Beverage

Beverage applications

Designed for fast moving consumer goods the beverage distribution market is particularly well suited for the DLS Order Release Module.

Since the first module went into operation in a DC of Dutch grocery chain Albert Heijn in 2003 a wide variety of beverage products and packaging types are handled by this and consequently installed modules. Glass and plastic bottles of various sizes, as well as Tetra type packaging and various sizes of cans are handled by the DLS Order Release Module. Each of these can be in boxes, loose in trays, wrapped in shrink wrap or any combination of those.

Aside from beer, sugar containing soft drinks, water, wine, fruit juice, long-life milk and yoghurt drinks are handled. In an automated system the worst culprits for product damage; people and lift trucks are almost completely excluded.

The DLS Order Release Module is not only an attractive solution for its ability to handle so many packaging types at the throughput capacities found in beverage distribution, but it can also easily be retrofitted in existing buildings, which often are built with low clearance for the conventional method of order picking.

By using horizontal buffer lanes the existing building height is generally not a point of discussion for retrofits.

Cases are also buffered without space in between, allowing up to 38 Ft (11.6 meters), of product per buffer lane. For the typically very fast moving fridge pack this equates to 88 cases per lane!

By having such high case density, lanes close together and above each other, the footprint is much smaller than with conventional order picking methods.

As lanes don’t need adjustment per product packaging or weight it is possible at any time to allocate more lanes to a particularly fast moving product. It also makes the module flexible during peak times for holidays or heat waves.

The extremely high throughput requirement for the fastest portion of the beverage assortment brings the average throughput up so far that even when the few slow movers are included in the Order Release Module the case pick cost per case remains extremely low.

For beverage it is equally possible to use either manual or semi-manual depalletizing options (such as lift truck layer pick extensions) as fully automated layer pick robots. On the output side the palletizing options also range from manual to bulk palletizers. This way a wide range of solutions can be developed for any DC situation and budget.