Pallet Storage and Picking Optimization Lecture Transcript

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with that? Nope. When would you ever use that? The pretty unique application. The space is expensive relative to everything else, and I've got bar stock, sheet metal, plywood, that kind of thing to work with. The next thing I can do, somebody came along and invented a turret truck and it only needs an aisle that's four to six feet wide because in front of it, the forks are on a turret. The vehicle itself doesn't have to turn. The forks turn left and right, and now I'm in an aisle four to five feet wide and I'm up seven or eight levels high. So the storage density is outstanding. The problem is the cost of the vehicle because that little puppy right there could cost 60 to $80,000. Could be even more than that. That's a turret truck and they're a swing mast and swing fork turret trucks. We're getting close here. It's a good thing, right? This is an automated storage retrieval system. So what is unique here? What's different in this picture as compared to any other vehicle we've looked at? (40:41): Nobody there. It is like a robot. That could be 40, 50. I've seen them a hundred feet tall in an aisle that could be 40, 50 or 300 feet long. How wide is the aisle? Just as wide as the pallet because the way it works, this is called a shuttle table right here. It runs up and down this mast at the same time. The mast is traveling horizontally up and down the aisle. So you've got simultaneous, horizontal and vertical travel. When I get to a location, the shuttle table comes up, puts a pallet in, comes down, and comes out. What's the advantage here? So what? It's storage density. I'm up 60, 70, 80 could be a hundred feet. The aisle's only a few feet wide. Storage density is great. How about labor? (41:42): There's no labor. What's the problem? The cost of the equipment. That little aisle right there could be 500,000 to a million dollars. So it's the same thing. Equipment, occupancy and labor. It's in that trade-off. Who would use this? We've started working with Hallmark cards in Kansas City. They put one of the very first of these systems in. Now I'm not sure it is the best justification in the whole world, but they put one in Japan. There are thousands of these systems because the space is so expensive. That's the dominant factor there. You see these more in Europe. Another big problem is flexibility. Suppose you're picking profile changes. What do you do? We have a client right now, they have a system like this just north of Atlanta and the whole profile has changed from pallet in, pallet out to pallets in cases out, and the retrofit is going to be a few million dollars to make that happen. So the flexibility is not very good. When I was a PhD student over here, we had a big material handling lab and Eaton Kenway gave us one of these things. I used to have to fix these things. That's why I don't like 'em. I think they've gotten a lot better today, but at least here in the states it's hard to find the justification form, but it's increasing. It's easier today than it used to be. (43:08): There are all types of configurations for these. See if you can find out what's unique on the picture on the right. This in Chiba. What's unique in the picture? This is a tough one and I had a

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