Case Picking Systems

1. Case Picking Systems Chapter 6

2. Pick Face Palletizing Systems • Pallet Jack Picking • Pallet Trains • Lift Truck Picking • Order Picker Trucks • End-of-Aisle AS/RS • Robotic Case Picking

3. Pallet Jack Picking • Equipped with forks • Transports pallets at floor level • Most popular method for case picking Advantages • low capital investment • Simplicity of the concept • Flexible • Safe

4. Pallet Trains A train of pallets are pulled behind a motorized vehicle to increase the number of pallets or orders on a case picking tour.

5. Lift Truck Picking Advantages: • Ideal because the forks keep the top level of the pallet near the picker’s waist level • Can maneuver at high speeds over long distances

6. Order Picker Trucks • Referred to as stock pickers or cherry pickers • Can travel to pick locations well above floor level • Vertical travel velocity is slow • Usually used for picking slow moving items

7. End-of-Aisle AS/RS • Used to automatically convey pallet quantities to stationary pickers Advantages: • High storage density of the storage pallets • Excellent ergonomics • Relatively high productivity Disadvantages: • High degree of mechanization • Large capital investment

8. Robotic Case Picking Robots can now • Traverse a picking aisle • Reach into a storage location • Select a case(s) • Place the case(s) Requires large capital investment Why use – in cases where labor is extremely scarce or expensive

9. Downsteam Palletizing • Pick-to-belt (conveyor) • Pick-Car Systems • Automated Case Dispensing • Layer Picking Systems

10. Pick-to-Conveyor • Conveyor runs the length of the case picking line • Enables the picker to walk down the line removing cases from pallet storage and placing them on a take-away belt Advantages: • Substantial increase in picking productivity • Less travel distance between picks • Elimination of order picker palletizing as they pick Disadvantages: • The need for downstream sortation and palletizing

11. Pick-Car Systems • A telescoping conveyor belt attached to a manaboard AS/RS machine operating within a picking aisle Advantage: • Access to multiple picking levels • Ability to position the picker at waist level with items

12. Automated Case Dispensing Systems Automates the put-away and retrieval of individual cases Retrieval • Cases may be housed in gravity flow racks • A shuttle table and telescoping conveyor are attached to a vertical mast that travels on rails along the picking/putaway face Put-Away • A transport conveyor feeds invdividual cases to the telescoping conveyor • Cases travel up and along the telescoping conveyor to the put-away location • The shuttle table rides up the mast to the put-away location • The telescoping conveyor feeds cases to the shuttle table, which then inserts cases in a gravity flow rack lane Advantage: • Complete elimination of human pickers and the related labor and workman’s compensation costs Disadvantage: • High maintenance requirements and initial investment

13. Tier or Layer Picking Used to mechanically extract an entire layer of cases from a pallet Approaches: • Vacuum suction and conveyor singulation of the top layer • Four-sided clamping and conveyor singulation • Layer stripping conveyors Advantages: • Total elimination of human handling of the cases • High case handling capacity Disadvantages: • High degree of mechanization and associated cost

14. Palletizing Systems • Manual Palletizing – most feasible alternative • Mechanical Palletizing – much more expensize; cannot work with the range of carton sizes that a manual palletizing system can • Robotic Palletizing – can service a variety of pallets at a time; are not as fast as mechanical palletizers