Article 2 on Modex and this one is about something that we’ve come across many times in the past 15 years but is now finally evolved into a decent solution, Put Walls.
Why put walls you ask?
A few years ago, nobody wanted put walls because they were too difficult to implement, most WMS systems weren’t equipped to handle a put wall process or the ones that worked well were just too expensive to implement.
At Modex put walls were everywhere. From simple put walls made up of tubing to sophisticated ones with built-in lights and everything in between. Every AMR supplier had a put wall, which makes sense, and every workstation/desks provider had at least one put wall at their booth.
So what’s driving this put wall revival and how can you benefit from it?
In the ever-changing world of Ecommerce, put walls are probably one of the best things you can invest in to improve your operation especially with some of the newer versions spotted at Modex. With the “old” version which featured either just barcodes or put-to-light displays on both sides of the put wall, the process was quite cumbersome and the investment in the more expensive put-to-light displays was out of this world if you wanted more than 20 or so slots.
It seems the humble put wall, and the associated process, has evolved from simple “pigeon holes” to a sophisticated affair.
For those of you who don’t know what a put wall is, let me explain, and no I’m not trying to patronise people’s intellect, but we do have some subscribers who are not from our industry.
A put wall is used in conjunction with a batch picking process. A batch picking process is a process whereby a group of different customer orders are picked together as if they were one large order. It makes for a really efficient picking process as it allows an order picker to travel through a warehouse once and pick a large quantity but the result is a container full of stock for many different customers that need to be sorted before they can be packed and shipped. This is what the put wall is for. It’s a manual sortation system to “unbatch” (also known as “out-sort”) each individual customer order again so it can be packed individually and shipped to a customer.
Although these put-walls are traditionally associated with the packing process, we are seeing a trend of these solutions being used directly at goods-to-person stations or even mobile put-walls similar to Order Trolleys but with smaller pockets. And now they’re using AMRs facilitate these flows which is what this article is about.
So back to what the Modex put walls had to offer. I’ll focus on one in particular from a company called 6 River Systems which had an end-to-end picking process setup at their booth. There is another one I would like to cover but that will appear in a different article since it’s part of a software solution that’s particularly interesting.
6 River Systems had a booth consisting of lots of “Chucks” which is the name for their AMR picking system. Their picking process consisted of a manual pick face which was serviced by AMRs, equipped with 4 pick destinations and a tablet like screen with barcode scanner and label printer, that follow the operator around as they were picking.
Chuck would stop at the correct pick location and the screen would indicate to the operator what to pick, including a photograph of the product. The operator would then scan the item to confirm and drop it in the indicated pick container.
Once picking was completed, Chuck would travel to either an automated loading/unloading station or a put wall. Another Chuck would have already been despatched to the operator just prior to finishing the picks on the previous Chuck. Their process eliminated all unnecessary travel by a person and optimised their utilisation dramatically. There is a video link below on how that works.
Discrete orders would be dropped off at the auto unloading station for transport to packing stations. If Chuck contained batch picked orders it would automatically stop at the put wall for sortation. Because Chuck has a screen and a barcode reader, operators would simply be instructed to scan each item from one of the picking container and Chuck would communicate with the put wall to indicate which slot to place the item in to.
The 6 River put wall seemed like a simple affair, however, looks were deceiving. Integrated into the process, the 6 River software lit up each put compartment in White as the operator was scanning each item from a container. When the operator places the scanned item in the right compartment, the software will light up the compartment in Green, while if the operator placed the scanned item in the wrong slot, it would also light up the compartment in Red.
Once completed Chuck would be assigned to the next group of orders and would simply be on its way to the next operator.
On the packing side it was a similar affair. Once putting was finished, the compartments which were available for packing would all be lit up in green. As the packing operator removed the stock and scanned each item for packing, the light would be diminished, and the compartment would be available for putting again.
So why have I been going on about put walls in this article and why the 6 River one in particular? Because it was the first seamless operation I’ve seen for a long time. I’ve seen plenty of put walls in my career but they have either been difficult to integrate, very expensive to set up, not integrated at all and therefore part of a clunky process, or someone else’s bright idea without consulting operations on whether they would work.
With Ecommerce where it stands today, especially with #COVID-19 forcing everyone to online shopping, put walls are an easy way to increase an operation’s efficiency.
Watch out for the next article in which I will detail another picking and putting operation but this time with limited physical hardware requirements and a very easy way of expanding an operation during rapid growth.
Bas Schilders is the principal consultant at Fuzzy LogX who are the leading warehouse, logistics, and process improvement consultants in Australia. With a career spanning 2 continents and 20 years in warehouse improvements and solution implementations, Bas is one of the most experienced consultants in the country when it comes to logistics improvements and implementing warehouse automation solutions.
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