Up, up and way more storage
March 1st 2007

A combination of very narrow aisle racking, high density picking bins and specially adapted man-rising order picking trucks from Atlet has enabled Country Balloons to maximise the storage capacity while retaining flexibility at its new distribution warehouse in North London

Atlet supplied two of its OPS manrising order pickers with special frames to hold eight cartons and allow up to four different orders to be picked at a time with each truck.

"This warehouse was designed for maximum efficiency with dense storage and high performance order picking," says Laurence Connolly, distribution director at Country Balloons. "A lot of effort went into the overall concept and Atlet provided a really effective solution to our requirement." Country Balloons supplies products to eight major retail outlets throughout the UK.

The design of the new warehouse is geared towards maximum storage density with complete picking flexibility and selectivity.

There are seven very narrow aisles with a transit aisle and overhead/bridge racking at one end. All items are stored in plastic bins and the racking supports and beams have been spaced to ensure that there is no wasted space in either the horizontal or vertical. In this way the full length and height of the warehouse is used with the overall result that 12,000 bins are arranged on between 13 and 15 levels, depending on the position of the racking beneath the sloping roof.

Country Balloons was keen to ensure the order pickers spent as much time as possible on productive tasks. Atlet devised and manufactured a special frame which can be mounted on the order picker's forks to support up to 10 picking cartons on three stepped levels. The lower and middle levels each hold four cartons, the front two of which can be accessed during picking because of the stepped layout. When these are full, the operator can unlock the middle section of the frame and slide it backwards to reveal the two rear cartons at the lower level so that they can be swapped with those at the front without leaving the picking position. The frame is then slid back and locked into place before work continues. In this way, up to eight cartons can be filled before the truck has to leave the aisle, reducing the amount of time spent travelling between picking and order assembly areas.

The design of the frame also allows each truck to pick orders for up to four stores at a time, enabling the trucks to work in tandem to pick orders for all outlets simultaneously and provide complete flexibility in the warehouse. The top shelf of the frame can hold up to two empty picking bins so that they can be returned to goods inwards for refilling.

Stock arrives in boxes from suppliers and is transferred to picking bins which are then handled to any empty storage locations using the OPS order pickers. The warehouse operates with zone picking managed by a WMS in conjunction with RF-based scanning.

With the Atlet OPS the operator rises with the cab and forks to the ideal position for safe and productive picking. The operator area provides clear and unobstructed access to the picking face at either side of the aisle, which in this warehouse means two picking bins can reached on each side without moving the truck. The forks can be raised and lowered to present the load – in this case the picking frames and cartons it holds – at the most convenient height for convenient and economical handling. Items taken from the picking bin can be transferred to the cartons on the frame in one easy movement.

With interlocked push button control and mini steer wheel the trucks are easy to operate Each of the OPS order pickers has been set up to prevent the mast lifting higher that the lowest overhead obstruction in the warehouse. This setting must be overridden manually by the operator before the cab will rise to the highest picking faces near the apex of the roof. In-aisle railguidance, with free-ranging elsewhere in the warehouse, was the simplest and most cost-effective option for this application.

"The trucks have some very good safety features and if you don't have your hand on the right buttons they won't work," says Laurence Connolly. "They are very manoeuvrable with good visibility inside and outside the aisle." The trucks are currently picking an average of 9000 items a week. With all picking and put-away tasks reliant on the new order pickers, efficient maintenance and support is a major consideration.

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