Customized storage solutions to tackle SKU proliferation in beverage

Westfalia in the News: Westfalia President, Dan Labell, highlights the AS/RS and Warehouse Execution System (WES), Savanna.NET in Beverage Industry Magazine

Eager to optimize processes before operations suffer, manufacturers adopt cutting-edge solutions, which are growing sleeker, savvier and smarter. Saloni Walimbe, research content developer at Global Market Insights (GMI), Selbyville, Del., reports that automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) are a valuable method leveraged by the beverage industry.

“The system increases efficiency in complex warehousing scenarios by enabling case-picking system automation that picks and palletizes various mixed SKU pallets without needing direct labor, as well as utilizes miniload AS/RS and shuttles that pick and sequence random SKU pallets to automatic palletizers,” Walimbe says.

Dan Labell, president at Westfalia Technologies Inc., York, Pa., highlights how AS/RS operations allow warehouse professionals to achieve better management of SKUs.

“The ability to accommodate for both slow- and fast-moving SKUs can be built into an AS/RS design,” Labell explains. “Integrating a warehouse execution system (WES) with the AS/RS, allows organizations [to] have total control over inventory, whether it’s a slow-moving beverage for winter months or a drink popular year-round. Therefore, without worrying about inventory and maximizing space, manufacturers and distributors can focus on more critical areas like fulfilling orders.”

Westfalia’s AS/RS and Warehouse Execution System (WES), Savanna.NET, helps warehouses implement just-in-time strategies, decreasing the need for advanced order preparation, Labell says. When the truck arrives on-site, operators initiate the order-fulfillment process by the Savanna.NET portal, thereby directing Westfalia’s storage/retrieval machine to pick and deliver the order to the appropriate loading area.

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