With more than 400 brands of beer and other beverages flowing through its two distribution centers, Thies Distributing was having trouble with efficiency.rnThe Florida-based company discovered its two DCs were dated and could no longer handle the volume of product the company needed to ship out to stay competitive. The company decided to build a new DC in Stuart, FL, to solve that problem. Itrnwanted a newer, larger, and more automated facility to increase pick and replenishment efficiency, reduce breakage, and improve employee safety.rnThies worked with material handling systems integrator TriFactor to achieve those goals in the new facility. TriFactor started by doing a needs analysis, and determined that much of the efficiency problem in Thies's two existing facilities was caused by picking floor-stacked product, as opposed to storing and picking product from a pick module. As employees walked, they would pick cases of product and build loads on pallet jacks. Then, they would manually stretch-wrap the load in preparation for shipment.
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