abco AUTOMATION's Blog - Abco Automation

abco AUTOMATION is the Perfect Pick to Partner with Opex Corporation

Bloomfield, New Jersey- abco automation has partnered with OPEX Corporation to offer Perfect Pick® to the material handling industry. The Perfect Pick is a unique product-to-person technology that is highly flexible and scalable. Given abco automation’s expertise in product-to-person technologies the partnership is a great fit.

Perfect Pick’s small footprint and superior fixed-aisle scalability offers a low cost entry point to automate picking operations. Perfect Pick’s scalability lies in its iBOT® technology. The system does not require conveyors or elevators like on typical shuttle systems. This means that if you want to increase speed or throughput, you only need to add more independent, wireless iBOTs.

In addition, because of the small footprint, Perfect Pick is a great option for brownfield projects or adding product-to-person technologies to handle the SKU’s that would benefit from being placed in a P2P system. abco automation has been preaching the gospel of mathematical analysis of distribution centers and drilling down into what technology serves each part of the Pareto Curve.

Another benefit, unlike many technologies on the market, is that the Perfect Pick is easy to understand and easy to explain, even to those outside of the world of material handling.

“This is an automated solution that clients are going to feel comfortable with and that they will understand quickly, said Jeff Hedges of OPEX. “Perfect Pick’s simple, uncomplicated design allows clients to quickly see how it will function in their distribution center”.

“OPEX Corporation is excited to add abco Automation as an integration partner representing Perfect Pick. Like OPEX, abco is a family-owned and operated company headquartered in New Jersey and in business for over 40 years. This rich history and depth of experience along with abco’s stated mission to apply the “best-of-breed” product-to-person technologies to warehouse and distribution center design makes the addition of Perfect Pick a natural fit,” says Hedges.

“We are really excited about the Opex relationship because it provides us with Perfect Pick, a very powerful tool that we can bring to our clients that need a high rate, piece picking order fulfillment solution. Combined with our data analysis capabilities and process engineering expertise, the Perfect Pick solution can be specifically engineered to fit our customers applications,” Jack Lehr, President of abco automation.

About OPEX Corporation
OPEX Material Handling is a division of OPEX Corporation, a recognized global technology leader in document imaging and high-speed mailroom automation. Since 1973, OPEX systems have provided performance enhancing workflow solutions and cost-effective results to thousands of organizations worldwide. OPEX equipment and technology has been efficiently and reliably handling everything from individual, single-piece items ranging in size from envelopes, documents and checks all the way through 60-pound payloads using our Perfect Pick™ system. Today, OPEX systems are installed in financial services, healthcare, government, non-profit, utility, service bureau, insurance, telecommunications, and university/educational marketplaces around the world. For more information, visit www.opex.com.

About abco automation

abco automation is an American firm that specializes in designing and implementing American-built, capital-efficient distribution systems. A straight-speaking, flexible, fun-to-work-with company, abco automation designs and installs the very best product-to-person (P2P^sm) picking systems at the most reasonable price.

abco automation specializes in identifying and applying the right technology for each speed products. All of abco automation’s designs require examination of the customer’s solution through the proven lens of the Pareto Curve. abco automation designs capital-efficient systems that do more, in less space, with fewer people. Visit www.abcoAUTOMATION.us for more information.

Media Contact: Travis A. Baker, Abco Automation: marketing@abcoautomation.us.

Filed Under: opex, Product-to-Person

Spotting Pain in Your Distribution Center

by Travis Baker

When you cut your hand, you know quickly. The human nervous system is a quick responder. However, outside an open artery it can be more difficult to spot “pain” or inefficiencies.

This is more true in as complex a place as your distribution center. Something that worked four years ago or as a temporary solution becomes ingrained in day-to-day process sapping time and energy.

Here are my recommendations to recognize your order fulfillment pain.

Fresh Look: Have someone outside the company look at your distribution center with you. A set of fresh eyes can give you perspective, and even better if it is someone outside the organization. They can give a more honest opinion, without feeling the pressure of upsetting the apple cart. Note: If there are apple cart’s in your distribution center you should probably move them.

Talk to different levels: Do you think the VP of Supply Chain and a warehouse manager might have a different perspective on problems in your distribution center? Some details that are mere annoyances for one might be a nightmare for the other. Looking at things from another’s viewpoint might help you recognize something that you have been glossing over.

Get on the Ground: Don’t rely on reports from others. They might not see a problem or even could have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are. Talk to the associates there. See what they are doing and ensure that you talk to associates and managers on different shifts and different sites and as mentioned previously talking to different levels helps immeasurably.

