Beverage World - May 2008 - (Page 55) as replenish flow-through lanes to feed pick modules, notes John Hinchey, vice president of sales for Westfalia Technologies, Inc. Racking also can be specially outfitted for flow-through or automated layer picking. For companies handling lots of pallet-sized movements of product packed in PET bottles, Twinlode Corp. offers another specific solution: a patented double-wide Pallet Rack & Storage system. It allows companies to load and unload two pallets at a time, “the way soft drink bottlers have been used to doing for years,” says Dennis Hartman, president, and allows companies to double productivity while maximizing storage space, both through better use of vertical space, as well as through lateral space savings by eliminating center posts between pallet positions. An option growing in popularity in larger installations are combinations of dual and single-wide flow-racks installed in front of the docks for order make-up. “A typical beverage semi load is two pallets wide, one pallet high and 11 pallets deep or 22 pallets,” says Hartman. “We can use 11-deep flow racks, double-wide, and then stack it four high, allowing the warehouse to pre-pick a semi load per level. In many cases they’ll use second and third shift operators to make up these orders, load the flow rack, and then at 6 or 7 a.m. when the semis start rolling in to get loaded, everything’s there and ready. It minimizes travel time from the rack to truck, enabling workers to load a whole semi in mere minutes that used to take 45 minutes to an hour to load with palletized orders coming from elsewhere in the warehouse.” Every DC racking project is different. The best configurations are a function of multiple factors: velocity of movement of the different products handled; degrees of seasonality; warehouse layout and space availability; types and sizes of deliveries handled; manpower availBEVERAGEWORLD.COM ability and the number of shifts being run; whether and how racked areas may be used to feed some form of automated pick system, even where inbound product is coming from and how it gets to the DC, whether directly from manufacturing or from multiple supply points, notes Huitron of Boston Rack. BW For more on racking systems, visit beverageworld.com. http://beverageworld.com http://www.bostonrack.com http://www.bostonrack.com http://BEVERAGEWORLD.COM
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