David Maloney has been a journalist for more than 35 years and is currently the group editorial director for DC Velocity and Supply Chain Quarterly magazines. In this role, he is responsible for the editorial content of both brands of Agile Business Media. Dave joined DC Velocity in April of 2004. Prior to that, he was a senior editor for Modern Materials Handling magazine. Dave also has extensive experience as a broadcast journalist. Before writing for supply chain publications, he was a journalist, television producer and director in Pittsburgh. Dave combines a background of reporting on logistics with his video production experience to bring new opportunities to DC Velocity readers, including web videos highlighting top distribution and logistics facilities, webcasts and other cross-media projects. He continues to live and work in the Pittsburgh area.
Polaris Industries' star is shining brightly these days. In fact, business has been so good that the company is expanding its picking capabilities at its largest distribution center, located in Vermillion, S.D. The well-known maker of snowmobiles, off-road vehicles, and other sporting equipment uses this facility and a regional one in Wilmington, Ohio, to distribute parts and accessories.
For the expansion project, the company has chosen a fulfillment method that combines conveyors with split-case picking. Known as zone routing, the strategy is a form of goods-to-person order fulfillment, meaning it eliminates the need for workers to travel up and down aisles to gather items for orders. And it can be a highly efficient strategy. Zone routing often results in productivity rates of 100 to 150 line items picked per operator per hour, according to Dematic, a company that specializes in automated material handling and logistics solutions and that supplied the Polaris zone routing system.
"One reason to use conveyance and zone routing is an efficiency play, as it eliminates walking. Instead, the cartons come to you," says Paul Eickhoff, director of operations for Polaris Parts, Garments, and Accessories (PG&A) distribution.
As for how it works, zone routing is essentially a variation of pick-and-pass technology. In pick-and-pass operations, conveyors send order cartons or totes through each of the various pick zones. Workers select any items needed from their zones and pass the carton along to the picker in the next zone. What's different about zone routing is that the carton is not routed through each zone. It is diverted only to those zones that contain items required for the order. In a sense, it has the advantages of a goods-to-person system at a fraction of price. Think of this as goods-to-person "lite."
"Zone routing is an accepted technology with a good return on investment," notes Ken Ruehrdanz, manager, distribution systems market for Dematic. "You can get a lot of throughput and performance from zone routing. It works for low, medium, and high rates, and is productive while being fairly compact." For these reasons, he says, the application has caught on across a wide range of industries, including apparel, industrial supplies, food and beverages, office supplies, pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and personal care products.
Polaris is no newcomer to zone routing; it has used the strategy at both of its facilities for some years now. In fact, the system now undergoing expansion in Vermillion dates back to 1997. The current initiative calls for additional Dematic conveyors and new racking to be installed to double the split-case picking zones to 16 from eight. The new conveyors for the system are being installed next to the old conveyors. The two will run side by side until the transition is complete. The facility is also adding new conveyors that will allow cases to be picked directly to conveyor belts.
THERE'S SLOTS TO LIKE
For Polaris, much of zone routing's appeal is its ability to handle a wide range of products. The Vermillion facility alone houses 60,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs), which range from service parts and tires to filters and accessories. That kind of variety would be difficult to accommodate in a fully automated system, such as a miniload shuttle setup.
Not so with zone routing. Zones can be configured to be as large or small as needed, depending on the products' size, how often they're ordered, and the need to situate like-products together. Plus, these systems allow items to be stored in pallet flow racks, carton flow racks, and shelving, and permit fast reconfiguration as needs change.
Zone routing also gives companies the flexibility to handle fluctuations in volume, whether they're caused by seasonal swings or simply uneven daily order patterns. For instance, at Polaris, as many as five people might be assigned to a zone during peak periods, which typically occur between 11 and 2. When activity is slow, a single worker can cover two or more zones.
To take best advantage of all of that flexibility, of course, you must have good slotting. The system must be able to keep precise track of the whereabouts of every item. And it has to be able to balance work evenly across the various zones to avoid logjams while still ensuring workers in other areas are kept busy.
At Polaris, it's a job that's never finished. "Reslotting is a daily process," acknowledges Eickhoff. "We have someone working on it full time. Off road, on road, snow, and summer—we are in a constant state of motion on our SKUs and introduce lots of new products on a regular basis."
INS AND OUTS
While zone routing has been around for a couple of decades, advancements in conveyor design have made the process even more economical and productive. Some systems now allow cartons to be introduced at different start points, eliminating the time they would otherwise spend passing by zones with no picks. "If volumes are high and order sizes are small, you don't want the cartons to have to flow through the entire system," explains Luther Webb, director of operations and solutions consulting at Intelligrated, an automated material handling technology supplier. "You can also create 'early outs' so that the carton can go to shipping from a number of the zones without passing every zone," he says.
