Order fulfillment system for garden products for Bakker with 700 order lines / manhour
Bakker distributes bulbs, plants and garden sundries to customers throughout Europe. Customers can order via mail order catalogue and internet. Sales have a strong seasonal nature, resulting in a strong seasonal pattern in Bakker’s distribution centre in Lisse (Netherlands). It had always been difficult for Bakker to find qualified staff during busy periods. A new order fulfillment system provided the solution. Bakker asked Vanderlande Industries to design and implement it.
In distribution centres where e-commerce or mail orders are picked, there is usually a very high volume of small orders. Such an order pattern places very specific demands on the order fulfillment system. In Bakker’s case, the solution was Vanderlande Industries’ Order Distribution System (ODS), based on a ‘goods-to-man’ principle. This concept is especially suitable for distribution centres such as Bakker’s, where a large number of small orders have to be processed from a relative small assortment. ODS makes it possible to achieve very high operator performance (up to 700 orderlines per manhour) and very high picking accuracy.
Bakker’s ODS system has 66 order picking stations grouped in 11 lines. Working in two shifts, total system capacity is 60,000 orders and 420,000 order lines per day. Fast moving products are stores in totes and held on pallets in a pick-to-belt area. The totes are placed manually on a conveyor system which feeds them into the ODS system. Slow movers are fed into the ODS system from a batch picking area. Totes with products to be picked are transported automatically to the correct workstation. Supported by a put-to-light system operators distribute products over order totes. Product totes can be temporarily stored in a 3 aisles miniload system (AS/RS). Products are packed into cartons and sorted to various destinations via a sortation system.
The entire order fulfillment process is managed by Vanderlande Industries’ VISION warehouse management system (WMS). The main benefits of the system:
- Operator performance of 700 orderlines per manhour
- Operator learning curve of 1 hour
- Higher accuracy
- Better management of logistics process thanks to improved management information