Bottle Pick Rack Packs in the Power to Release Order Picking Efficiency

Bottle pick rack is a creative warehouse storage solution that was designed by the Mallard engineers to support our beverage distribution customers. As is often the case, once we’ve designed a new gravity flow product, it’s easy to find imaginative ways to use that product to solve other warehousing challenges. Check out this interesting non-beverage application recently tested in our Engineering Testing Lab.

To the Lab…

Customer Need – Efficient picking solution for protein powder available in 3 different-sized bottles. Each-picked at a low to moderate pick volume.

Mallard solution –  Use bottle pick rack to designate individual SKUs per lane to ensure pick accuracy (keep customers happy) and swift fulfillment (keep COGS low)

Test Parameters

• 3 sizes of plastic-bottled inventory – 36 oz., 16.9 oz., 9 oz.
• 42” bottle pick rails for drop-in into standard pallet rack
• Pitch – 12” pitch over 42” span

Test Challenges

• Plastic vs glass
• Custom width rails required for lg. 32 oz. container

Here’s how the bottle pick test went down…

Results

As we expected, the plastic bottles had more drag than we’ve seen from glass products in the bottle pick troughs. Therefore, to ensure smooth flow, we set the rails at a rather sharp 12” pitch over the 42” span of the pallet rack bay. At that pitch, the bottles flowed well and consistently restarted when the pick-face bottle was discharged from the lane. To accommodate the largest, 32 oz. container, we created a custom 6” wide bottle pick trough, though most often, the 6 standard widths that we offer satisfy inventory needs.

With the accommodations of pitch and one custom width, we were able to provide a highly-efficient inventory storage option for our customer to help improve their order picking and fulfillment operation.

Bottle Pick Rack Benefits

• Individualized SKU lanes
• Bottles nestle into the rack preventing tipping
• Automatic pick-face replenishment
• Ready reserve inventory
• Ergonomic pick positioning
• Load from rear or front of rack (LIFO or FIFO)
• Drops into standard pallet racking
• 6 standard trough sizes & custom options avail.

Solving warehouse challenges & finding creative storage solutions… it’s what we do at Mallard.

See our creative thinking and extensive gravity flow product lines in action at MODEX 2020… Visit Booth #4806 for hand’s-on product demonstrations and speak one-on-one with our gravity flow experts. Call today to schedule personal appointments during the show.