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

Figure 3: PTL Configuration

Figure 3 shows the configuration of the system. The host sends the order to the PTL Server. The PTL server sends information to the Pack Lane Lights indicating which stores have demand for the merchandise and the location of that store. Once the packer closes the container, the carton content information is sent to the host which uses it in conjunction with information from the shipping system to create the carton manifest for transmission to the store. The Management client on a PC located near the pack lanes can be used to create a carton content report to be used for internal DC audits and run diagnostics on the lights.

Extensible Markup Language (XML) was used to transmit allocation information to the PTL system using a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) transport. XML over FTP is a convenient, fast and easy way to transfer information using industry-wide best practices technology.

The PTL system was implemented on a Dell Server using Windows Server and SQL Server database. LPT supplied a software engineer to install the software on the server and to support testing the lights, running system tests and conduct train the trainer training.