Warehouse operators must make trade-offs to optimally pick, group, sequence and stack items on one or more pallets at a time. Lucas Systems Inc. today announced its Dynamic Pallet Builder, which offers an automated way for them to more efficiently build pallets tailored to specific warehouse needs.
“Smarter pallet building also means smarter picking,” said Ken Ramoutar, chief marketing officer of Lucas Systems. “Building better pallets can have a significant impact on reducing damage, minimizing worker travel, reducing transportation mileage, and improving productivity.”
Wexford, Pa.-based Lucas Systems said it uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, speech recognition, and optimization models to drive operational agility and improve distribution center performance. In January, the company updated its Dynamic Work Optimization (DWO) software.
Dynamic Pallet Builder constantly optimizes
The Dynamic Pallet Builder sifts through numerous requirements and data points from across warehouse and distribution center operations. The software makes thousands of calculations per minute to determine the best trade-offs for desired performance, explained Lucas Systems.
Pallet-building recommendations consider a wide variety of variables including product size, weight, stacking rules, shipping regulations, worker travel distance, safety, route order, order priorities, and more.
“It’s constantly and dynamically optimizing throughout the day,” said Ramoutar.
Lucas Systems said Dynamic Pallet Builder integrates with a wide variety of warehouse management systems (WMS). It also claimed that the product is highly configurable, aligning with a company’s specific operations and priorities.
In addition, the software dynamically recomputes optimal pallet builds in response to orders continually flowing into the warehouse, Lucas Systems asserted.
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Lucas Systems connects picking to productivity, agility
Dynamic Pallet Builder can help warehouse operators stay as responsive as possible, which leads not only to smarter-built pallets but also to overall productivity gains and reduced damage, according to Lucas Systems.
“Warehouse agility is paramount for today’s complex logistics environments,” said the company, which has has invested in technologies such as Dynamic Slotting and DWO over the past year.
With decades of experience with voice-directed picking, Lucas Systems said its Dynamic Pallet Builder is “transformative due to its connection to picking operations.”
For instance, Lucas Systems customer Veritable Vegetable uses Dynamic Pallet Builder to better optimize its delivery routes. The San Francisco-based organic produce distribution company uses a two-part, voice-directed picking process to split its pallets. In doing so, its pallet-building logic is tailored to precisely match its trucks and delivery operations.
“This personalized approach provides optimal efficiencies for us, and it also gives our customers more flexibility when placing orders. Both are extremely important,” said Mary Jane Evans, owner and CEO of Veritable Vegetable.
