Case Study: WINC
E-Commerce Office Supply Meets Delivery KPIs with AMRs
The project
WINC is a large office supply e-commerce company with products ranging from furniture to paper clips. They offer next business day delivery to metro areas if you order by 5PM with all their in-stock items. This facility has 12,000 SKUs with 920,000 pieces over a 6000 sq m facility.
The AMR and its RWMS system are harnessed to provide solutions of intelligent warehousing and unmanned handling. Doing so can meet customer order demand for different types of soft and hard packs and accommodate over 12,000 types of SKUs and 920,000 items at once.
The problem
WINC pickers were walking over 3 miles per day on average each day to perform their duties so they were not fast and efficient. They were also looking to improve their picking accuracy.
An easy-to-use system is required. Currently, increasing and training staff for peak periods to be productive and accurate was time consuming.
The solution
G2P Robots and IRMS (Intelligent Robot Management System) were introduced to assist. 108 AMRs were used. The system uses multiple consolidation and packing workstations for quick order processing. Packaging boxes, carriers, and orders are matched with appropriate workstations to greatly enhance sorting efficiency.
Order priorities are maintained and executed with precision. The order priority is based on the expected delivery time of orders to ensure precise and prompt delivery of customer orders.
Mobile Put Wall
Independent mobile put walls are controlled by the iRES system, which completes the autonomous movement of the put wall. The automatic interfacing of the entire process without human intervention solves the staffing waste issue caused by imbalances in the packaging and putting capacity. This saves the manpower spent on the transfer of the put wall. This also ensures the order handling as per the first-in-first-out (FlFO) principle, and raises the automation level of the whole process to a new high.
The results
Most of the travel time has been eliminated. Workers have embraced the AMRs and see them as assisting them to be more efficient and helping them do their work.
New workers are productive now in 30min which helps meet peak period KPIs. WINC has seen a large drop in returns due to the automation and checking redundancy with picking and putting.
The G2P robots are seen as hassle free as they automatically charge by themselves.
