Case Study: Implementing a Pack to Light Solution
in a Major Retail Distribution Center
by Greg Morneau

The pack lanes, then, were the real bottleneck in the system. Merchandise could be fed to the pack lanes at a rate of approximately 2000 units per hour (uph), but was only leaving them at a rate of 300 uph.  Additionally the manual packing process did not provide for carton content information, impacting both the regular stores and the 2 ecommerce stores.

Our client uses 3 distinct merchandise profiles:

Loose units:     These are units that are packed at style, color, and size in a carton for distribution in Pick and Pack. (For example, 50 units of style 1 in color red and size small)

Bundles:          These are multiple pre-packs packed in a carton for distribution in Pick and Pack. Bundles are generally packed in a poly bag. (For example, 20 poly bags of style 1, each bag contains 1 small, 2 medium, 2 large, 1 xlarge in red or in red and blue)

Re-shippable:  These are pre-packs designed to be shipped as full case picks in the original vendor carton.  (For example, a shippable carton of 15 lbs or more with a  pre-pack of style 1, including 3 small, 6 medium, 6 large, 3 xlarge in red, or in red and blue)

The existing operation was divided into the processes of receiving, allocating, picking, packing and shipping. Below is a basic description of each of these processes:

Receiving: At the receiving stage, merchandise is received and sorted by Purchase Order (PO) and by merchandise profile. An Inventory Specialist then counts the merchandise and enters the count on a green sheet printout of the PO. The green sheet is then used to manually key the receipt information into the host system.

Allocation: Once the receiving step is complete, the merchandise is allocated to the stores and lane header and store pick tickets are printed.

Picking: Order expeditors split the merchandise by Loose Units and Bundles using the lane header label. They present the correct quantity to each lane with paper pick tickets for each store to receive the merchandise. Stores are assigned to lanes by division