Eagle Distributing in Fremont, NE distributes Anheuser-Busch products and many other high quality beers and nonalcoholic products. Eagle Distributing will be implementing “The Crane” ASRS by Cirrus Tech, Cirrus Warehouse Management System, and Cirrus Voice Picking.”
Author: Linnihan Foy
Cirrus Tech Inc. provides a wide range of products and services to help today’s retail distribution centers. The challenges to be efficient, accurate and fast are greater now than ever before and we can help you get there. Whether you’re looking to find the best way to pick orders or manage your inventory more efficiently – we are a company with the right answers, the right team and the right products.
CLIENTS
Cirrus Tech Inc. knows the challenges that pharmaceutical and life science manufacturers face daily. These challenges include the need to store and track high value products in inventory, to work in a secure environment, and the ability to streamline the order fulfillment process. We have systems to store, sort, and pick your product while meeting these challenges and can help you determine the best solution.
The beauty industry around the world is growing at an average of 5% per year with the bulk being spent in Europe and America, while India and Asia are rapidly catching up on per-person investments into personal care.
With an industry that is growing through challenging economic times, it stands to reason that companies like ULTA, which provide personal care products, will have to manage growth. Cirrus Tech has been a proud partner with ULTA by providing state-of-the-art warehouse solutions that have helped them manage their business warehouse processes and procedures.
CASE STUDIES
Cirrus Tech Inc. is well equipped to provide systems for direct-to-consumer operations. As an integrator offering best of breed hardware and software solutions, we are the right choice for your project. Storage Systems, Order Fulfillment Systems, Sortation Solutions; we offer the advantage you need to store your products, fulfill your orders, and get your orders out the door accurately and efficiently to ensure on time delivery and complete customer satisfaction.
CLIENTS
Whether you need more space, or are simply looking to become more efficient in how you process your orders, our Cirrus WMS, Directed Picking, Cirrus Automated Case Picking and The Cirrus Tech Crane System solutions may be right for you.
By combining Proven Technologies with Seamless Integration, Cirrus Tech is ready to help your company reach the next levels of efficiency and profitability. There are not a lot of ways to significantly improve your bottom line on a year by year basis. We have several.
By making a commitment to the future of your company with the implementation of one of these solutions, you will absolutely save money on an annual basis making your wholesale operation significantly more profitable, efficient and competitive.
CLIENTS
- Adams Beverages
- Cherokee Distributing Company
- Eagle Distributing of Fremont
- Eagle Distributing Of Shreveport
- Eagle Rock Distributing Company
- Fisher59
- Gulf Distributing Company of Birmingham
- J. J. Taylor Distributing,Florida
- LDF Sales and Distributing
- Long Beverage
- New Hampshire Distributors
- Wilsbach Distributors, Inc.
CASE STUDIES
The Challenge
With 120 stores, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet is a storied company and is the Mid-Atlantic’s largest retailer of closeout, surplus, and salvage merchandise. Averaging about 40,000 containers per day in a facility that was not designed to house a state-of-the-art warehouse control system was no easy task.
The Challenge
With 120 stores, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet is a storied company and is the Mid-Atlantic’s largest retailer of closeout, surplus, and salvage merchandise. Averaging about 40,000 containers per day in a facility that was not designed to house a state-of-the-art warehouse control system, installing a fully customized Cirrus WCS was no easy task. When Ollie’s Bargain Outlet in Pennsylvania called upon Cirrus Tech to create and integrate a Cirrus Warehouse Control System (WCS) as-well-as Cirrus Programmable Logic Controls in their distribution center, the Cirrus Tech team rose to the task.
The Approach
At Ollie’s the process begins the night before when all the carton labels are pre-printed for the pickers and packers. There are two main picking lanes and each lane has two levels. The pick-to-light process in these lanes is vital to their operation. First, the picking lanes are stocked with the items going out that day. Once an operator scans the item, the light display reports how many items are required for each WAVE. Operators pick, label and deposit the product onto the conveyor that will cart the item off to the spiral lifts. Once the spiral lift carries it to the second level, it then heads straight down the line to the lane merge.
