Numina Group - Warehouse automation Experts
magnifying-glass
magnifying-glass
24x7 Support
Videos
Contact Us

Rainbow Resource Center Increases Order Fulfillment Efficiency by 50% While Reducing Labor by 30% With Numina Warehouse Automation

Background

Rainbow Resource Center is a leading provider of educational materials and supplies for the home school market. Founded in 1989, the company sells and distributes homeschooling educational products throughout the USA from their Toulon, IL warehouse facility.

Challenge

Steady yearly growth, compounded by a surge in the movement for home education during COVID restrictions, outstripped Rainbow Resource Center’s ability to keep up with order fulfillment expectations.

The company’s manual pack and ship processes were labor-intensive and created fulfillment bottlenecks, requiring the addition of a second shift to meet order demand.

Rainbow Resource Center hired the Numina Group to conduct a design engineering study to assess operation improvements and identify the right blend of warehouse automation technologies needed to improve order throughput.

After identifying process improvements, Numina illustrated the performance benefits gained by adding its RDS™ Warehouse Execution and Control System (WES-WCS) to interface with its ERP system to transition to create a fast, low-touch automated pick, pack, and ship operation. Additionally, Numina recommended integrating the ShipWise shipment manifesting system to RDS to automatically calculate freight charges and process shipments in a touchless process.

By bolting RDS WES-WCS onto their existing ERP, Rainbow has streamlined the fulfillment operation, reduced labor requirements, and increased order flow across the entire DC.

Benefits

  • 70% productivity increase with a new paperless pick, pack, and ship process that eliminates printing, manual handling, and sorting tasks for faster order completion.
  • Reduced labor with 8 people now able to handle pack and ship operations versus 20 to 22 people in the past. Additionally, automated shipment manifesting eliminated 3 to 4 workers at the end of the shipping line. All work is now handled in a single shift.
  • Elimination of bottlenecks with RDS-optimized order release planning. Work flows more evenly through the warehouse.
  • 99.9% pick accuracy with RDS pick-by-voice technology and hands-free barcode scanning to validate items picked and eliminate the need for secondary QC inspections.
  • Automated weigh & vision quality control to auto-capture and audit carton weight of the pick-to-carton items, and an overhead camera to auto-capture a digital image of the carton contents.
  • Real-time labor management software to provide visibility into workers’ picking and packing performance.
  • Real-time operation performance visibility. RDS tracks, timestamps, and records order movement throughout the pick, pack, and ship operations, available in real-time for customer service calls.

Automated Pick, Pack, and Ship Process

The RDS warehouse automationWES-WCS platformsoftware includes an advanced order release planning and cartonization logic software module that precisely calculates and pre-selects polybag package and carton order sizes to minimize parcel freight shipping costs. It works in combination with the RDS voice-directed picking suite to pick and pack directly to the right size shipping carton for the majoritywith the RDS voice-directed picking suite to pick and pack directly to the right-size shipping carton for most of the order volume.

Numina’s Victory Voice™ pick-by-voice system Includes a Smart Batch Cart Picking Process:

  • At order start, RDS selects and assigns 12-15 pick to carton orders based on a minimized zone-based travel path.
  • “Speed picking” is used to further optimize the cart build process by selecting a mix of right size order shipping cartons and totes.
  • Totes used for picking items/orders eligible to ship in padded envelopes across the multiple warehouse zones are consolidated at a pick-to-light order consolidation put wall.
  • Complete orders are packed and shipped using an auto-padded bag packaging line.

Prior toBefore the start of building a batch cart of orders, RDS sends exact carton size requirements for orders to the on-demand Packsize® carton erector the exact carton size required for the order content.

  1. Operators scan the order carton barcode and are directed to place the carton onto the batch- pick cart shelf position.
  2. Pickers use pick-by-voice wearable mobile computers and hands-free barcode scanners to scan a pick cart and are then directed in an optimal pick-path to each location to pick, pack, and scan- validate the order items directly into the shipping cartons or totes.
  3. A voice message and instructions are displayed on the RDS Victory Voice screen, combining barcode scanning pick-pack validation into each order-specific carton, allowing operators to work faster at a 99.98% accuracy rate. Voice has eliminated most of the secondary
  4. Orders with SKUs that are size-eligiblesize-eligible SKUs for padded bags are picked into a tote, then consolidated at athe put-to-light order consolidation wall, and packed and shipped using the auto packing and label machine.
  5. At pick completion, the batch cart cartons are unloaded onto the automated weigh, audit, pack-and-ship conveyor line, where they. Cartons are scanned and and weight- audited, and an image of their. A digital image of the carton’s internal content is captured. to assist customer service staff in resolving any order shipment disputes.
  6. After passing the weight audit,The cartons next advance  transport and auto-sort to one of the twoan in-line RDS packing workstation for automated pack sheet insertion, void fill, and sealings. The pack sheet auto-prints and the operators are directed to insert void fill, fold the flaps, and push the carton into the adjustable height taper-sealer.
  7. Cartons exit the pack stations and are transported advance for to the final scan-weigh-dimensioninger, automated  shipment manifesting, and print-and- apply labelingg system. This process eliminated 3 to 4 operators at the manual manifesting workstation.
  8. Successfully labeled cartons then transport and auto-sort to the proper carrier destination.

Summary

Rainbow Resource Center has achieved its goals of improving productivity, lowering labor costs, and enhancing its ability to serve its customers, which are, as Joel Manning stated, “the company’s most important goals for investing in warehouse automation.”

“There are calculable benefits beyond the labor cost savings. We really wanted to ensure we are servicing our customers the best we can. Goodwill and great and quick customer experience are very important to homeschooling families who expect orders to ship within 24 hours,” he said. “Having repeatable and reliable performance from the Numina automation solution created a best-in-class warehouse operation, which is very important for better serving our customers.”

Download the Full Case Study

Learn More:

Learn More

Set up a Complimentary Consultation

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Skip to content