Heavy Equipment Manufacturer Worldwide Parts Distribution Center

IPACT participated in the design and implementation of the order picking software system for the worldwide parts distribution center for a large heavy equipment manufacturer.  This distribution center featured totally automated storage and retrieval for thousands of different parts.  The order picking system was implemented in a DEC Alpha platform running OpenVMS and utilizing an Oracle database.  This system received orders from an IBM MIS system and after processing sent detailed instructions to the lower levels of automation.                                   

The SRM (Storage and Retrieval Machine) moves were optimized to minimize travel and to prioritize part placement.  Stores to the warehouse followed business rules to ensure no one SRM would prevent picking of a part.  Optimization was done for the conveyors that served the order picking stations to minimize trips to the warehouse and to provide best delivery for each picking station.

To ensure no loss of information of the pallets in the system, a simple database queuing method was used.  This provided guaranteed delivery of transactions even in the event a program or system crashed.  Upon a restart, the database would still maintain the current tracking of the pallets.

Integrated Process Automation & Control Technologies