Modern Materials Handling - October 2011

modern system reportare sent to a sorter induction point. Thesorter then routes all of the items foran order to one of 500 packing destinations.Once all of the books for a cartonhave accumulated, a light flashes tonotify a packer that an order is ready tobe packed.In this system, one packer can handleseveral packing locations at a time.Once a carton is packed, it’s placed ona takeaway conveyor, and then automaticallyscanned and conveyed to afinal pack. There, it’s weight-checked,bubble-wrapped, sealed, labeled forshipping, and sent to shipping, where itis loaded for delivery.By aggregating orders, approximately98% of orders ship in three businessdays or less. The system is flexibleenough to maintain that level of productivitythrough the inevitable ordercyclepeaks and valleys.Once Random House settled on atechnology, there were logistical problemsto address. One was a matter oflayout. “We already had a mezzanineand we knew we needed certain operatingspeeds,” says Danek. “But we didn’thave a lot of space and we had issueslike I-beams in the way.”The system integrator came up witha way to fit the sorter on the mezzaninewithin the architectural constraints ofthe building.A second concern was whether theprocess of moving books from the sorterto a packout station would cause damage.“The pitch of the chute is prettyimportant to prevent damage,” saysDanek. A team from Random Housespent a day at the integrator’s facility inFrederick, Md., testing more than 100sample books that varied from large andheavy coffee table books to textured children’sbooks. “We looked at a number ofsorter designs, and this one handled ourbooks in the gentlest way,” Danek says.Danek adds that the picking processesin the loose pick area remainedthe same. “We were already using voicetechnology to direct our picks,” shesays. “By creating a denser picking area,we picked up a 15% gain in productivityAssociates are directed by voice in the piece picking area. Once all the itemshave been picked, a tote is conveyed to an induction point for the tilt-traysortation system.and the sorter improved our accuracy.But the change with the most impactwas improving our throughput rate byalmost 50%.”As Random House approaches itssecond anniversary with the sorter,returns are on the decline. More importantly,with the increasing shift toe-books, the speed to market enabledby the sorter has kept Random House abig step ahead of the competition.“By putting in this system, we canaccommodate our growth and we canget our physical books to our customersfaster than other publishers,” shesays. “We have a mandate to have thebest supply chain in book publishing,and with it we will grow both the profitabilityof our customers with RandomHouse titles, as well as our own.”Speed to marketRandom House’s new picking methodology aggregatesorders for faster turnaround times and speedier deliveryto the market.By Bob Trebilcock, Executive EditorReceiving: Random House receives(1) full trailer load shipments on full,half or mixed pallets from the binderies.Pallets are unloaded to a staging areain the receiving area (2) where they arechecked in against a production orderin the warehouse management system(WMS). As product is checked in, theWMS creates a license plate bar codelabel for the pallet and assigns a putawaylocation in one of the reserve storageareas (3).Putaway: Once a pallet has beenreceived in the WMS, a lift truck operatorscans the license plate bar codelabel and is then directed to a drop off20 S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 1 / Modern Materials Handling mmh.com