Today's systems also employ loops so that if a traffic jam develops in one zone, incoming cartons can be routed around the zone and sent back to it later. Alternatively, control software can be deployed to direct the carton to another zone that contains the same product.
Other conveyor technology advances, such as 24-volt direct current operation, help save energy and wear on equipment components. Most zone routing systems contain sensors designed to power down sections of conveyor when no cartons are present. Plus, new designs and faster diverts allow for more efficient processing than in the past. "Conveyors and diverts now have the ability to handle higher rates," says Boyce Bonham, director of integrated systems and controls at Hytrol Conveyor Co. "In the past, we could handle rates of about 20 to 25 [diverted] cartons a minute. Better controls and equipment now allow for about 35 to 40 cartons a minute through those zones."
Since zone routing systems usually incorporate conventional conveyors and controls, implementation can often be completed in a matter of months—a big time savings over designing and installing a fully automated goods-to-person system. "It is a quick turnaround," says Bonham. "It is low risk, and a tried-and-proven technology." On top of that, the technology is highly scalable—a plus for fast-growing operations like Polaris.
As for the "brains" of the operation, most zone routing systems are overseen by a warehouse control system. Polaris, for example, uses the Dematic Sort Director, which receives pick instructions from a warehouse management system (WMS) and then transmits directions to the handling equipment. But systems can also be set up to accept order information directly from an order entry system or enterprise system, bypassing the need for a WMS altogether.
CARTON READY
When planning for the expansion of its picking system, Polaris decided to change its process to have workers pick items directly into shipping cartons rather than in-house totes. This saves the step of unloading items from the tote and repacking them in a shipping carton later in the process. But the decision also had some implications for the conveyor design. In particular, the shift meant the new conveyors had to be a bit more carton-friendly than their predecessors. For example, the rollers had to be spaced closer together than they were in previous models. In addition, the conveyors and transfer points had to be designed to convey empty (or nearly empty) cartons that have little weight to provide the necessary friction.
Polaris's new conveyors also feature accumulation areas to keep cartons from bumping up against one another. This is crucial for any zone routing application, says Intelligrated's Webb. "Accumulation allows you to pause the carton for a moment and wait for that zone to clear."
In Polaris's daily operations, bar codes attached to each carton are scanned automatically as the carton approaches a zone. If nothing from that zone is needed for the order, the carton continues its journey. But if that zone does contain a required item, a set of small belts, about the width of a car's fan belt, pop up between the conveyor's rollers to gently divert the carton to a nonpowered conveyor spur at the pick zone.
When a carton arrives at the zone, a worker stationed there scans its bar code with a radio-frequency (RF) device to find out what items are needed. (Voice and pick-to-light technology can also be used for this purpose.) Once the selections have been made, the worker deposits the carton back onto the powered conveyor system. If more items are needed to complete the order, the carton then heads to the appropriate zones; if not, it proceeds directly to shipping.
While Polaris opted to pick directly to cartons, not all operations make that choice. Some companies prefer to use totes to gather picks and repack the items later, according to Dematic's Ruehrdanz. That might be the case if the company's processes call for a worker to scan each item right before shipping for one last accuracy check or add extra protective packaging for high-value items.
It's worth noting that uses for zone routing systems aren't limited to order picking. Polaris, for instance, is also using the conveyors to feed replenishment. Workers can deposit original cartons from vendors or totes of repacked items directly onto the conveyor at the start of the zone routing system. The control system then diverts the cartons or totes to zones that require replenishment. Workers there scan the bar-code labels for directions on where in the racks to place the incoming items. Inventory systems are updated at the same time to reflect that the products are now available for orders.
With its new AutoStore automated storage and retrieval (AS/RS) system, Toyota Material Handling Inc.’s parts distribution center, located at its U.S. headquarters campus in Columbus, Indiana, will be able to store more forklift and other parts and move them more quickly. The new system represents a major step toward achieving TMH’s goal of next-day parts delivery to 98% of its customers in the U.S. and Canada by 2030, said TMH North America President and CEO Brett Wood at the launch event on October 28. The upgrade to the DC was designed, built, and installed through a close collaboration between TMH, AutoStore, and Bastian Solutions, the Toyota-owned material handling automation designer and systems integrator that is a cornerstone of the forklift maker’s Toyota Automated Logistics business unit. The AS/RS is Bastian’s 100th AutoStore installation in North America.
