Micro-Fulfillment Solutions

Micro-fulfillment has become the latest trend in retail distribution because of increasing consumer desires to shorten delivery times. In light of COVID-19, demand for this type of quick order fulfillment and curbside pick-up has grown even more rapidly.  

The development of small footprint micro-fulfillment solutions utilizing backroom storage areas in brick and mortar stores is allowing retailers to optimize their buy online and pick up in-store (BOPIS) operations.

Pacline offers brick and mortar grocers and retailers who are interested in micro-fulfillment solutions a cost-effective system that can be easily implemented in a timely manner without much modification to their existing store required. Pacline offers varying degrees of automation using overhead conveyors and automated storage and retrieval devices (ASRS).

Pacline Offers Various Levels of Micro-Fulfillment Solutions:

• Basic Pacline Overhead conveyor acts as a transporter of goods/orders. An employee would place an order on the conveyor at the picking location and the conveyor would then carry the order to the unload/discharge area. The conveyor would automatically stop at the unload point, where another employee removes the order.
  
  
• The Retriever™ by Pacline is used with manual location entry to control the overhead conveyor to transport the goods/orders AND provide temporary overhead storage. An employee loads the order onto the conveyor and enters the conveyor carrier location code into their database.  Additional orders are also loaded onto available conveyor carrier locations. At the unload/discharge area, an employee can look up the conveyor location code and enter it into The Retriever™. The Retriever™ moves the conveyor to deliver the order to the unload point.  In this situation, the overhead conveyor acts as a limited storage carousel.
  
  
• The customer computer system (Point of Sale (POS), Warehouse Management System (WMS), etc.) remotely controls The Retriever™.  In this integrated system, the employees use the customer computer interface to look up an order, and the customer database monitors order locations on the conveyor. The customer can have their own human-machine interface (HMI) at both the load and unload locations.  

Benefits of In-Store Order Fulfillment Systems from Pacline

• Low cost alternative to other types of micro-fulfillment systems  
• Easy bolt together construction utilizing the PAC-LINE™ overhead conveyor
  
• Turnkey systems including installation