Category: stories

The Challenge

Wilsbach, located in Harrisburg, PA is a family-owned and operated business that distributes 4.3 million cases of products annually from over 45 suppliers representing the finest beverages from around the world including Anheuser-Busch products. Frank Sourbeer Jr., the President of Wilsbach, states that his vision for the company is to achieve 20M cases of annual beverage sales as a certified carbon neutral business that’s widely recognized as one of the best places to work. Focusing on the future of the business has been Frank’s primary objective to ensure the long-term vision of the company.

The challenges in the labor market and an increase in SKU complexity created a need for more operational efficiencies and space and became a major focal point for Frank Jr. A mid to long-term operations plan was needed to ensure the future success of the business and Frank Jr. wanted to take a complete 360-degree approach to solve the challenges.

In 2017 Frank started the process of finding a new site to build a state-of-the-art facility. Part of this process was evaluating if automation would be a good solution for their business and if so, what type of automation would be the best fit for their new build construction warehouse. Frank first began the process of looking at automation during the NBWA tradeshow in 2019, well before the pandemic. It was at this tradeshow that Frank met with Cirrus Tech and started having preliminary discussions about automation and Frank discussed his plan for a new warehouse. These discussions ultimately led to a more formal process in early 2020 where Cirrus Tech, based on the requested data provided to them by Wilsbach, was able to start the data analysis, design, and staffing analysis process. After the analysis and design process, Cirrus provided Wilsbach with a presentation outlining the benefits and costs of the system. Wilsbach signed with The Cirrus Tech Crane System in July 2020. Post Covid-19 caused more labor issues, illustrated in the information below

Here is a detailed look at how Wilsbach was staffed in 2019 and in 2021 before The Cirrus Crane System implementation:

Wilsbach 2019 Operation Numbers (Before Crane System Install)
Receivers/Put Away: 2 Full-Time Employees
Replenishers (Day Time): 1 Full-Time Employee
Replenishers (Nighttime): .75 Full-Time Employee
Load Builders picking package beer: 11.5 (7.5 full-time and 4 full-time equivalent part-time)

Wilsbach 2021 Operation Numbers (Before Crane System Install)
Receivers/Put Away: 2.5 Full-Time Employees
Replenishers (Day Time): 3 Full-Time Employees
Replenishers (Nighttime): 1 Full-Time Employee
Load Builders picking package beer: 13 Full-Time Employees

The Approach

Frank Jr. worked on the design of the new building with the architects and was able to provide Cirrus with the initial design of the new building. Once the data analysis, design, and staffing process was completed the next step focused on designing a system that would best fit the Wilsbach warehouse. Since space savings and annual efficiencies were a primary focus for Frank Jr., The Cirrus Tech Crane System (a High-Mid Volume Storage, Retrieval, Replenishment, and Picking System) evaluation was needed to determine what the overall ROI and benefits would be for Wilsbach. Once the initial design was completed and discussed internally, the Cirrus team met with Frank Jr. to collaborate with him on the design of the system for his warehouse. After this collaboration, the Cirrus team completed the system design and presented the solution to the Wilsbach team.

As part of his due-diligence process, Frank Jr. hired a beverage consultant company to determine the building size needed to provide a layout of the warehouse with traditional floor-stacked backstock locations and with a traditional pick path. Cirrus Tech provided a layout of the warehouse with The Crane System and a pick path that started at the beginning of the static pick locations located at the bottom of the system and designed pick locations located directly across from the system. As load builders start the picking process, they work around the horseshoe of the Crane System and then finish picking the remaining items in the static rack and case-flow racking pick locations. A traditional pick path is 2,000+ linear feet and Cirrus was able to reduce the linear feet of the pick path to 1,200 linear feet.

By significantly reducing the pick path, the Wilsbach Distributor load builders would be able to pick at a much faster rate vs. picking around a traditional pick path. Cirrus had similar success with shrinking the pick path with other distributors and, in a non-union environment, some distributors were averaging over 300 cases per hour per picker. Wilsbach was the first union working environment, therefore the question remained – would Wilsbach have similar success with their picking numbers? Both Cirrus Tech and the Wilsbach team felt confident that the pick rate would be increased and overtime would be decreased for the load builders with The Cirrus Tech Crane System pick path.