Use the Results: If you don’t apply what you have learned you just wasted your time. From all the research you should have a good idea of the problems and how you can start to address them.

Those are my thoughts on how to recognize distribution center pain. If you have any thoughts or comments please let me know. Want some help spotting pain in your distribution center? Schedule a time to talk to abco automation today!

Filed Under: Accuracy, distribution center design, Labor, S.A.L.T. Principle, Space, Throughput

Get Ahead in Distribution by Knowing Your Data

by Travis Baker

The best way to get ahead and get recognition or a promotion is to know your business. If you know your business better than the other guy, you capitalize on your strengths and bury your weaknesses.

Your business is made up of hundreds, thousands, millions of data points. When you look at your data you need to be able to see the overall and the minutiae. As they say, the devil (and the dollar) is in the details.

When it comes to your distribution center and supply chain, everything gets bigger: the data points, the risk and the rewards.

It is easy to see the macro side of business, to see when it is good or bad; when things are moving off the shelves, when items are collecting dust. However, most of the time we only see things when they are patently obvious because we are too busy doing the day-to-day to really dig into the data.

That’s why consultants can be valuable to your business. A pair of fresh eyes looking at your business, looking down deep to analyze your business practices and see what is going both right and wrong is of enormous value.

Consultants are valuable; the downside is that they know it. There is a huge dollar sign attached with the word “consultants”.

If only there were a better way. Lucky for you, there is.

The best material handling companies will analyze your distribution center and supply chain while giving you deep insight into your business. For free.

You can see:

Different flows. For instance, if you are a pharmacy, you have a different flow in prescription vs. OTC to the end locations. Those items go through different checks and are processed differently for accountability. How do those flows work together, how do they fit into your building as a whole? What process or equipment is most appropriate to optimize their picking?

If you are a retail operation, you may be interested in omni-channel distribution (sometimes called multi-channel distribution) to manage distribution to direct-to-customer and brick-and-mortar retail stores from the same inventory. How does a flow differ when products go to an outlet vs. directly to a consumer’s home?

Peak. Do you know when your peak periods are? Exactly? Not just the month, but the week, the day the shift the hour? Mastering that information can be your ace in the hole when it comes to internal and external competition.

When you have a peak are you using the right technology for that peak? How does it differ from the next peak or the one before?

Of course, we have mentioned the Pareto Curve here, here and here, but we also know a couple of things that we don’t mention that when we do the deep dive into your data. And all we need from you is some of your time and a sample of your data.

If you think your distribution center might benefit from another set of eyes looking at your data and seeing deep into the data, maybe you should contact abco automation. After all, we do the math.

Take the first step towards a better distribution center and receiving recognition coming up with the great new idea for your company? Contact abco automation today and let’s get started.

Filed Under: distribution center design

Multi-Channel Distribution, Part 2: Become a DC Hero

by Travis Baker

Transcript for multi-channel distribution part 2

Hi I am Cory Flemings and welcome back to whiteboard insights this is part two of Omni-channel or multi-channel distribution. In part one we talked about the benefits of combining wholesale retail and direct market operations into one operation.

We talked about the money that can be saved by combining those operations under one roof and today we will talk about the different concerns or for the issues one must consider as you coach your company into combining these operations into a single place.

The first one I want to talk about it is that some companies have what is called ship-ready packaging and what ship ready packaging is, is a customized packa
ge that you have built around your product that you can just put a label on and send directly to the customer.

Why would you do that? Well some of the parcel shipping companies are not known for their white glove treatment of your products so some of these companies build this packaging around a product.

So the first consideration is do you want to do ship ready packaging for your products or if you already have ship ready packaging do you want to do ship ready versus incurring the cost of specific pack stations? That is because one of the things we’re going to talk about is to combine the warehouse you now have a common set of inventory in Omni-channel distribution that services all different channels so the same product needs to go to the wholesale Wal-Mart distribution center the same box or product needs to get shipped to retail store and the same box needs to get shipped to the customer.

And customers don’t necessarily want to get a brown chipboard box so, some companies incur the cost of a ship ready box or package that you can just put a label on, while others go to a pack- station. This is difficult decision because it eliminates the benefits of multi-channel distribution because if you have a special customized box around this product it is now a different SKU, but the same product as a chipboard box and that illuminates the benefit of doing Omni channel distribution so one of the considerations is if you’re going to get rid of the ship ready packaging.

