Automated Wine & Spirit Distribution - Wirtz Beverage of Illinois HD

As the wine and spirits industry consolidates around fewer and larger distributors, leading players are looking to automation to transform their businesses. An industry that was once characterized by lift trucks, floor storage and manual palletizing is embracing high-speed conveyor and sortation systems, voice-directed picking, and a warehouse management system that can deliver cartons in the right sequence for delivery stops. In suburban Chicago, Wirtz Beverage Illinois is taking that formula to the next level of automation. A family-owned, multistate distributor with 2,500 employees and revenues of $1.8 billion, Wirtz Beverage worked with a systems integrator W&H Systems, to consolidate operations from three facilities into one new 555,500-square-foot distribution center near Midway Airport in Cicero. In addition to the above technologies, the facility is one of the first in the industry to feature an automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) Operating in a 42-foot high area with 22,470 pallet positions, the AS/RS stores and replenishes the 780 fastest-moving SKUs. In all, there are 1.3 million cases stored in just 110,000 square feet. These products represent nearly 75% of the case needs from the facility. The AS/RS is serviced by three tandem cranes, each of which is capable of handling two pallets at a time and a total of 200 pallet moves per hour. Pallets are stored 10 pallets deep. The cranes also replenish eight fully integrated pick-to-belt modules within the AS/RS.