Picking with light and voice support

Witron Logistik + Informatik has built a 53,000 square meter logistics center at the Sipoo site near Helsinki for the Finnish logistics service provider INEX Partners, a subsidiary of the retail company SOK. Here, more than 300,000 different items are efficiently stored and picked for delivery to 1,200 sales outlets. The very broad assortment includes a wide variety of product groups: From clothing, cosmetics and sporting goods to electronic devices, DVDs, garden products and furniture.

Pallet goods are processed in an automated 5-aisle pallet warehouse with 8,800 storage locations and 16,000 layer tray storage locations via the Car Picking System (CPS) with integrated pick-by-voice operator guidance. According to the man-to-goods principle, up to three orders are picked in parallel by one picker in the CPS. The use of layer trays developed in-house by Witron, in which a large number of additional items are stored in the pick front to save space, reduces the travel distances by around 60 percent.

Double award

topsystem has won the Logistics Business IT Award in two categories for its "Lydia Plug&Play" pick-by-voice solution. In the "Wearable Devices & Voice Technology in Logistics" category, the jury recognized the solution in use at spectacle lens manufacturer Seiko Optical UK, where 60 percent more picks are now listed and the error rate has been reduced by more than two thirds. In the "Logistics IT in the Retail & Wholesale Sector" category, Skoolkit's use of voice was impressive. As a pick-by-voice application, "Lydia Plug&Play" is particularly suitable for small and medium-sized companies with up to 25 users. The package includes software, hardware and all functions for individual warehouse management and is based on the latest voice recognition technology.

Pick-by-voice is also used in the conventional warehouse areas, which are primarily used for handling bulky items and the cross-docking business and comprise a total of 13 aisles and 12,000 pallet bays.

Picking system for more than one million picking units per day

Efficient article replenishment at INEX in Finland: The container with articles that are no longer required is pushed back and stored in the miniload using a storage and retrieval machine.

The container picking system DPS - the abbreviation stands for Dynamic Picking System - forms the logistical core element of the distribution center. Here, all container-compatible articles are stored and picked in a 40-aisle racking system with 510,000 miniload container spaces and 4,200 pallet spaces. At a total of 120 picking workstations, the articles are picked directly from storage containers or pallets into the order/branch containers. The employees are guided by a pick-by-light system. The DPS works in combination according to the "goods-to-man/man-to-goods" principle and enables direct storage and picking in an automated small parts warehouse.

The articles, whose classification is continuously checked and adjusted by the DPS, are located in the pick front as required. Replenishment from the miniload to the picking zones integrated directly into the container warehouse is exclusively system-controlled by storage and retrieval machines. Due to the automated static and dynamic provision of the warehouse items, the walking distances for employees are reduced by up to 75 percent. In addition, lifting and carrying is reduced to a minimum. In total, over one million pick units are picked on peak days.

Light-guided: Assembly at MAN

MAN's main plant in Munich relies on a special pick-by-light solution with swipe actuators from KBS for order picking for cab assembly. The benefits of this system include short training phases, clear orientation aids, easily exchangeable compartment displays, efficient order acknowledgment and overall greater quality and speed. After all, for each vehicle order, around 250 different parts have to be put together on picking trolleys for the cabs alone. The spectrum ranges from cable sets, aerials, compressed air horns and cladding to different tachographs.

"Wipe actuator" shortens and simplifies the picking process

Compared to other pick-by-light providers, the "Pick-Term Quick-Reply" system from KBS was able to assert itself, as it has easily exchangeable and relocatable compartment displays with a self-developed switch for quickly acknowledging orders. This "wipe actuator" eliminates the need to operate the existing actuation button on the compartment display, thereby increasing picking performance. The spring-loaded lever is "swiped" by the order picker while the item is being picked and is therefore actuated without the need for any further action.

"With three exceptions, only one item needs to be removed from the compartments so that the contact can never be triggered too early," says Franz Blaschke, responsible for process planning and maintenance in cab assembly for heavy trucks.

