Site: Sewell Village Cadillac

Cadillac Dealership Expands Part Department & Saves 2,000 Square Feet of Space.

Application: Automobile parts for automotive service department

Equipment: Two vertical carousels and one Shuttle VLM controlled by FastPic inventory management software with an ADP interface.

Summary: Vertical storage systems allowed multiple facilities to be consolidated while saving space and increasing productivity and customer satisfaction.

At Sewell Village Cadillac, vertical storage and retrieval systems have helped the dealership save the cost of expanding its warehouse facilities.

Sewell Village dramatically increased its parts storage needs when the company purchased Pontiac and GMC dealerships in the area and consolidated them along with their Oldsmobile dealership into the one Cadillac store.

“In the space of about 30 days, we had to make a decision on how to store the parts, whether to add warehouse space or use a remote storage site,” said Murray Arbuckle, Sewell Village Parts Manager. Presently, the dealership stocks approximately 12,000 part numbers.

Sewell management decided on the installation of three vertical storage and retrieval systems — two vertical carousels and a Shuttle™ Vertical Lift Module (VLM) These units store some 5,200 of the 12,000 part numbers, (43 percent) and have replaced 150 sections of bin shelving.

All three units are 13.5 feet high and replaced standard bin shelving that was 7 feet high, 36 inches wide and 12 inches deep. The two double-tiered vertical carousels hold items such as boxed engine parts, mirrors and trim, suspension parts, and other small parts. The vertical storage and retrieval units made it possible for Sewell Village to recover some 2,000 square feet of floorspace.

“These units allow us to store more parts in less space,” Arbuckle said. “The recovered floorspace was converted to office and work area.”

Smart Retrieval Makes The Difference
The vertical storage and retrieval units are operated by FastPic Systems Inventory Management Software designed to interface with ADP system software. A special software utility allows ADP software to communicate directly with FastPic software . The result of this “smart retrieval” method is that order picking time has been significantly reduced at Sewell Village, even with the addition of parts from the other dealerships.

“We now have the ability to upload information so we can literally check balances between the KardexRemstar inventory and the ADP inventory,” Arbuckle said. “That’s something we couldn’t do easily before with our manual storage and retrieval system.”

Sewell Village operates a fully electronic repair order system. Each service technician orders parts from a computer terminal located in his service stall in the repair area. This electronic R.O. (repair order) is transmitted to the parts department where it is processed. The ADP system then prints a pick ticket and transfers order information to FastPic software. The parts are then automatically delivered to an ergonomically positioned pick window based on speed and FIFO (first in - first out) locations.

The operator is directed to the proper picking location via Pick Light for quick, accurate retrieval.

“FastPic software has made it possible to deviate from many traditional storage philosophies. For example, we no longer store parts in dedicated locations or need to utilize group numbers. Parts stored in the KardexRemstar vertical storage system are stored randomly and may be in multiple locations,” says Arbuckle.

The software automatically activates the storage units, selects the optimal pick sequence, and starts the parts retrieval operation immediately. When the order picker arrives at the vertical carousels and the Shuttle VLM, just a short walk away, the first pick is waiting to be removed from the system.

“My biggest concern when we decided on the KardexRemstar vertical storage system, was the retrieval speed.” said Arbuckle. “I was afraid people would be lined up waiting for parts at the machine — a fear that was put to rest the first week. In actuality, the opposite has been true. The part is typically waiting at the machine to be pulled by the operator.”

Reducing Picking Time Improves Efficiency
One of the primary reasons for considering a vertical carousel is the improved space utilization it offers, and that was the case at Sewell Village Cadillac. Depending on useable building interior heights, up to 75 percent of a conventional storage system’s occupied floor space can be recovered. The small unit foot print makes vertical carousels especially valuable for point-of-use storage applications such as parts counters in automotive dealerships. Improved space utilization can extend the useful life of existing facilities, eliminating the need for expensive brick and mortar expansion to meet growth requirements.

But another benefit, one that became apparent to Sewell management after the installation, was the saving in picking time compared with traditional storage systems.

Conventional static storage systems like shelving, require order pickers to spend much of their time traveling aisles searching for items. Vertical carousels allow quick access to goods via a system of rotating carrier shelves that bring the exact pick/store position to the operator. Typical retrieval productivity can increase by more than 2.5 times. The access area of vertical carousels is ergonomically designed to present stored items at an ideal height for picking, usually about 39 inches. This location of the access area contributes to employee safety and improved throughput when compared with the bending and climbing associated with conventional shelving and mezzanines.

“We felt the gain in floorspace was worth the investment, but we’re finding that we’re saving personnel time and expense as well. If we had continued using the old storage system with this large influx of parts, we would have needed one or two additional counter people to pick parts. If we had a remote facility we would have needed a runner,” Arbuckle said.

Sewell Village has effectively been able to increase its business volume without additional support personnel.

The KardexRemstar systems have helped reduce mispicks as well. In the old system, a bin could hold 30, 40, or even 50 part numbers all of which could be similar in appearance. “It was easy to grab the wrong part number,” Arbuckle said. “With the new system, each tote holds only four or five part numbers none of which are associated or similar.”

Arbuckle said that Sewell Village is looking forward to expanding the capabilities of the system with perhaps the addition of another vertical carousel and the expansion of the inventory management software to include the part numbers stored on shelving.

We believe we can continue to optimize storage using these systems,” he said. “The KardexRemstar vertical storage system linked to a dealer’s in-house software system will have dramatic effects on our industry for years to come.”