Various technologies are united in the new distribution centre of pet retailer PETCO. These result in a reduction of the handling efforts and costs. All this happens with established TGW technologies.

The new distribution centre in Braselton, Georgia, services 237 stores in 13 states in the southeastern and southwestern United States, as well as the company’s growing dot.com business.

With the new installation PETCO’s transportation network as well as the picking procedures could be optimised to build store-ready mixed SKU totes.

Objectives & Requirements

• Handling of more than 8,300 goods
• Hourly conveying of 1,500 totes
• Full case picking modules with over 3,000 storage positions and a throughput rate of more than 5,000 totes per hour
• Application of new technologies to improve quality and efficiency

Customer benefits

• Narrow Belt Sorter: sliding shoe sorter capabilities with faster implementation time
• Energy saving automated materials handling system
• Combined DC for store replenishment and direct-to-consumer dot.com fulfilment
• WMS automatically determines required number of cartons
• State-of-the-art picking technologies for highest performance and accuracy
• Different picking methodologies to perfectly fulfil the requirements

Innovative design and TGW technologies

The 506,000 square foot Braselton distribution centre brought together an innovative design and energy saving automated materials handling equipment from TGW for efficient store replenishment in the southeastern US as well as direct-to-consumer dot.com fulfilment. The facility manages an estimated 13,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) and handles an estimated 5 million units per month.

A key component to the overall design was the NBS 30 Turbo narrow belt sorter designed to sort 120 cartons per minute with an extremely mixed product size. The sorter is 600 feet long with 18 diverts. The narrow belt sorter offers sliding shoe capabilities but with a faster implementation time and a much lower cost.