Insight

As a business driven by the need to optimise customer satisfaction, Owlett-Jaton is continually looking to invest when it sees an opportunity to improve the service it offers to its customers and make cost savings. The installation of its vertical storing storage systems are a prime example, as they support the UK wholesaler’s mission to offer customers an extensive ‘one stop shop’ for fasteners and fixings. 

Investing over GB£500,000, Owlett-Jaton has installed nine Modula vertical lift storage machines at its Staffordshire warehouse. These machines have enabled Owlett-Jaton to expand its product range; improve picking speed and accuracy; create a safer working environment; and become more cost efficient at the same time.

Each machine has over 60 trays with a weight capacity of 750kg per tray and each tray can be adapted to hold up to 50 different products. The choice of products depends on pack type, size, weight and pick frequency, with Owlett-Jaton now able to store and pick over 6,500 products in an area that previously only allowed for 450 products. This additional capacity enabled the launch of a 1,000+ strong range of rivets under the JRP brand and the consolidation of over 5,000 products from a second warehouse, bringing all picking activity under one roof and consolidating company stockholding.

Part of Owlett-Jaton’s customer offering is the ability to place orders up to 17:30 – with customers receiving delivery the next working day. With over 7,000 lines per day being picked, this creates a period of intense activity between the order cut-off and the timing of the last trailer leaving for the carrier hub at 22:00. The vertical storage systems allow for much higher picking rates to be achieved, with a good operator being able to pick over 200 lines per hour, compared to around 40 lines per hour in conventional picking. 

This additional speed is invaluable in keeping to the tight deadlines created in meeting the next day promise to customers. The vertical storage systems operate by bringing the product to the picker and have an inbuilt laser pointer system to identify which products are to be picked, thus reducing the potential for errors, particularly important at such high picking rates.

The health, safety and wellbeing of its staff is of paramount importance to Owlett-Jaton, and by installing the Modula machines a number of health and safety benefits were also realised. The first was that picking from the machines is done at waist height, with the product being brought to the operator. This eliminates the need for much of the bending and stretching, which was needed previously. Given the heavy weight of many fastener products, this reduces the risk of strains and other injuries in the workplace. 

A second major benefit was realised as the vertical storage systems have enabled the creation of a large pedestrian only, vehicle-free zone in the warehouse, reducing the risk of staff being hit and hurt by one of the forklift trucks or order picking machines. The machine picking also provides another different job in the warehouse and facilitates the rotation of staff between roles, lessening the risk of repetitive strain injuries.

Financially the Modula machines have also proven to be a sound investment. The higher picking rates achieved have enabled a reduction in headcount, which, even after all maintenance costs were factored in, enabled the machines to pay for themselves in under three years.

Replenishment of the Modula machines is done during the night shift via system generated replenishments at a time when there is no scheduled picking of customer orders. The team replenish the machines with approximately five days’ worth of stock. The mix of products in the machines is kept under constant review – with the aim to optimise the right balance between exploiting the picking rates that can be achieved, and the amount of stock that needs to be held to ensure stock is always available to pick. The sheer volume of some of the faster moving lines keeps them in pallet-based picking locations, as keeping them stocked in the Modula machines would prove a challenge. 

Owlett-Jaton’s entire warehouse has changed many times over the last 75 years. Modern warehouses with narrow aisle multi-level pallet racking are increasingly becoming the norm, but the addition of modern picking automation is groundbreaking in the UK fastener and fixing wholesale industry – with Owlett-Jaton planning additional vertical storage systems in the future.