WIX Filters Installs Automated Shuttle Storage, Picking System At Head DC

The new system is an expandable, two-aisle Stingray Shuttle System that uses robotic shuttles to pick products and fulfill orders for WIX’s automotive, agricultural, industrial, and specialty filter customers.

WIX Filters, a global manufacturer of filtration products, has implemented a “goods-to-person” picking strategy for its master distribution center (MDC) in Gastonia, N.C., based on a newly installed automated shuttle storage and picking system. 

The new system is an expandable, two-aisle Stingray Shuttle System that uses robotic shuttles to pick products and fulfill orders for WIX’s automotive, agricultural, industrial and specialty filter customers. TGW Logistics Group, a global supplier of dynamic automated logistics solutions for warehousing, production, order picking and distribution, installed the system last summer.

A warehouse management system (WMS) controls the movement and storage of inventory at WIX’s master distribution center. Once the WMS determines an order has been placed for a quantity less than a case, it releases the order to the Stingray shuttle and picking system for fulfillment.

The system includes two aisles of Stingray shuttles with Twister load handlers storing nearly 18,000 cartons and totes. In addition to the new shuttle system, WIX also installed an automated conveyor sortation system that connects the shuttle system to four ergonomically designed picking work stations that includes replenishment and pack stations.

Greg Dillman, Senior Vice President for North American Operations for Affinia Group Inc., the parent company for WIX, said, “the new system is part of a global strategy to increase WIX’s product offerings.”

The automated storage and retrieval system increases warehouse efficiency by reducing or eliminating manual warehouse operations, which enhances labor productivity, improves worker and product safety, and achieves high inventory and order accuracy. Since installation, WIX has tripled productivity efficiency, optimized space utilization in the packaging of parts and improved customer satisfaction on order-fill efficiency.

 

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