Of the 4 merge lanes, individual lanes can be given priority over other lanes based on product flow, product type, barcode information, routing priorities, or as a first in first out situation. After the merge they are sent towards a barcode scanner just prior to the sorter.
Convincing Results
The Cirrus Inventory Control System and PLC software intelligently monitor these barcodes to allow Ollie’s Bargain Outlet to determine which shipping lanes each barcode is assigned to in the fulfillment system.
Our Cirrus WCS and PLC Software solutions enables Ollie’s Bargain Outlet to easily accommodate increases in orders, while utilizing automation to dramatically reduce handling and packaging costs. The result is a Cirrus WCS solution that meets the client’s growth expectations and dramatically reduces labor costs while increasing order fulfillment accuracy.
If you would like more information about automating your warehouse, contact Cirrus Tech.
The Challenge
Prior to partnering with the Cirrus Tech, ULTA was picking products manually with printed pick lists. While they did have a WMS that handled the higher-level functions, the manual processes
The Challenge
Prior to partnering with the Cirrus Tech, ULTA was picking products manually with printed pick lists. While they did have a WMS that handled the higher-level functions, the manual processes proved to cause a substantial loss of productivity, so much so that they were verging on slowing the growth of the company. In the ultra-competitive cosmetic and personal care market, ULTA was compelled to optimize their distribution process to offer optimal order quantities while providing a high service level and shorter delivery times.
ULTA’s challenges included:
- A substantial inventory of products
- Enormous variety of SKU’s to manage
- A rapidly growing number of retail stores
- Time-consuming manual processes
- Substantial number of orders per month
The Approach
The collaboration with Cirrus Tech goes back to their first distribution center in Phoenix, AZ, when we provided processes, testing environments and training to transition day-to-day Warehouse IT operations to their internal IT department.
The success of this project resulted in a flawless and seamless transition and convinced ULTA to choose Cirrus Tech as a long-term partner to help the company increase the efficiency and the capacity of its warehouse step by step.
Picking Operations
We started with a pick to light cart in order to maximize productivity and throughput. The second system was a “Cart” controlled process and a “Vertical Carousel” controlled process. The picking process starts with file downloads from the host SAP system. These are referred to as IDOCs or file interfaces. There are 3 types of IDOCs/interfaces: the Material master interface, the Delivery interface and the STOCK TOs (or Replenishment interface). We implemented a system that had to be optimized for the daily execution of orders from 30-40 stores and anywhere between 500 to 3000+ SKUs and several quantities for each one.
Batch Management
In order to organize the picking activities in the warehouse, the Cirrus WCS provides users with an interactive screen. Through this screen, users can set a batch state to “authorize”, “unauthorized” or “close”. After a batch is created, picking can be executed only after a batch is authorized. During this process the received deliveries are copied into a “Workqueue” table and are made available for picking. When users unauthorized or close a batch, the same items are deleted from the workqueue.
Picking through the vertical carousel channel is executed in a different area of the warehouse. All the information related to the vertical carousels is stored in a separated database on the server. Separate screens are also provided for this functionality. The main difference between the main flow and the carousel picking is that through vertical carousels, users can pick items for all the stores in the batch simultaneously.
Sorters
The shipping sorters used at the two operating DCs feature a shoe-sorter in Phoenix and in Romeoville a belt sorter with pop-up wheels was implemented. Our Cirrus WCS assigns and directs sorter and collection instructions. ULTA uses “profile” based diverting, which means that, through the Cirrus WCS, they can define different store-to-lane assignments for different days of the week and store this information in the database.
Convincing Results
Cirrus Tech designed the automated warehouse in several phases hand in hand with ULTA, in order to enhance the company’s potential, one advancement at a time.
By partnering with Cirrus, ULTA now has a comprehensive Warehouse Control System in place that they are able to manage internally and has shown real operational benefits by reducing cost, improving productivity and increasing shipping accuracy.
