Preferred Freezer Services' new 170,000-square-foot warehouse. In Elizabeth, N.J., is very cool. That may sound too cute by half. After all, it's a freezer warehouse: It's more than cool. It's downright bone chilling. But the design, which Preferred Freezer Services (PFS) calls their Generation III warehouse, is also an excellent, and very cool, example of what automated materials handling can offer in the right environment. It's not quite a lights-out facility, but it is close. PFS, a third-party logistics provider (3PL), operates the facility with a total of just 30 associates in a 30,000-square-foot area set aside for receiving, palletizing and shipping. The remaining 140,000 square feet is dedicated to freezer storage. In that area, a 72-foot-high automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) manages all of the putaway and order fulfillment processes in the dark. It truly is lights-out automation.
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