Some of the benefits of a horizontal carousel include:
- Increase throughput - Since the horizontal carousel is presenting the part to the picker, travel time is minimized compared to picking from shelves or selective rack. Additionally, when operated in pairs, waiting time is significantly reduced. Finally, when utilizing a pick-to-light bar on the pick faces of the bins, an even higher picking rate can be attained.
- Reduced floor space - Since the footprint that the carousels consume in the warehouse is highly utilzed with due to the density of storage, the floor space needed is significantly less than compared to shelving.
- Reduced labor expenses - Since one operator can pick with great efficiency and accuracy from two aisles of storage, the amount of labor is far less than needed when fulfilling from an equivalent shelving or racking storage system.
- Modular and flexible design - The units can be stacked and integrated into mezzanines to form a multilevel picking system. Additionally, most horizontal carousels can accomodate future bin additions fairly easily.
It is common for one order picker to pick from two adjacent horizontal carousels so that while one is rotating bins, the other is presenting the bin for picking thereby allowing for a significant percentage of time accomplishing productive tasks as opposed to waiting or traveling. Horizontal carousels are modular with the typical height being 10 feet tall. Since they are modular, they can be stacked on top of each other to form a multi-level order picking system that effectively uses the cubic space of the warehouse.
View a video of a horizontal carousel in operation |
