Modern Materials Handling - Design Plans & Ideas

Storage Systems

MAKING STORAGE NEEDS A REALITY

GROWTH IS ALWAYS GOOD, BUT IT CAN POSE headaches for warehouse managers trying to make do with existing resources. That was certainly the case for Wilson Sporting Goods. Working to manage a hefty 67% growth in the number of units shipped over the past five years. Worldwide Logistics Director John Wade had done virtually everything he could to wring excess capacity out of the company’s national distribution center in Nashville, TN. “Having made the decision previously not to add brick and mortar, we were ultimately forced to go to outside storage, which naturally incurred additional handling costs,” recalls Wade. Wondering if there might be a way to bring the storage back inside economically, Wade began to examine alternative to the 11,000 pallet locations of single-deep, static pallet rack used to house pallet loads of finished products. “An obvious answer was to eliminate the aisles,” says Wade.

That is when Creative Storage Systems was brought in to design a storage system to accommodate Wilson’s SKUs. An evaluation of the existing facility’s layout, lift equipment, and the applicable finished goods package sizes and weights allowed the creation of a dynamic staging system in which all unit pallet loads regardless of their weight flowed in a controlled fashion.

Each lane houses a unique SKU. The fact that Wilson has large volumes of relatively few SKUs allowed for deeper than usual flow lanes, which has a positive impact on throughput.

Wilson reports an astonishing 30% increase in order throughput. “It’s great, both our picking and putaway productivity has increased, and we’re saving big on storage space,” says Wade. He also notes that the new system has helped to speed cycle counting as well as improve inventory accuracy. “Our employees used to dread cycle counting,” says Wade. “Not anymore. Now it’s easy because we have 15 pallets in one location.