Information and Tips
Material Handling White Papers

 

TriFactor shares some thoughts on how to help reduce costs, increase capacity and improve the accuracy of your distribution facility.

Ways to Improve Material Handling Efficiency

 
Critical Factors when Choosing an Order Picking System

 

Planning a Warehouse or Distribution Center

 

Choosing a Conveyor System

 

Other Material Handling White Papers

TriFactor Articles

Articles in trade publications that Feature our Client Partners projects, TriFactor and articles written by TriFactor's staff. 

 

How to Effectively Slot your Warehouse/DC By TriFactor's Paul Hansen and Kelvin Gibson and featured in The National Provisioner

 

Top Ten Most Costly Conveyor Maintenance Mistakes by TriFactor's Tom Betts and featured in Food Manufacturing

 

More Articles

Advanced Handling Systems (AHS) Changes Its Name

Advanced Handling Systems has changed its name to Trifactor.  Learn more about the meaning of TriFactor.

Hear from our President

 

Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association

Horizontal Carousels

A horizontal carousel is a technology that supports part-to-picker order fulfillment method.  Horizontal carousels are storage bins that rotate horizontally on a track driven by an electric motor.  The order picker stays stationary at the end of the system while the horizontal carousel rotates the bins to present the appropriate one to the order picker.  Once a item is picked from the bin, the order picker releases the carousel to rotate the bins for the next pick. 

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

Customer comments about their experience in working with TriFactor
ROI Focus
ROI Focus TriFactors Material Handling Newsletter

 

Sign up to recieve the ROI Focus Newsletter, news and information on the subjects that are important to you.  we have posted our latest edition of our newsletter for your reading pleasure.

 

Read the latest ROI Focus Newsletter

 

Sign Up to start receiving your ROI Focus