One benefit is that you get rid of that cost you save money there but now you have to have pack station where you have to take the product of the chipboard box and put it in a customer friendly box that has a branded logo and so forth.

So you need to include the cost of this pack station so this is a plus costs and this is a savings since one of the considerations.

The second one is what do you do with the value added services? A lot of customers like to send these products out as gifts do you want to have a value-added services service station where your people can custom gift wrap and write thank you or birthday cards?

The material handling consideration is now you have to have controls built-in that say this parcel must have value-added services when he gets to this point in the get diverted off to its own conveyor system in the state go to its own pack station and there is an additional cost which you want to consider.

And finally the big red elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge is what do you do with your order profile? The order profile is important and this is the biggest problem you have really how do you take one profile for direct market which is 8000 orders a day of 2 piece orders and the other end of the spectrum you have 300, 250 piece orders because you still have 300 retail stores or retail and wholesale orders that are 250 or 600 lines or pieces. You just have two different ends of the spectrum how do you put those things together they have two completely different order profiles?

Unfortunately that is only done through some good and clever engineering and some data analysis. It’s possible?

Yes!, because abco automation has done a number of systems for clients that have both kinds of order profiles and a multichannel distribution center and because of the advent of modern day software and warehouse control systems and pre-cubing and things like that that you can do with the software we now have this ability with one system to process an order that has two pieces for customer and the next box is a part of a 250 piece order for a store and the picker doesn’t know any different.

They don’t know if it’s for store or person or if it is going direct market and they don’t care. The same picker does the same process with the same inventory and that’s the key.

If you can figure out the same set of inventory for both the retail, wholesale, and direct market order you can become a hero and save your company a lot of money

To do that you just need to start down the path of dealing data analysis and at abco automation you know that we do the math so give us a call at 858-206-2615 and we can help you.

Thanks and have a great day

Filed Under: distribution center design, System integration Tagged With: multi-channel distribution

Omni-Channel Distribution Part 1: How to be a Hero

by Travis Baker

Transcript for Omni-Channel Distribution.

Hi I am Cory Flemings and welcome back to whiteboard insights. All the market today is a buzz with this new term omni-channel distribution or multi-channel distribution. I know for me it is embarrassing when people start talking about something and I don’t know what they are talking about.

So I wanted to talk very briefly what is omni-channel distribution , or multichannel distribution and why does it matter and how can you be a hero in your company if you figure out how to deal with this.

So what is it? Basically it is this; I am a company and I have a product line that I send out wholesale orders let’s say to Wal-Mart or Macy’s, I am a clothing manufacturer for example. And I send product out to Wal-Mart or Macy’s distribution centers and I have to send it out to my own retail stores I have stores out there in the marketplace and I have to distribute to them as well. And all because Al Gore invented the Internet we have direct market customer s or e-com, where I have a facility set up specifically to deal with this.

Now how did we get into this mess? Mostly this one box that is important, back in the day when the Internet was first invented somebody came up with the idea. Hey we can sell stuff on the Internet the problem with that though was that everyone was concerned about whether it was safe or not to use your credit card on the Internet now .

Nobody really has concerns about using the credit card on the Internet, in fact this box, the direct market, or e-com box has really started to grow in size to the equal to or even eclipse the box for retail and by box I mean a different distribution center.

When we was first started with direct market campaign a lot of companies took a wait and see attitude they stood back and said well what not sure if this will work so lets make up a little box over here give it a little bit inventory and will sell things out of this facility.

As time has gone business become huge so now we have cost for a wholesale distribution center or operation with cost for retail and a direct market.

What are those costs? Well let’s do the math. Let’s say our average product cost around five dollars apiece and we sell say 250,000 pieces a day and you have to carry 30 days pieces of inventory on hand.

This works out to be about $37.5 million just in inventory carrying costs that is to say I have inventory here in retail and I have it in this facility and it has to be the same inventory. I have duplicated inventory In both buildings which are worth about $37.5 million a month.

Add to this cost the cost of real estate, that I have to either lease or buy, I have my power costs, I have my labor costs at taxes and fees so every time I add another distribution center box I incur all these costs.

So one of the ways you can be a hero in your company is to find out how can I take two of these boxes or even all three and smash them together into one building so that I’m using one set of inventory for wholesale, retail and e-com, all at the same time if you can figure out how to do that you’ll be a hero, in your company.

And you can potentially save your company as much as $37.5 million a month that’s a lot of money. The next part of the series part two we are going to talk about are the issues involved with doing that you have to deal with or consider in order to combine these operations into one.