TMH’s AutoStore system deploys 28 energy-efficient robotic shuttles to retrieve and deliver totes from within a vertical storage grid. To expedite processing, artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced software determines optimal storage locations based on whether parts are high- or low-demand items. The shuttles, each independently controlled and selected based on shortest distance to the stored tote, swiftly deliver the ordered parts to four picking ports. Each port can process up to 175 totes per hour; the company’s initial goal is 150 totes per hour, with room to grow. The AS/RS also eliminates the need for order pickers to walk up to 10 miles per day, saving time, boosting picking accuracy, and improving ergonomics for associates.
The upgrades, which also include a Kardex vertical lift module for parts that are too large for the AS/RS and a spiral conveyor, will more than triple storage capacity, from 40,000 to 128,000 storage positions, making it possible for TMH to increase its parts inventory. Currently the DC stores some 55,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs) and ships an average of $1 million worth of parts per day, reaching 80% of customers by two-day ground delivery. A Sparck Technologies CVP Impack fit-to-size packaging machine speeds packing and shipping and is expected to save up to 20% on the cost of packing materials.
Distribution, manufacturing expansion on the agenda
The Columbus parts DC currently serves all of the U.S. and Canada; inventory consists mostly of Toyota’s own parts as well as some parts for Bastian Solutions and forklift maker The Raymond Corp., which is part of TMH North America. To meet the company’s goal of next-day delivery to virtually all parts customers, TMH is exploring establishing up to five additional parts DCs. All will be TMH-designed, owned, and operated, with varying levels of automation to meet specific needs, said Bret Bruin, vice president, aftermarket sales and operations, in an interview.
Parts distribution is not the only area where TMH is investing in expanded capacity. With demand for electric forklifts continuing to rise, the company recently broke ground for a new factory on the expansive Columbus campus that will benefit both Toyota and Raymond. The two OEMs—which currently have only 5% overlap among their customers—already manufacture certain forklift models and parts for each other, said Wood in an interview. Slated to open in 2026, the $100 million, 295,000-square-foot factory will make electric-powered forklifts. The lineup will include stand-up rider trucks, currently manufactured for both brands by Raymond in Greene, New York. Moving production to Columbus, Wood said, will not only help both OEMs keep up with fast-growing demand for those models, but it will also free up space and personnel in Raymond’s factory to increase production of orderpickers and reach trucks, which it produces for both brands. “We want to build the right trucks in the right place,” Wood said.
Editor's note:This article was revised on November 4 to correct the types of equipment produced in Raymond's factory.
“The latest data continues to show some positive developments for the freight market. However, there remain sequential declines nationwide, and in most regions,” Bobby Holland, U.S. Bank director of freight business analytics, said in a release. “Over the last two quarters, volume and spend contractions have lessened, but we’re waiting for clear evidence that the market has reached the bottom.”
By the numbers, shipments were down 1.9% compared to the previous quarter while spending dropped 1.4%. This was the ninth consecutive quarterly decrease in volume, but the smallest drop in more than a year.
Truck freight conditions varied greatly by region in the third quarter. In the West, spending was up 4.4% over the previous quarter and volume increased 1.1%. Meanwhile, in the Southeast spending declined 3.3% and shipments were down 3.0%.
“It’s a positive sign that spending contracted less than shipments. With diesel fuel prices lower, the fact that pricing didn’t erode more tells me the market is getting healthier,” Bob Costello, senior vice president and chief economist at the American Trucking Associations (ATA), said in the release.
The U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index measures quantitative changes in freight shipments and spend activity based on data from transactions processed through U.S. Bank Freight Payment, which processes more than $42 billion in freight payments annually for shippers and carriers across the U.S. The Index insights are provided to U.S. Bank customers to help them make business decisions and discover new opportunities.
Parcel giant FedEx Corp. is automating its fulfillment flows by investing in the AI robotics and autonomous e-commerce fulfillment technology firm Nimble, and announcing plans to use the San Francisco-based startup’s tech in its own returns network.
The move is significant because FedEx Supply Chain operates at a large scale, running more than 130 warehouse and fulfillment operations in North America and processing 475 million returns annually. According to FedEx, the “strategic alliance” will help to scale up FedEx Fulfillment with Nimble’s “fully autonomous 3PL model.”
“Our strategic alliance and financial investment with Nimble expands our footprint in the e-commerce space, helping to further scale our FedEx Fulfillment offering across North America,” Scott Temple, president, FedEx Supply Chain, said in a release. “Nimble’s cutting-edge AI robotics and autonomous fulfillment systems will help FedEx streamline operations and unlock new opportunities for our customers.”
According to Nimble founder and CEO Simon Kalouche, the collaboration will help enable FedEx to leverage Nimble’s “fast and cost-effective” fulfillment centers, powered by its intelligent general purpose warehouse robots and AI technology.
