Upon the mezzanine level of Medline Industries' 600,000-square-foot distribution center in Libertyville, Ill., 47 mobile robots are in constant motion. The red bots travel back and forth across a grid, moving 27,570 plastic storage totes in and out of 37,750 storage locations. Once a pick wave is released, totes are delivered to goods-to-person workstations, where order selectors pick items to order totes. In all, the system is managing 11,000 unique SKUs-primarily items that will require some kind of value-added service before they are packed for shipment. This is the first North American implementation of the AutoStore technology, an automated goods-to-person technology first used in Europe to manage service parts distribution. Medline chose it for Libertyville-one of 42 distribution centers the distributor of medical and surgical supplies operates in North America-because it best met the unique order characteristics and volumes required at that location, which services customers in select zip codes of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan and Indiana.
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