RADIO FREQUENCY CASE STUDY

WMII and WMRX have been used by companies from Fortune's 500 and small single warehouse distribution companies. They have controlled storerooms, distribution centers, public warehouses and third party warehouses in the USA and overseas as far away as Australia.

Howard Way & Associates has recently completed andinstalled a warehouse and DC control system at a well known soup manufacturer's Canadian distribution center . The 300,000 sq. ft. facility receives 30 or more loads per day of full pallets, primarily from the Toronto soup production facility, and from other divisions. The warehouse, which runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, has 25 shipping doors where 200 orders per day are staged and shipped. About half are full or single truck loads, and half are pooled shipments with multiple 'drops' or orders per load. On the picking side, 80% of the line items picked are case lots, and 20% are full pallets. The company's customers are the large grocery chains and food wholesalers throughout Canada.

Management went looking for a better solution.

They wanted a system that would be able to:

Use RF terminals on all fork trucks and for case pickers to work on-line with a networked computer system.
Automatically receive goods against production plans and tally shortages and differences
Automatically allocate appropriate sized floor stacks for the load, keeping lot numbers segregated.
Direct the drivers to the stacks quickly and instantly.
Assure quarantined goods did not ship.
Add additional accuracy by using bar codes, applied at manufacturing time on all pallets.
Have the system direct pickers to oldest goods, cleared from quarantine.
Have the system replenish pick racks, again using FIFO rules
Direct pickers to cases in a least-path picking sequence, the current paperwork caused back-tracking and extra walking.
Have the system break down orders into full pallet and case picks, assigning each to the appropriate worker.
Have every pick scanned with bar code reader and verified instantly, against the assigned task to improve accuracy.
Print shipping labels that show what goods are on a mixed pallet to make it easier for Campbell's customers to correctly receive and check-in their orders.

They selected the Howard Way & Associates Warehouse Master II software and Teklogix RF system, along with Zebra bar code printers and PSC hand held and fixed laser scanners for fork trucks.

The facility has 16 Teklogix model 8050 full screen fork mounted terminals, each with hand held laser scanner. Two hand held 7025 terminals are used for smaller orders, inventory or management control. Two base stations provide 100% RF coverage throughout the facility, which includes several interior fire walls, smaller storage areas and a large outside parking area where goods may be in trailers. A Teklogix 9200 network controller links the base stations to the Warehouse Master II network.

The fork terminals were outfitted with full screen displays, so that drivers could see both an AS/400 and Howard Way & Associates display and hot key between them. For even higher productivity, the four trucks used for receiving have fixed scanners that automatically scan the pallets being unloaded in a hands-free manner. This speeds up operations, assures all pallets are read, and makes damage less likely as the drivers' hands stay on the controls.

Warehouse Master II is a PC package running on a Novell network. 13 workstations are currently connected, and more may be added. Another PC workstation is configured as the RF Server; controlling all displays and messages for the 18 RF terminals. The RF system provides a smooth work flow and 100% accuracy.

Now, production orders are entered into the Warehouse Master II system. They are pre-allocated daily for expected receipts. The system assigns slot locations for the expected loads.

As loads are received, the receiver scans each pallet and puts it on the dock, stacking them to save space. The RF system verifies the pallet was ordered and pre-allocated, or an error message tells the driver to seek supervisor assistance.

The putaway driver approaches the pallet, scans it and is directed to a putaway location. If the goods weren't received, an error message appears. The driver then scans the directed location, and confirms the putaway. Each pallet has a bar code that included the SKU, Lot #, quantity on the pallet and a Pallet ID. One scan does it all.

Due to the architecture of the RF system and the Warehouse Master II software, most RF transactions have a response time of less than 1/2 second, so drivers aren't waiting for responses. The system architecture allows each workstation full access to all files (under password control) and uses concurrent multi-tasking processing such that every worker has 100% CPU time on their client station, without sharing processing cycles with a larger machine.

Location labels have been placed on all floor stacks, just to the right of the pallet position. A polyurethane coating was applied over each label to protect it from scrapes. A few fork drivers were found to destroy labels shortly after application, mostly due to ignorance of their purpose. Driver awareness training has resolved most label damages, and labels have a good life on the floor. Overhead labels were examined at several other facilities but rejected due to cost and difficulty of installing in the building; as well as difficulty in scanning labels placed over 40' from the fork driver.

Printouts show management what goods are expected, allocated, received, put away and automatically quarantined.

A QC manager gets daily reports from the QC office at manufacturing, and can clear quarantined goods.

For picking, the orders are downloaded into the Warehouse Master II system, for full pallets. Drivers are directed, again with the large screen RF terminals, to the proper location, they scan the pallet to verify that lot # and pallet are correct, and then are directed to the order staging area or pick slot for replenishment.

In summary, the benefits achieved have met management's goals:

Lot numbers are automatically tracked to customers, pallets tracked throughout the facility, receiving completed without manual entry, put-a-way drivers need not write anything down nor seek slots. Slots are always emptied in FIFO order and allocated to the best of capacity. Management has met its goals with this installation.