ITS overhead conveyors sharply improve Tesco's garment handling efficiency

A computerised, overhead conveyor from ITS helps Tesco pick and despatch hanging garments much more efficiently than before at its new Milton Keynes national distribution centre.

By any standards, Tesco's Milton Keynes centre is impressive. Costing £47m, the 171 000 square meter covered site supplies all Tesco's outlets with non-food items, virtually just in time. Its 12-mt high racking has 30,000 pallets places and there is a £10m automated tote sorter for handling 600,000 cases a week. The centre's total weekly case handling capacity is 2.5 million.

Phenomenal growth in non food sales stressed the need for a new national distribution centre, which was meant to replace all non food regional distribution centres, including one nearby at Milton Keynes. Non food sales have grown so fast, however, that the old Milton Keynes centre remains operating. It was here that Tesco first used ITS in 1982 by installing an overhead garment conveyor, the capacity of which was exceeded three years ago.

In considering all the options for handling garments, Tesco looked at contracting out "but that did not appear cost effective," explained Tesco's senior projects manager, Peter McGinley.

Tesco chose the ITS system from among three contenders partly because "they had a running start, having operated their old system for 16 years with very few problems," said McGinley. Price, system simplicity and its UK presence also favoured ITS.

The ITS system relies on a unique, almost silent, rotating tube, which is very clean and cost effective. "We considered chain-driven power and free systems," commented McGinley, "but found that they tended to be less space efficient in terms of what we were trying to achieve. We also felt that from a technical point of view they had some disadvantages and we were told that they would have to be replaced every 10 years." Maintenance issues also favour the ITS system. "Maintenance of the old ITS system was extremely easy and for 10 years it needed very little.

What makes the ITS system different from its predecessor nearby is the overhead trolley guidance, which is controlled by a simple, windows-based PC system, barcode scanning and radio data terminals (RDTs).

ITS has supplied 1,800 overhead trolleys but the system can hold 3,320. This means it can store 800,000 garments, nearly three times the nearby store, and process up to 500,000 garments a week. The trolleys move about 19,500 garments/hr under barcode scanning guidance at key positions. This minimises the wasted walking time. Typical picking operations can waste 50% of a picker's time.

System robustness is critical for Tesco since all of its handling garments business depends on the ITS conveyors. "This is one of the reasons we went for what we see as a relatively robust and simple system," commented McGinley. "It's the functional, mechanical and software simplicity which attracted us to it." Built on time and within the £2.2m budget, the investments is "achieving a stability and reliability that we expect, which is the main reason we chose ITS in the first place," said McGinley.