Background
A large food retailer with a national footprint was in pursuit to increase their unloading case rate
in order to lower the cost of distributing goods to market. Like numerous other distribution centers
(DC) across North America, their inbound docks used two-person teams to manually handle food
product in boxes, bags and poly-wrapped packages onto pallets for transfer to warehouse shelves by
forklift. The company had a mix of 3rd party lumpers and their own team members, depending on the
location of the DC.
The Solution
The retailer had a culture of pursuing continuous improvements throughout their network. Through
industry connections, the company’s supply chain management executive heard about the Destuff-it™.
The management team was interested in a pilot project using the Destuff-it.
Below is the data comparison of unloading before the pilot project and during. The project revealed an ROI of less than nine months based on a new case rate in excess of 1,000 cases per hour.
| |
Conventional Unload Method |
Unloading with the Destuff-it™ |
| Average Number of Workers |
2.7 |
3.7 |
| Average Number of Man Hours |
11.1 |
4.8 |
| Average Number of Cases PEr Hour |
677 |
1,540 |