Nimble says that more than 90% of warehouses today still operate manually with minimal or no robotics, and even those automated warehouses use robots with limited intelligence that are restricted to just a few warehouse functions—primarily storage and retrieval. In contrast, Nimble says its “intelligent general-purpose warehouse robot” is capable of performing all core fulfillment functions including storage and retrieval, picking, packing, and sorting.
For the past seven years, third-party service provider ODW Logistics has provided logistics support for the Pelotonia Ride Weekend, a campaign to raise funds for cancer research at The Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center–Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. As in the past, ODW provided inventory management services and transportation for the riders’ bicycles at this year’s event. In all, some 7,000 riders and 3,000 volunteers participated in the ride weekend.
Photo courtesy of Dematic
For the past four years, automated solutions provider Dematic has helped support students pursuing careers in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields with its FIRST Scholarship program, conducted in partnership with the corporate nonprofit FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). This year’s scholarship recipients include Aman Amjad of Brookfield, Wisconsin, and Lily Hoopes of Bonney Lake, Washington, who were each awarded $5,000 to support their post-secondary education. Dematic also awarded $1,000 scholarships to another 10 students.
Motive, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered integrated operations platform, has launched an initiative with PGA Tour pro Jason Day to support the Navy SEAL Foundation (NSF). For every birdie Day makes on tour, Motive will make a contribution to the NSF, which provides support for warriors, veterans, and their families. Fans can contribute to the mission by purchasing a Jason Day Tour Edition hat at https://malbongolf.com/products/m-9189-blk-wht-black-motive-rope-hat.
MTS Logistics Inc., a New York-based freight forwarding and logistics company, raised more than $120,000 for autism awareness and acceptance at its 14th annual Bike Tour with MTS for Autism. All proceeds from the June event were donated to New Jersey-based nonprofit Spectrum Works, which provides job training and opportunities for young adults with autism.
I recently came across a report showing that 86% of CEOs around the world see resiliency problems in their supply chains, and that business leaders are spending more time than ever tackling supply chain-related challenges. Initially I was surprised, thinking that the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic surely prepared industry leaders for just about anything, helping to bake risk and resiliency planning into corporate strategies for companies of all sizes.
But then I thought about the growing number of issues that can affect supply chains today—more frequent severe weather events, accelerating cybersecurity threats, and the tangle of emerging demands and regulations around decarbonization, to name just a few. The level of potential problems seems to be increasing at lightning speed, making it difficult, if not impossible, to plan for every imaginable scenario.
What is it Mike Tyson said? Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
It has never been more important to be able to pivot and adjust to challenges that can throw you off your game. The report I referenced—the “2024 Supply Chain Barometer” from procurement, supply chain, and sustainability consulting firm Proxima—makes the case for just that. The company surveyed 3,000 CEOs from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States and found that the growing complexities in global supply chains necessitate a laser-sharp focus on this area of the business. One example: Rightshoring, which is the process of moving business operations to the best location, means companies are redesigning and reconfiguring their supply chains like never before. The study found that large numbers of CEOs are grappling with the various subsets of rightshoring: 44% said they are planning to or have already undertaken onshoring, for instance; 41% said they are planning to or have undertaken nearshoring; 41% said they are planning to or have undertaken friendshoring; and 35% said they are planning to or have undertaken offshoring.
But that’s not all. CEOs are also struggling to deal with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its application to business processes, the potential for abuse and labor rights issues in their supply chains, and a growing number of barriers to their companies’ decarbonization efforts. For instance:
Nearly all of those surveyed (99%) said they are either using or considering the use of AI in their supply chains, with 82% saying they are planning new initiatives this year;
More than 60% said they are concerned about the potential for human or labor rights issues in their supply chains;
And virtually all (99%) said they face barriers to decarbonization, with 30% pointing to the complexity of the work required as the biggest barrier.
Those are big issues to contend with, so it’s no surprise that 96% of the CEOs Proxima surveyed said they are dedicating equal (41%) or more time (55%) to supply chain issues this year than last year. And changing economic conditions are adding to the complexity, according to the report.
“As inflation fell throughout last year, there were glimmers of markets stabilizing,” the authors wrote. “The reality, though, has been that global market dynamics are shifting. With no clear-set position for them to land in, CEOs must continue to navigate their organizations through an ever-changing landscape. Just 4% of CEOs foresee the amount of time spent on supply chain-related topics decreasing in the year ahead.”
Simon Geale, executive vice president and chief procurement officer at Proxima, added some perspective.
“It’s fair to say that the complexities of global supply chains continue to have CEOs around the world scratching their heads,” he wrote. “The results of this year’s Barometer show that business leaders are spending more and more time tackling supply chain challenges, reflecting the multiple challenges to address.”
Perhaps the extra focus on supply chain issues will help organizations improve their ability to roll with the punches and overcome resiliency challenges in the year ahead. Only time will tell.