New Zealand-based Foodstuffs South Island Limited (FSSI) has been recognised for improving its supply chain and establishing a new 46,000m2 ambient distribution centre (DC) in Christchurch.
The company received the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport’s (CILT) Supply Chain Innovation Award at CILT’s forum day and awards event in Auckland last month.
FSSI’s logistics operations manager Kris Lancaster said the business's supply chain became fragmented as it grew.
Prior to the construction of the new ambient DC, FSSI was operating three DCs in the South Island: its original DC in Christchurch at Papanui, which was more than 40 years old; a second DC in Dunedin; and a 13,000m2 DC at Hornby in Christchurch.
The new ambient DC in Christchurch covers nearly three times the area of the previous DC at Hornby, and has enabled the business to increase centralised distribution to its South Island stores.
“All three of our South Island DCs were manual operations and a key priority for our new DC was to introduce automation for our high volume split case items and small bulk picking requirements, which typically account for around 25 per cent of our total order volume,” said Lancaster.
Design initiatives included minimising the site footprint to reduce travel time between picks, optimising systems flexibility to enable the efficient handling of various SKUs and order types, and implementing integrated order fulfilment systems (OFS) to increase productivity, improve accuracy and raise service levels.
Features of the DC’s integrated logistics systems, which were supplied by Sydney-based supply chain solutions company Dematic, include:
• A seismic-designed ColbyRACK pallet racking system with the capacity to house more than 43,000 pallets to a height of 10.7m
• A two-level split case and small bulk zone picking module with zone-skipping conveyors
• RF and voice-directed picking systems
• Dematic IQ order fulfilment software.
The ambient DC, which is staffed by a team of around 400, distributes an average of 450,000 cases (8500 pallets) per week, with the site’s temperature-controlled DC distributing a further 200,000+ cases (5000 pallets) each week. The DC has been designed to accommodate growth for several years, and provides FSSI with the ability to distribute more than one million cases per week during peak periods.
The Foodstuffs team receive their supply chain innovation award.
