Born to be wired

Third gear
Today, with its cross-docking and order-batching initiatives well-established, the DC is running much more smoothly.

Every day, orders are seeded according to type and issued for picking at assigned times over three shifts. Stocking orders are mainly picked on the midnight shift. The pool of rush orders—which has greatly diminished—is typically picked in late morning, giving the company plenty of room to meet its next-day delivery promise.

For larger stock items, the picking is done with a forklift carrying cages, each of which carries a retail store-specific bins. Veteran staff members can pick for as many as six retailers at once. Every pick is validated with an RF gun, which transmits the information back into the WMS.

The DC is also outfitted with a horizontal carousel for small, fast-moving items. The carousel runs on a legacy software system tied in to the WMS. Once the operator chooses an order to pick, the carousels spin to pull the appropriate items to the pick face, with a pick-to-light system indicating the appropriate quantities. A hydraulic platform moves up or down so that the operator can pick items comfortably.

Once the orders are picked, they move to the shipping area to be prepared for delivery. To avoid damage, items are packaged with like items.

“We almost over-pack,” acknowledges Arthur. “But if it’s riding season and a customer needs a part and it arrives damaged, it’s not worth it.”

Once packed, the orders move into the outbound shipping area. In the past year, it is here that the biggest transformation has taken place.

Before, staff working in the shipping area had to log on to each carrier’s proprietary electronic system in order to prepare orders to leave the building. Carriers were generally selected using a mix of precedence (the carrier that’s been used on a route in the past) and convenience (the carrier that the worker happens to have used that afternoon). There was little attention paid tofinding the best cost or to factoring in how things like size and destination can affect it.

Recognizing the opportunity for improvements, the company implemented shipping software from Scancode Systems Inc, which was purchased shortly thereafter by Descartes Systems Group.

The program is linked to Deeley’s in-line cubing unit. Once a package’s barcode is scanned, its weight and dimensions are recorded and the information—as well as data on destination and urgency—is processed and run through a database of rates to determine the best shipping option. Once a carrier is selected, the software generates a shipping label. “It factors in all those components to make a logical decision on the best carrier to meet the service requirement,” explains Bill Curry of Descartes. “With two scans, it’s probably replaced 20 steps.”