WHEN you enter the National Distribution Centre (NDC) of Coles in Somerton, Victoria, you will see the 'best-of' SSI Schaefer split case picking systems under one roof.
The world-class NDC and its twin installation in Eastern Creek, NSW, are the Australian flagships for SSI Schaefer.
Taking twelve months to install, bringing together over 50 expert staff and incorporating best-in-breed solutions from all corners of the globe, the Coles NDCs are a picture of perfection.
The sheer size and capacity of the NDCs make the Coles solution one of the most leading edge automated order picking solutions in Australia.
With the Somerton and Eastern Creek NDCs supplying over 1100 retail stores with ambient grocery goods, including toiletries, confectionary, soups and snacks, cosmetics, pet food, and health food products, it is crucial they have a world-class automated picking and storage solution that is accurate, efficient and reduces overall costs to the company.
Covering 10,000m2, the fully automated picking and storage system incorporates three types of conveyors totalling close to 3000m in length, two robots for stacking totes on to dollies or pallets, eight cranes, 18 carousels and over 150,000 totes, with every component customised to Coles' stringent requirements.
The split case picking system was a significant part of the design of these two new DCs that, as part of the Supply Chain Transformation Project, had to deliver significantly improved store friendly deliveries, provide for safe and efficient operations, and minimise end-to-end supply chain costs for Coles.
According to Andrew Sanderson from Coles, the design of the new DCs were designed to enable store-friendly deliveries and provide safer and more efficient operations.
"The key on our journey was safety. This was paramount in all of our design principles," he said.
Currently holding over 16,000 SKUs, each DC is responsible for supplying orders to over 550 stores.
Why did Coles choose automation?
Coles chose automation as an efficient way of dealing with the large number of slow moving product lines within the DCs.
The design of the equipment enabled these goods to be picked more efficiently over manual methods, and within the design, they were able to ensure that all manual handling was achieved in a safe manner.
All goods in the Somerton DC are received on pallets from hundreds of suppliers every week. Goods that are picked within the Automation system are re-packed into plastic totes. Empty totes are erected at the empty tote buffer and then fed into the system.
The manual re-packing of the items into the empty totes, which are fed via the conveyor system, takes place at 14 dedicated ergonomically designed workstations. Once emptied, pallets are transported away from the workstations, stacked and made available on transfer stations for further use.
Partially emptied pallets are forwarded to pick-up stations for the transport into the pallet warehouse. The accumulated cardboard packaging is collected on trash conveyors and fed to an external compactor for recycling.
Storage totes filled with products now arrive in the storage area. Here they are either stored directly into the Miniload tote storage system or in the Schaefer Carousel System (SCS). During peak periods the SCS serves as a temporary overflow buffer for the Miniload system.
In the Miniload, the totes are stored double deep in eight aisles over an area of approximately 4800m2. More than 100,000 storage totes can be available at any time in the Miniload system.
Eight storage and retrieval machines (SRMs) ensure the efficient processing of storage and retrieval movements, as well as replenishing totes to the pickfaces of the 32 workstations.
Next to the Miniload there are two SCS modules with five carousel systems per module. They serve as an intermediate buffer for storage operations and as an order consolidation buffer prior to shipping.
With its 13 levels at 64 totes per level, these SCS modules offer an additional 8,000 dynamic tote storage positions.
Order picking
Based on the orders received from stores nationally, the items are picked into transport totes and then consolidated for shipment.
Slow moving goods are picked at two pick-to-tote workstations. The products are supplied to these workstations by four SCS systems per workstation.
In the Miniload area, A- and B- movers are picked and supported by pick-to-light technology at 32 x workstations. The 4180 pick faces are automatically replenished by the eight SRMs.
Dynamic storage positions for slow moving items are also located in this area which allows storage of partially emptied totes back in to the Miniload racking system.
Storage totes that are emptied during the picking process are then either used directly as transport totes or fed back into the empty tote buffer. Once the order picking process is complete, a weight check is performed on integrated scales to verify the contents of each tote.
Any necessary rectification, as well as random quality assurance takes places at 4 x QA workstations. Should there be deviations, a detailed inspection of the order is done and missing items can then be picked.
The transport totes are then forwarded to the SCS in the order consolidation buffer.
Goods shipping
Once complete and ready for shipping, finished orders are retrieved and transported to the Despatch area via two conveyor lines. During transport, shipping labels are automatically applied to the totes.
The filling level of each tote is also checked in order to ensure safe stacking for transport. Subsequently, complete order sequences are compiled at the sequencer in loading order. The totes are then transferred to six pick-up lanes.
Two robots stack the totes onto dollies
and pallets. Depending on the order destination, the system will provide one of two transport options. Dollies offer a capacity of 12 totes, whereas pallets can be stacked with up to 36 totes.
In order to meet the selected loading pattern, the robots can pick up between one and three totes at any given time. This is made possible by system identification and an adjustable gripping device. The loads are then secured to the pallets or dollies.
The pallets pass through a stretch-wrapping machine; a strapping machine secures the totes on dollies. Once a shipping label has been automatically applied, the handover stations combine dollies into groups of three, pallets into groups of two, and set them down on the ground level.
Pallet trucks pick up the two pallets or three dollies and transport them to the marshalling lanes for loading onto trucks for delivery to stores across Australia.
To complete the transport cycle, empty totes and dollies are returned from the supermarkets. Totes are folded and stacked 120 to a pallet and dollies are stacked 10 high for efficient return logistics. Dollies are returned directly to the shipping area, where they are de-stacked for re-use.
The totes are de-stacked and erected at the empty tote buffer area, old labels are automatically removed and the totes are then sent to the empty tote buffer for re-use in storage and order-picking.
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