Value Vision Fulfillment Center relies on state-of-the-art conveyor system to accurately fill online orders within 24 hours.

The ValueVision Fulfillment Center in Bowling Green, KY is dedicated to ensuring that the consumer’s direct shopping experience for Polo.com and other products is a positive one. The center was designed so that product can move smoothly, efficiently, and quickly. In fact, ValueVision’s firm commitment is to fill, check, and ship orders to the customer within 24 hours of receipt.

The Bowling Green center fulfills online and telephone orders for Polo.com apparel and accessories, as well as for NBC.com and ShopNBC.com. Opened in November 2000, the center incorporates the latest in scanning, control, and Warehouse Management Systems (WMS). The link that holds it all together is a conveyor system from Hytrol. That integrated system incorporates two types of sorters, gravity lines, a trash takeaway unit, and more than 6,500 feet of powered conveyor. Systems integrator and Hytrol distributor Hy-Tek Material Handling, Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, worked closely with ValueVision in the system’s design and installation. The goal was to create an order-fulfillment operation that could hit the ground running—with no problems or downtime and high productivity. The state-of-the-art Bowling Green order fulfillment center has achieved all of those objectives and more.

Efficiency In and Out

The system is designed for maximum efficiency—both inbound and outbound. Incoming merchandise is taken off the trucks and placed on extendible conveyors that connect with a powered takeaway Hytrol unit. That segment leads to an incline belt conveyor that elevates the incoming products to the mezzanine level where they are scanned for putaway.

The incoming merchandise is conveyed to a SC sorter. This belt-driven sortation system from Hytrol swiftly diverts the incoming products down one of three lines based on putaway destination: (1) the main pick modules, where merchandise goes for immediate replenishment; (2) a reserve stocking area, where full case loads are stored for later replenishment; and (3) a quality assurance area, where a percentage of all incoming orders is sent to assure that merchandise meets Polo’s high quality standards. The process is just as streamlined on the outbound side. The main picking operations take place in two 2-level pick modules, each of which is more than 300 feet in length. Orders are picked out of flow racks and placed into totes resting on gravity lines on either side of a powered takeaway unit. After the picks on the first level are completed, the totes move on incline conveyor up to the second level of the module for any additional picks.

Completed orders exit the picking module on a single line and are conveyed the length of the fulfillment center. As they approach the end of the building, they are diverted onto one of four lanes by a SC belt sorter and then consolidated onto a single line by a 4:1 sawtooth merge.

A zero-pressure accumulating conveyor with Hytrol’s unique EZ Logic feature then controls the release of the totes as they move through a Pro-Sort sortation system and toward a tilt-tray sorter. At this point, the orders are manually sorted by order type—single, multi, or gift-wrapped—and then placed into individual packing chutes.

After the packing and inspection operations are done, the orders from the different packing areas are placed on takeaway conveyor and transported on belt incline back up to the tilt-tray sorter from Mantissa Corp. There they are inducted down a series of shipping lanes according to the shipping method selected by the customer. The main shipping options are FedEx or U.S. Postal service.

Reliable from the Start

The streamlined operation is helping ValueVision meet its strict service commitment to customers. “The conveyor system has been performing reliably from the very beginning,” says Howard Fox, senior vice president of operations/customer service at ValueVision. “We’ve stayed on our maintenance program and have had a very good experience with it so far.”

The Bowling Green Fulfillment Center

Inbound merchandise moves onto a powered takeaway line and is elevated by belt conveyor to the mezzanine level. The goods then travel to a SC belt sorter where they are diverted down one of three lanes based on putaway destination. From the main pick modules, orders are picked into totes and conveyed through a belt sorter and to a 4:1 sawtooth merge. They are manually inducted into a tilt-tray sorter and sent to the packing area. After packing and inspection, the orders move on takeaway conveyor back through the sorter and down the appropriate shipping lane.

A Snapshot of the Operation

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