Laurie Banks

Customer demand has driven Ecommerce and Fulfillment Industries to offer 24/7 delivery with few to no mistakes. And without 24/7 technical help, equipment failures often result in disappointed customers and lost income. Here’s how a preventative maintenance plan helped Spreetail, an Ecommerce Acceleration company A year ago, this ecommerce company experienced frequent operational disruptions, resulting in 9 emergency service calls. With average technician time exceeding 2.5 hours per incident (including travel), total downtime approached 24 hours across the year. Estimated revenue losses were over $100,000, and even more when considering customer dissatisfaction. Now, with a Preventative Maintenance program in place, they’ve experienced 0 downtime, 0 emergency calls, and a look-forward strategy that identifies problems before they happen. Ray Goins, Director of Engineering & Facilities at Spreetail, appreciates the customized program, saying “Systems in Motion was the first company to think outside the box and support us the way we needed, with a unique and tailored program.” Ray elaborates, “Two things stand out with Systems in Motion. They came to the table to listen to us, to hear our concerns and work with us to deliver what we needed, not a packaged program. And they are extremely accessible. It feels like they care as much about our business as we do, and it’s obvious they want us to succeed.” What did Systems in Motion deliver? A Strategic Partner Approach: Expert-level audits to catch failures before they escalate Custom dashboards for operational decision-making Preventative protocols to increase uptime and reduce total cost of ownership What is preventive maintenance?A unique check-in and check-up program designed for each customer. For our ecommerce client that meant: 1. Understanding their equipment’s real lifecycle – when and where failures could happen – and scheduling repairs and/or replacements before failure. Experts who provide: a. Visual inspectionsb. Wear component replacementc. Sensor calibrationd. Debris removale. Functional testing of motors, belts, rollers, and air systems 2. Creating an annual maintenance budget – not an unknown repair bill 3. A strategic partner that provides timely data-driven maintenance forecasting: a. Emergency service history and trendsb. Preventative maintenance logsc. Labor tracking and service hoursd. Parts usage and inventory demand forecasting These insights helped company leadership justify an investment in maintenance and visualize ROI in real time.

A niche product distributor faced an increasing product return rate. They needed to decrease processing time per unit, while optimizing labor utilization. Tasked with accelerating returns and multiple store replenishments – their old system could not keep up. This resulted in an increased time for shippable and saleable returns. Systems in Motion delivered an automation solution with both increased throughput, and labor efficiency. Challenge: They needed to significantly improve the returns throughput, Also optimize their returns operations, With limited space to expand. Required more product destinations, and a process which allowed for continuous induction. Goal: Sort returned items and transfer them to pickable locations within the same day as received. Current Process:  The original solution was a manually fed conveyor system which had 82 destinations for sorting.  Operators would manually sort to 1 of the 82 destinations. When a single item was allocated to a destination, no other SKUs could be assigned to this location.  With a limit of 82 destinations and over 500 SKUs in a return lot, they had multiple waves. Some of the waves had the same SKU’s with only 1 or 2 items. The number of destinations was the limiting factor in optimizing the returns process. Original manual fed Conveyor System Recommendation: We recommended the OPEX Sure Sort® automated sortation system to: Expand storage destinations to 268 unique locations. One manual induction zone. Make use of Vertical Space due to limited floor space. WCS interface to assign SKUs to appropriate sort locations via their WMS. The OPEX Sure Sort® system operated with Systems in Motion’s KOZ Automation software New Process: KOZ Automation software received bulk inventory lists from the customer’s WMS (Warehouse Management System) WMS/KOZ pre-assigned quantities and product sizes to the appropriately sized bin. This optimized the number of destinations. KOZ was also able to let operators know when the destination was full.  Sweep operators would remove the totes and replace with empty totes to allow additional SKUs to be assigned to these destinations – all while the induction operation continued. Full totes were assigned to the correct location in the warehouse and then conveyed to locations for automated replenishment. Product was available to pick within a few hours of receiving.  Results: Maximize Destinations – The final OPEX Sure Sort® design quadrupled the operable size to 268 destinations. High Throughput – the system now processes up to 2400 units per hour (UPH). Improved Utilization – from dock to pickable unit in less than 8 hours. Systems in Motion is committed to provide innovative solutions which meet your needs. The OPEX Sure Sort® system is just one example of how we help businesses optimize their operations and achieve their goals. If you’re looking to enhance your operational processes, contact us today to learn more. Contact us at www.systemsinmotion.com for your custom solution. Or call 800-687-9091.