What was once a bogged down process of picking a single store at a time has improved with the addition of 6 Order Carts. Rather than picking the orders for one store, an operator can now pick for 6 stores at once with a cart that is designed to handle the load. And rather than a printed sheet of paper, the operators now use handheld scanners to check barcodes and place the correct product in the proper stores bin.
Benefits
- Reduced operator walking by 25%
- Improved the order picking accuracy
- Improved order fulfillment rate
- Able to pick for up to 8 stores at a time rather than just one
- Ability to process and pick orders electronically
If you would like more information about automating your warehouse, contact Cirrus Tech.
The Challenge
Eagle Distributing of Shreveport is a quality focused Anheuser-Busch family owned distributor, and like many companies in the beverage industry,
The Challenge
Eagle Distributing of Shreveport is a quality focused Anheuser-Busch family owned distributor, and like many companies in the beverage industry, they were faced with the challenge of spending over $5,000,000 on expansion to support increased demand.
The Approach
Knowing today’s modern facilities need to process increasingly complex tasks while providing flexibility for future needs, Darrell Dunham of Cirrus Tech approached Eagle Distributing of Shreveport with the idea and design of a High Volume Storage and Replenishing System that would provide them with significantly more space (over 50% more) in the warehouse and allow them to automatically replenish product as well. The CEO of Eagle Distributing of Shreveport, Brad Nichols, and his management team evaluated Mr. Dunham’s design and decided to implement the Cirrus Tech Crane System to maximize the efficiencies of the system, provide more space to the warehouse, and forgo a costly expansion.
With 83% of the beer now stored in The Cirrus Tech Crane System (“The Crane”), the company still needed a solution to increase picking accuracy to the remaining medium to slower moving SKUs on the warehouse floor. These items actually accounted for a majority of the total SKU count on the warehouse floor. Cirrus Tech Directed Picking software provided the perfect solution, enabling Eagle Distributing of Shreveport to become a much safer and more efficient work environment.
Convincing Results
As an addition to their existing facility, The Cirrus Tech Crane System has enabled Eagle Distributing of Shreveport to maximize storage space, lower operating costs (reduced energy, labor and product damage costs), as well as increased inventory accuracy.
With The Cirrus Tech Crane System Eagle Distributing of Shreveport:
- Stores the top 54 SKUs, or 80% of the highest volume products within the pallet storage system
- Now stores over 3,200 pallets — an increase of 1,400 more pallets in the same space
- More effectively manages the slow moving SKUs
- Manage productivity and picking accuracy by having a 99.7% or higher pick accuracy
The Challenge
A top beef producer located in Dodge City, Kansas ships several thousand boxes of meat per hour. The company requires a system that can read 20,000 tags from 10 PLCs every three seconds—reading, processing and returning the data—to ensure smooth routing of boxes for delivery.
The Challenge
A top beef producer located in Dodge City, Kansas ships several thousand boxes of meat per hour. The company requires a system that can read 20,000 tags from 10 PLCs every three seconds—reading, processing and returning the data—to ensure smooth routing of boxes for delivery.
From the warehouse to the retail location, the system requires complete automation with no human intervention. Cirrus Tech designed an automation solution that could provide routing direction within seconds. Originally, the beef producer based its automation system on RSLinx drivers from Rockwell Automation with data collected from Allen-Bradley PLCs. However, the performance was not meeting the company’s needs. “The drivers were slowing down the process—draining 80 percent of CPU space to read and respond to the more than 20,000 tags each second. The system just wasn’t getting it done,” said Chris Fonke, EVP of Software, Services & Solutions. For Cirrus to help, it had to offer an automation solution that provides routing direction within seconds.
The Approach
In order to meet the company’s performance requirements based on its large tag count, Cirrus Tech knew it was time for the customer to change its automation processes from their three dispersed plants. Cirrus Tech helped the plant pull data from dozens of PLCs and equipment, analyze the detail, and send direction back to the system controllers.
The Results
This customized Cirrus Tech Automation System solution easily filters information and provides direction within two seconds, a powerful single-point interface that interchanges data at lightning speed resulting in delivering a game-changing, extremely efficient solution to the customer.