But quite frankly if you don’t want to watch the second part of this video you can just call us at 858 206-2015 and we will give you the answer. Thanks for much for watching

Filed Under: video Tagged With: multi-channel distribution, omni-channel distribution, video

Material Handling Systems Integrators Don’t see Distribution like You Do

by Travis Baker

As a material handling systems integrator, we meet people all the time that have the concept of distribution as a game, more specifically as a Monopoly game. “Well, we need a new distribution center, so let’s plunk one down here on Baltic Avenue.” (Definitely can’t go on Boardwalk – not with those rents).

They don’t see a distribution center as more than the sum of its parts. They see it as a monolithic “Distribution Center,” just a piece that they need to have, but not a piece that adds value to the company.

Obviously as a material handling systems integrator with a fondness for efficiency and squeezing the full potential from a distribution center, we see it a different way. We know that your supply chain can be a competitive advantage. It can help you outsell your competitors, win new market share and delight your customers.

So why do so many people view distribution as a necessary evil?

Misconception: They do not see their distribution centers as investments; they see them as a sunk cost. If you look at all the advances of distribution center automation in the last 20 years, from carousels to robots to AGV’s as ‘cost’, then you are more likely to see distribution centers as just a piece to plop down. Not as something that will give you an advantage over your competition.

In fact, you may be operating under the premise that all of your competitors have distribution centers designed exactly like yours.

News Flash: They might not be.

Stubbornness: “Well when I came into this business we did our distribution that way and it has been fine for 30 years.” Stubbornness is markedly different from misconception. It is an actual aversion to change itself; an adherence to the status quo for no reason other than “that’s how we always have done it”, and they can’t see a new way.

Unaware: The last, and I think the predominant, reason that people don’t see distribution as an advantage is that they just aren’t aware that their distribution center can be a competitive advantage. And why is that? Their consultant or material-handling systems-integrator hasn’t shown them that it can be. After all, that’s really our job – to show you how you can improve your distribution center.

We help you and provide you all the ammunition to internally sell the “new way” to those who say “that’s how we always have done it.” We know that there is often a person in the supply chain who senses there must be a better way…

If that is you, give us a call, let’s talk.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: distribution center design, supply chain, supply chain optomization

Why We Want to Educate our Clients about Distribution Center Design

by Travis Baker

I recently generated a word cloud of the abco automation site. This takes all the text from all of our blog posts and assigns them a weight based on how often they appear. The more frequently a word appears the larger it is in the resulting picture.

Taking a quick look at our cloud I noticed some words that we clearly use very frequently.

Distribution, no surprise right? That’s what we do. Our main job is to design (also one of the large words) and build (no slouch, either) distribution centers for our clients.

However, when I do a word cloud using one of our clients websites, guess what? No distribution, no automation, no build. But for such a crucial part of their business, getting products to their customers or their outlets, why wouldn’t those words be mentioned on the website?

Because it is not their core value. It’s not what makes them money.

We talk so much about distribution, automation, and design, because that’s how we make our money. If you sell clothes, auto parts, or computers you are going to talk about those things.

However, our clients they know that distribution is important, they just don’t have the level of knowledge needed about bleeding-edge ideas and technologies. When we come in and talk to CEO’s, CFO’s, VP’s our goal is that when we leave they know much more about their distribution center, and their business.

And that’s the difference between us and what other system integrators do. We think that if we educate our clients about new trends in distribution and how they can improve efficiency and SALT they are more likely to pick the solution that is best for their company, instead of one pulled out of a box. The best system for your distribution center is not a one-size-fits-all. The best solution is a result of a lot of hard work and cooperation between us and our client to arrive at the distribution center design that will provide the best ROI.

While the executives we speak to won’t necessarily have the knowledge to go build their own distribution center they will know what went into making theirs. What were the numbers we looked at. What the variables are, how we did the math.

Want to learn more about distribution and how we can improve your distribution center design? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Filed Under: distribution center design, System integration

Accuracy in Distribution Can Cost You Millions

by Travis Baker

Accuracy in distribution is a major pain point for some companies. So how accurate is the picking in your distribution center? In a retail distribution center a 3% error rate can cost you from $650,000 to 3 million dollars. Every year.

So are you still thinking that your 97% accuracy rate is good? Probably not.

So the question is how do you increase accuracy in distribution?

