Chilled Distribution Centres

I was lucky enough today to be taken on a tour of a chilled and frozen distribution centre. I've worked in retail for more than 15 years and been on a few DC tours in my time, but I was particularly excited at the prospect of this tour, as it was my first trip round a chilled DC.

Depots really are amazing places. I was particularly pleased to see pick by line in operation, since traditional warehousing usually involves pick by store, which I've seen a number of times. Pick by line works by taking a cage of a single product, and delivering it to the cages of a large number of stores. This type of picking is used in DC's that don't have any racking and where the goods that come in, go out the same day.

The technology has moved on a bit since my last trip too. Of course the picking is paperless, I expected that, but gone are the arm-mounted terminals, it's all done via voice activated headsets.

Voice picking, reponds to the instructions given by the picker and delivers the instructions to him/her. Working down a line of store cages, the picker speaks the name/number of the store and is told the number of units to pick for that store. It attaches quite nicely the hard hat baseball cap which is another nice touch.

This particular depot also had a large frozen section. Operating at about -25C, warm clothing is a must. The guys who work in here 8 hours per day are all clad in salopettes, big jackets, hats, scarves, gloves etc. This section is like a traditional ambient depot except for the temperature. Standard procedures of goods in, put away, letdown and pick by store take place.

A fascinating experience...