Replenishment and receiving were becoming more time-consuming tasks with the traditional layout of the warehouse. In a warehouse with no automation, replenishers and receivers had to touch the product multiple times. The travel time of the forklift drivers to perform these tasks became only greater during peak times of the year. Finding experienced people to do the work also became a challenge. Automating the receiving and replenishment process became an important consideration for Wilsbach to reduce the labor needed to complete those essential tasks.

With The Crane System, receiving and replenishment are optimized by the system and the layout of the warehouse. Once a receiver picks up the product on a forklift, they place the pallets on the inbound induction lane of the system, the pallet is scanned and then the system will automatically induct that pallet and take it to an assigned storage location in the system. The static pick locations located at the bottom of the system are automatically replenished by the system with no human interaction. Replenishing the remaining pick locations in the warehouse is a much easier and more efficient process as there is less replenishing to perform and with the reduced pick path all the pick locations are faster/easier to find to replenish product. Frank Jr. and his team began to look more at the benefits of automation vs. a traditional warehouse and ultimately determined (based on the factors below) that automation was the best fit solution for their business.

The Deciosion

The Wilsbach team evaluated a traditional warehouse with racking and floor stack backstock vs. The Cirrus Tech Crane System with an optimized warehouse layout. The decision came down to several key factors: 1) How much square footage would The Crane System be able to save them from not having to build; 2) How many full-time employees can be saved through the automation; 3) How much additional savings can be saved through overtime; 4) Less time physical counting product; 5) Damaged beer reduction; 6) the ability to take advantage of the tax benefit of depreciation of the system; and 7) What a Phase 2 automation would look like for their warehouse. After looking at the cost of a traditional warehouse with the additional square footage costs, the additional racking costs for the pick path, having to continue with high overtime costs, and the inability to reduce any headcount, the case for automation with The Crane System became more and more compelling.

Finally, it was necessary to determine the right future approach to automation for the Wilsbach team. The Crane System evaluation checked all the boxes for Phase 1 of automation because it saves square footage, provides annual efficiencies, and the ability to fully depreciate the system in one years’ time. The comprehensive financial analysis determined a less than 3-year Return of Investment for Frank Jr. For additional future automation a Phase 2 was developed for Wilsbach that includes an automated case picking system to focus on further automating the picking process.

Convincing Results

In September 2022 Cirrus Tech followed up with Wilsbach and discussed the success of the Crane System Implementation. Nick Bowers, the Director of Operations since 2021, and Frank Jr. provided updated information on staffing data and what is taking place in their local market as well. Nick Bowers said “The order complexity has increased in the marketplace which means the total number of orders has increased. The labor market is the same, however, turnover is down, and people are excited to come to work. The work environment is much better since the new building construction and The Crane System implementation. This is because The Crane System has brought amazing efficiencies to the warehouse and the new business processes and procedures have been streamlined by our team.”

Nick Bowers continued to say “The Crane System has brought many efficiencies to the organization and allowed them to organize the warehouse in the most optimal way possible. The pick path has been significantly reduced providing us with a 50 cases per hour per load builder bump to our pre-installation numbers. We have fewer receivers, replenishers, and load builders. The real surprise was the overtime reduction. Before the installation of the system, we were averaging 10 hours of overtime per employee per week and now after the installation of The Crane System, we are averaging only 1 hour of overtime per employee per week. This is a reduction of 9 hours per employee per week…outstanding results!”

Here is a detailed look at how Wilsbach was staffed in 2022 after The Cirrus Crane System implementation:

Wilsbach 2022 Operation Numbers (After Crane System Install)
Receivers/Put Away: 2 Full-Time Employees
Replenishers (Day Time): 1.5 Full-Time Employees
Replenishers (Nighttime): 0 Full-Time Employee
Load Builders picking package beer: 10 Full-Time Employees
Total Savings: 6 Full-Time Employees
Total Reduction in Overtime: 9 hours per employee per week

Cirrus was able to almost double the ROI (based on the 2020 projected ROI) for Wilsbach because of the post-implementation successes and performance of The Crane System and the Wilsbach team. Frank Jr. stated “This is a team effort across the board. The Cirrus team provided an outstanding implementation and has provided us with world-class 24/7 support for our system. Without them, this would not be possible. I’m also incredibly proud of our team as well and how they have adapted to the improved warehouse processes and procedures. Cirrus Tech believes in partnerships with beer distributors that have their systems. They know the importance of delivering on ROI, providing a high-class implementation, and supporting their customers. We are proud of our success at Wilsbach and the success of both teams.”

The Cirrus Tech Crane System
Because Every Case Counts™

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.

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:

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

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:

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.