The best way might be to take a hard look at the ROI in automation. Human beings make mistakes, and you can mitigate those with correct application of automation. In fact, we believe that automation can solve a lot of the pain points in distribution. We refer to those pain points as SALT (Space Accuracy, Labor and Throughput)

However, bear in mind that automation is not a magic bullet for the distribution center. You need careful analysis of your supply chain, SKU base and future plans.

If you need some help with analyzing your distribution center and seeing how you might be able to improve accuracy or any other of your pain points feel free to give us a call at +1 (704) 469-9982 or +1 (858) 206-2615 or email us here.

Filed Under: Accuracy, S.A.L.T. Principle

How is that System Integration going?

by Travis Baker

Ever see a material handling system integration that didn’t seem that…..integrated? I think we all have.

It takes a lot of work, skill and careful analysis to get an integration to perform to its best. Take a look at how abco automation helped the Gilt Groupe with integrating legacy systems and new ideas to maintain their fanatical customer service even while the company kept growing in orders of magnitude.

Like our picture? Feel free to share it on social media or embed on your blog.

Filed Under: distribution center design, material handling integration, System integration

Why Order Lines Don’t Matter in Distribution Center Design

by Travis Baker

Hi I am Cory Flemings from abco automation and welcome back to Whiteboard Insights. Today I want to tell you a story about a discussion I had recently about cubic velocity.

It goes kind of like this. Back in the history of man we created the distribution center design and before there were computers we basically had static locations and somebody walked through a warehouse and getting stuff off the shelves. And that is how we got to this world of distribution center design. Many of us are still thinking in those days when we talk about the Pareto curve. We all know and love the Pareto curve, it’s on our logo, and we love the Pareto curve.

It tells us a lot about the way an operation works. We all know that 20% of SKUs to 80% of the business but we usually measure things in order lines and the reason we have historic play or traditionally talked about order lines is because it has to do with how many times we go and visit a pick location during the day. It was born in the world where all the SKUs have static pick faces. Then it really matters about order lines. If I have one product that does 100 order lines a day and that means we have to go to that pick face 100 times.

But now things are different now we work with computers and automated technologies and so forth the world has changed and the world has changed and this one remarkable way we are no longer concerned with order lines per day we are concerned with cubic velocity. What is cubic velocity?

Well as you can see from my board cubic velocity is the number of pieces you sell a day of a particular SKU times its piece cubed. So if I have a lamp, as an example, a lamp might come in a box this tall and this big but I sell 25 lamps a day you can understand the cubic velocity of this product might be a pallet load a day. I am moving up a pallet load of this product everyday

On the other hand if I talk about pencils, straight pens or chopsticks or things that are small and thin I can put 2000 of those things in a tub and if I’m moving 2000 lines a day I can manage that much the volume with one tub of that product. And so the difference in cubic velocity is immense.

So the person and I were having this conversation they said, “I don’t understand why you’re putting lamps in a pallet flow line that doesn’t make sense”.

I said, “That’s because you’re still thinking in terms of lines, it only does 25 lines a day, but you are moving a pallet load of stuff through your warehouse every day when you sell these lamps. Over here you’re right to have these small items, these trinkets, that you move a lot more lines but you only move one tub of day.”

So for distribution center design in an automated system I am concerned with how much stuff you have to move around a system, even in a manual system that is completely manual think about how much cube you have to move through your building every day. Some products you have to vote the entire pallet, other products you don’t.

In fact think of your carton flow racks today and how much how many of them have backstock on the backside of the flow rack and I will bet you the reason is you haven’t thought of cubic velocity you are thinking of lines that product moves a certain number of lines a day but the cubic velocity drips out the back of the flow rack sits on the floor.

I encourage you to think about cubic velocity in your distribution center design and if you would like us to give you a hand we would be happy to help you out go to www.abcoautomation.US and connect with us we would be happy to give you a hand.

Sound Interesting? Contact us today and let’s see how we can work together to make your distribution center great.

Filed Under: distribution center design, Pareto Principle, Space, Throughput, video

abco AUTOMATION is the Perfect Pick to Partner with Opex Corporation

Like this:

Spotting Pain in Your Distribution Center

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Get Ahead in Distribution by Knowing Your Data

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Multi-Channel Distribution, Part 2: Become a DC Hero

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Omni-Channel Distribution Part 1: How to be a Hero

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Material Handling Systems Integrators Don’t see Distribution like You Do

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Why We Want to Educate our Clients about Distribution Center Design

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Accuracy in Distribution Can Cost You Millions

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How is that System Integration going?

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Why Order Lines Don’t Matter in Distribution Center Design

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