pan pacific pet
- Location: Balzac, Alberta
- Size: 120,000 square feet
- Throughput: 400 bin presentations per hour
- Products: High quality pet food, pet related accessories
- SKUS: 18,000 SKUs, 9,000 processed by Attabotics system
- Shift: 2 days a day/5 days a week
At Pan Pacific Pet's new distribution center near Calgary, a goods-to-person order fulfillment system automates order picking for approximately 50% of the company's 18,000 SKUs and presents 400 boxes per hour at workstations. We have the ability to deliver to. The system is located in the center of the building, with backup storage located around the perimeter. The facility is designed to hold his seven weeks' worth of inventory, and the robotic picking system will hold his two weeks' worth of inventory.
Receipt and storage
Newly arrived items will be scanned upon arrival (1). Pan Pacific Pet's internal warehouse management system (WMS) determines whether product is delivered to a reserve storage area. (2)Attabotics System (3) or a temperature-controlled area (Four) For frozen and refrigerated products. Full pallets are delivered to a reserve storage area where they are scanned and placed into storage.
For products introduced into Attabotics, the system determines the number of bins required for that product based on the product's velocity and what compartment size within the bin is required. For example, to minimize replenishment, the fastest moving items may be stored in four bins, while the slower moving items may be stored in only one bin. Similarly, smaller items are placed in shipping cartons, while larger items are thrown into the trash. The Attabotics system then determines a random storage location that can be accessed to fulfill the order. The system's shuttle has access to all storage containers in the system.
picking
There are two parts to the picking process. Manual picking from reserve storage areas of non-transportable items that are too large, fragile, or heavy for automated systems, and goods-to-person picking from automated systems.
manual picking
Manual items include items such as large bags of dog food, aquariums, and kennels. In addition, low-demand items are stored in reserve storage areas to free up more space in the automation system for rapidly moving items. Most items are accessed from ground-level pallet locations, but some items are stored on top of pallet racks and accessed from stock pickers. These items are ultimately transferred to the Attabotics system. Sequence selectors are dictated by the WMS as to which items to pick onto pallets and in what order. Picks are scanned into pallets.
automatic picking
The WMS order management system is integrated with the Attabotics control system. When the order picker logs into their assigned workstation and selects the picking process, the WMS begins releasing the order to automation. The system is set up for individual picking rather than batch picking, so the selector picks the order in its entirety. When a bin is presented, the computer screen highlights the compartment in which the item is stored, along with a description of the item being picked. The order selector then scans the required items into the shipping tote. Initially, the order selector will select one shipping tote, but as he gains experience with the system, he will select up to four shipping totes. To maximize the throughput of orders through the system, Attabotics queues her five storage bins at once.
Packing and shipping
Once the shipping totes are picked, they are taken to a staging area (Five). There, employees in the manual picking area retrieve the shipping totes needed to complete the order. Once all items in your order are loaded onto a pallet, the pallet is stretch wrapped and shipped to the shipping location. (6).
Pan Pacific Pet Distribution Center Layout
system supplier
