Outbound: Allied's New Warehouse

Allied’s new warehouse is designed to run more efficiently than the old warehouse in many ways. The new state-of-the-art Knapp system has been a key factor in helping automate certain warehouse functions. For example, the new conveyor system is programmed to shut down, or go into sleep mode, during inactivity to reduce energy and wear. The conveyor was also designed as a closed loop tote system, allowing empty totes to be restacked and redistributed automatically, eliminating manual intervention.

While the new warehouse is double the square footage of the old warehouse, the new warehouse capacity is even larger due to its design. The major areas of the new warehouse include:

Receiving – Product is delivered into the warehouse in the receiving area. Product is scanned and verified against the P.O. and placed on the conveyor.

Conditioning – Totes are scanned in the conditioning area using a mobile terminal, which generates a readout from the warehouse management system (WMS) that determines the product’s put away location.

High bay – The high bay area is where reserve stock of heavy or large items is stored. These items cannot go into the forward picking phase.

Forward picking – Product travels on the conveyor system from conditioning to the forward picking phase, which is separated by zones. Electronic readers at different points along the conveyor system serve as check points, sending the product to the appropriate put away location.

Packing – After orders have been picked, they are placed in totes and put on the conveyor system, which then delivers them to the appropriate packing station. In the packing area, team members verify totes, weigh and pack orders and affix shipping labels.

OSR (Order Storage and Retrieval) – When multi-line orders, which require multiple totes, are incomplete, they are stored in the OSR area until the order is complete. This area holds partial orders until the entire order is ready. When the final product is picked, placed in a tote and onto the conveyor, the stored totes are released from OSR and sent to the appropriate packing station.

Shipping – The system separates packed orders by carriers and sends them to the appropriate shipping station along the conveyor.