400% Increase in Order Fulfillment With Beer Conveyor Pick To Light System

Ensuring faster processing, faster palletizing, and faster deliveries – because O’ Beer Thirty can come at any time.

Americans love beer. In a 2018 Gallup poll, out of 63% of Americans who drink alcohol, 42% say they most often choose beer making it the adult beverage of choice for 11 years straight (and most of the years before that).

In terms of pure volume, that’s a LOT of cans and bottles moving around the country from brewer to distributor and distributor to restaurants, bars, stores and homes.

Our Beer Distribution client, headquartered out of Texas City TX, knows a lot about moving large volumes of beer. In business since 1910, they deliver more than 10 million cases of beer annually for over 30 suppliers from giants like Anheiser-Busch to craft beers like Goose Island, handling approximately 2,500 SKUs. In short, they’re the experts at getting beer from Point A (in their warehouse) to Point B (to clients).

Looking to increase performance to meet greater demand, they partnered with Encompass Technologies, the fastest growing designers for beverage distribution in the United States.

With Encompass designing the software, Advanced Equipment Company (AEC) was brought in to focus on the conveyor. Specialists in conveyor systems, AEC knows how to get beer from Point A (from picking) to Point B (to palletizing).

“When we all came in to evaluate this system, we knew there had to be a better way,” said Charlie Williamson, conveyor systems specialist with AEC.

• From 1 pallet in 20 min to 5 pallets in 20 min.
• That’s a 400% increase in their order fulfillment operation.

Challenge – More beer drinkers mean greater demand.

Increase speed needed to meet demand – we’ll exceed it.

The specific challenge in this case was to improve the time it takes to process an order within our client’s warehouse. With their existing system, to pick an order for one single location, a person working alone, armed with a headset and a pallet jack, moved around the warehouse to pick cases.

With a facility their size, they might have to travel up to 6 miles just to find all the specific products within a single order. To get one pallet ready for shipping took about 20 minutes.

Encompass and AEC combined their knowledge and expertise to design a system that would take time and cost out of their beer distribution process.

Solution – Automated Pick-to-Light system to track cases, batch orders, and reduce processing time.

The heart of their brand new order fulfillment process was a Pick-to-Light system; a visual organization system that uses lights to guide pickers on the most efficient pick route. The lights show the picker which cases are next and how many to grab. This means employees can pick for multiple customers at a time by following the lights and placing the cases on powered roller conveyor that run in between rows of storage rack.

How does it work?

Each case of beer is outfitted with a barcode. After the picker has placed the case on the roller conveyor, it’s routed through a barcode scanner so the system tracks where that specific case is at all times. When it comes down the line, the sortation conveyor sorts it onto the correct lane. Then the batch order is delivered directly to the employee preparing the order for palletization and shipping.

Not only is the process now fully automated, but the zone control includes an external photo eye for a sensor to monitor when the chute is full and therefore, no need for an additional and costly PLC (programmable logic controller).

Success – 400% increased processing speed.

By using the Pick-to-Light system integrated with Hytrol conveyors (designed and installed by AEC), our client went from 1 pallet in 20 min to 5 pallets ready to ship in 20 min.  That’s a 400% increase in their order fulfillment operation.

When asked how the customer likes the results, Williamson admitted, “They love it. In fact, AEC is their go-to for future systems.”

Performance Impact:

• Optimized Order Fulfillment: Enhanced the picking sequence to minimize travel distance and maximize floor efficiency.
• Accelerated Cycle Times: Streamlined the picking process to reduce the total time required per order.
• Rapid Workforce Onboarding: Simplified system workflows to shorten the learning curve for new hires.
• Balanced Labor Costs: Improved operational flow to minimize the requirement for costly overtime.
• Superior Order Accuracy: Increased precision across all pick operations to ensure high-quality fulfillment.
• Maximized Throughput: Boosted overall facility productivity through engineered automation and choreographed movement.