Warehouse Automation
This week a few of us from Camelot had the opportunity to visit a large Liberty Hardware distribution center in Winston Salem, NC. 6 River Systems and the fine folks at Liberty Hardware put on the event.
It’s one thing to see a video on how these robotic Chucks work, but it’s another thing to actually interact with them first hand. We met in a conference room for a few minutes for a brief overview of the operation and then divided into teams to give the 6 River Systems Chucks a try.
Liberty Hardware (a division of Masco) owns several brands, including Brainerd, Franklin Brass, and Delta. The distribution center is 650,000 square feet and does store-replenishment and eCommerce fulfillment. Much of the warehouse consists of an elaborate conveyor system for processing large orders. Several aisles are reserved for smaller orders and eCommerce fulfillment. This is where the Chucks come in.
The 6 River Systems Chucks were introduced in January 2021 and it took about 2 months to implement. Prior to the Chucks, workers manually pushed carts up and down aisles picking items for individual orders. The old process used handheld scanning technology but required the workers to push carts to the item locations across multiple aisles. With the Chucks, workers dynamically pick items according to the most efficient locations based on where the Chucks and workers are located. The power is in the software.
Liberty is very happy with the results. The productivity improvements are more than just worker efficiency. On-the-job training with the previous process used to take about 2 weeks before workers learned the job. Now, with the Chucks, a worker can learn to pick with 15 minutes of training! It was noted that worker turnover for the operation used to be 25%. That was reduced to 3% after the introduction of the Chucks. They were also able to eliminate 6 steps in the process using the simplified and directed pick-to-light capabilities of the Chucks. The return on investment was almost instantaneous.
Below are a few pictures and videos from the visit. Also, check out the 6 River Systems video of the Chucks – definitely worth exploring if you are doing eCommerce fulfillment!
