortunately, there are many ways that these objectives can be achieved successfully.
A good example of a lower cost and space-saving method to achieve ‘right first time’ part delivery to the line comes in the form of carton or pallet live systems comprising flow shelves created from racking. With clear labelling, flow shelves help create effective pick zones because the design provides a density of storage that results in a greater number of pick face locations than would be possible with traditional shelving and racking. Because cartons or pallets are loaded into the flow lane on a first in, first out (FIFO) basis, when an empty unit is removed, another full carton or a pallet full of parts flows into place on rollers in the inclined lane, ready to pick from.
Simple small parts picking
Picking small parts is a vital element in most factory warehouses, and where the goal is to keep things simple, this can be easily integrated within pallet racks. One option is to create small parts pick locations on the reachable ground level, with upper storage levels serving as a buffer store for replenishment. Plastic small parts storage containers will help to store and organise small items and C-parts – making them available for quick and easy picking. This will result in a reasonably efficient picking process, but ground-floor locations within a pallet rack will, of course, be limited. Flow shelves, however, can be easily installed into pallet racking to increase the number of pick locations and volume of SKUs located on the ground-level pick face. Adding standard shelving within pallet racking is another option to create flexible small item pick faces. Using mobile shelving will maximise the available space, though moving the shelves increases pick times. Inclined shelving within a pallet racking bay will make items clearly visible for picking.
Multi-tier shelving can be used to create a centralised warehouse, providing easy inventory management. A typical installation of two or three storeys might, for example, place a high-turnover item pick zone on the bottom tier of shelving, and put lower-turnover items higher up. Board or mesh floor deck walkways on the different levels can be linked to each other by stairways and/or lifts for convenient access. Transfer options between levels include lifts, pallet transfer positions (with a pallet gate) or spiral chutes that help optimise the workflow between order-picking areas and despatch to the line by allowing products to be moved gently from one level down to the next.
A supplier, such as BITO, which can contribute a wealth of expertise and experience to the solution, combined with a comprehensive range of storage equipment, will work closely with the customer to design a seamlessly integrated system. Having a one-stop-shop also means a single point of contact from the design and manufacture through to the installation and support. This is important because the passion and involvement at the design stage should be continued through to project planning and then execution to deliver a truly successful storage and order-picking system that keeps production moving.
