Deployment background
- 3PL company B who has overseas apparel brands as clients was planning a logistics center that could serve as a new base for the distribution network in Japan. By taking into consideration, the accessibility to delivery areas, a multi-tenant, multi-floor warehouse adjacent to an expressway interchange was chosen.
- Thousands of pallets and stock-keeping units (SKU) of high-mix low-volume products will be stored at the new logistics center.
To use a wide area for picking, the pallet storage area for supplies needed to be minimized. - While much labor was anticipated for storing, retrieving and shipping large quantities of products, one of the themes of the logistics renovation was labor savings. Actively advancing the automation of material handling and improving staff work efficiency were important.
Reasons for choosing Magic Rack
- As the logistics system for storing products in pallets, stacker crane-type automated warehouses and moving racks from several companies were considered as well as our Magic Rack. In a low floor height, multi-floor warehouse with constraints on fireproof compartments, traditional automated warehouses cannot ensure storage efficiency and moving racks require too much time for manual operation. Meanwhile, Magic Rack can store products at overwhelmingly high density even at a limited height and area, and at the same time, it can save labor for storage, retrieval and shipping, which were the deciding factors for deploying Magic Rack.
- Magic Rack was chosen because of its night-time automatic sorting features which enabled replenishment of high-mix low-volume products to the picking area seamless, making the picking operation suitable.
Effects of deploying Magic Rack
- By connecting the warehouse built-in vertilator and Magic Rack, pallet transportation between floors where material handling such as truck unloading is carried out and where storage, picking and shipping are performed can now be fully automated, reducing the forklifts inbound and outbound operations.
- Automation and high-density storage with Magic Rack has made it possible to reduce the amount of labor required for replenishment from the storage area. It also helps to arrange the picking area and traffic line effectively, contributing to improving staff work efficiency.
