We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy.
United Stationers' new high-tech voice system was supposed to solve problems with picking errors. No one guessed it would boost productivity by a whopping 28 percent.
One company needed a way to sort plumbing fixtures; the other needed help assembling massive but varied retail orders. The answer for both? Sortation systems.
Warehousing is nothing more than the effective management of time and space. It would stand to reason, then, that the material handling tools used in facilities would be designed to conserve both time and space. But it's never that simple.
Managers of spatially challenged DCs may not realize it. But a technology often marketed as a means of boosting picking productivity can also solve their space woes.
Filling orders from an inventory of 69,000 parts sounds anything but simple. Yet the folks at Future Electronics' new DC insist their workers could do it with their eyes closed.
The prophets of lean turned the manufacturing world on its ear. Now they want to do the same for distribution—with just a roll of masking tape and a stopwatch.