Major food group lays out plans for highly automated DC

Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), headquartered in Kansas City is the largest cooperative food wholesaler in the United States. The company, with sales of more than 10 billion US Dollars, is planning and building a highly automated full-range logistics centre in Hernando, Mississippi with Witron acting as contractor.

The facility will supply more than 3,100 grocery stores. Almost 55,000 different items will be stored and picked with the OPM (Order Picking Machinery), AIO (All-in-One-Order Fulfillment), and CPS (Car Picking System) solutions. Witron’s technology will be used in all temperature zones – dry assortment, fresh products, and frozen items.

The 81,000 sq m facility featuring 738,000 pallet, tote, and tray locations, 92 stacker cranes, as well as 11 kilometres of conveyor system is designed for a pick performance of more than 460,000 units / day.

COM

The new facility will have 18 fully automated COM (Case Order Machine) machines installed in temperature areas of +20 to -26 degrees Celsius to stack cases onto pallets in a store-friendly manner. Large-volume items are also picked in various temperature zones with route optimisation using pick-by-voice support from the semi-automated logistics module CPS. An intelligent Witron WMS platform controls the internal and external supply chain processes “end-to-end”. A Witron OnSite team will be responsible for service, maintenance, and system operation, and will keep all mechanical elements, components, and material flows operating around the clock, 365 days a year.

AIO

Due to a wide range of small-volume items, AWG decided to use Witron’s AIO system for the dry assortment – a further development of the tote picking system DPS (Dynamic Picking System), which has been successfully used for many years in food retailing logistics.  

With AIO, both fast-movers and slow-movers can be stored and picked compactly in the same logistics module. Order consolidation is automated and system-controlled in AIO. The Witron WMS permanently controls the classification of the items depending on the order structure. Classification changes (e.g. promotion or seasonal items) are recognised by the AIO and automatically adapted in real-time. The use of the same infrastructure (inventories, manpower, mechanics, IT, master data, etc.) is reflected in maximum flexibility and high cost-efficiency for AWG.  

AWG CEO David Smith said: “Our industry is ever-changing, and it is our mission to provide our member-retailers all of the products, services, and tools they need to compete favourably in all markets served, all at the best possible cost. We are excited to be able to significantly expand what we stock and ship to  our member stores while becoming more efficient and cost effective in our operations.”

For more information, visit www.witron.com