Head free with the voice vest

"The "VocalVest" eliminates the need to use a headset," is how proLogistik advertises its newly developed voice vest. The vest weighs just 500 grams. Two loudspeakers are positioned at shoulder height. This allows the user to hear the voice instructions clearly and distinctly despite background noise. The microphone can be individually adjusted. The robust vest with integrated rechargeable battery, which can be used in temperatures ranging from -30 to +50 degrees Celsius with IP 65 protection, has elastic straps with quick-release fasteners and thus adapts to the stature of the respective employee.

As up to two employees work in the "parts supermarket" - the internal name for the picking area - at the same time, the colors red and green were selected to differentiate the light signals. Compartments that have to be visited by both employees during picking flash in the color of the first picking order triggered. During the second picking process from these compartments, the order must be acknowledged with the conventional switch, as the wipe actuator may only be active once.

"We now work faster and with higher quality," emphasizes Blaschke. In addition, new employees can now be trained in half an hour.

Gripping channels with light indicators

viastore Systems has implemented a new distribution center for Bort Medical with ergonomic order picking for a total of around 5,000 different items. For picking, 1,442 gripper channels with pick-by-light displays and an ergonomic high-performance picking workstation are available in eight zones. A high-speed loop ensures a fast connection between warehouse, picking and packing.

Picking is based on two principles: The picking lanes in the picking warehouse are automatically supplied by the "viaspeed" storage and retrieval machines. The picking process - in this case the A-parts - is self-explanatory for the employees. The viadat warehouse management system pre-calculates the order size and, on this basis, automatically provides a container of the appropriate size into which the employees place the goods. When entering the picking zones, the bins are automatically scanned and the order is started.

The indicator lights on the gripper channels show how many items are to be removed from which channel. The bin is then pushed away and either transported to the next picking zone or to the packing and dispatch station.

Quick acknowledgement of orders in the assembly department at MAN Nutzfahrzeuge: To do this, the spring-mounted lever of the "wipe actuator" is touched by the order picker during removal.

The B/C parts are picked at a separate picking station. The article bins move automatically before and after picking. A viadat dialog shows the picker on the screen how many items are to be removed from which container segment and into which target container they are to be placed. This is supported by light displays: A "spot" appears in the removal container at the correct record picking performance with spot light position, while the number of articles to be placed in the target container is illuminated above it. As Managing Director Wolfgang Bort emphasizes, "picking should be much faster and safer in future" and the error rate, which is already in the per mille range, "will be reduced so much that our final inspection can be omitted". The record picking performance to date was 18,000 items in one day.

Picking performance doubled with new voice system Cassis, an expanding Belgian women's clothing retailer that currently operates 130 stores in Belgium, Luxembourg, France and the Netherlands, has more than doubled the number of its stores over the past ten years and has also expanded its e-commerce business. To keep pace with the increasing number of delivery targets and the growing number and complexity of orders, to organize processes quickly and flexibly and to reduce the error rate and costs, Cassis has introduced Zetes-Medea Voice, which is used in various phases of the logistics process.

At the start of the season, the majority of the new collection is distributed from the distribution center to the stores as quickly as possible. The remaining clothing is delivered to the stores as required by order picking. The organization of the inbound and outbound process for clothing items is determined by the four important characteristics "folded", "hanging", "multipack" and "single pack". Different logistics processes are required for each article, and the voice system guides the employees through these processes. Equipped with a WT4190 terminal from Zebra, to which a ring scanner and a headset are connected, they can pick orders for several customers at the same time, hands-free and with a clear view.

Picking and cross-docking processes as well as restocking are now carried out much faster and with fewer errors. The same workforce, a team of eleven, now supplies more than twice as many stores and picks up to 20,000 clothing items every day. "With the new system, we can process twice as many orders with the same number of employees," says Monique Courant, IT & Logistics Manager at Cassis.

Reinhard Irrgang

Contact:

KBS Industrieelektronik GmbH

proLogistik GmbH + Co KGwww.prologistik.com

topsystem Systemhaus GmbHwww.topsystem.de

viastore Systems GmbHwww.viastore.com

Witron Logistik + Informatik GmbHwww.witron.de

Zetes GmbHwww.zetes.com