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"LIFE IN THE FAST LANE"
Headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois, Spiegel Catalog Inc. is one of the country's largest catalog companies. The firm also sells selected merchandise through a national network of outlet stores. Based in Seattle, Eddie Bauer Inc. is a subsidiary of Spiegel Inc., specializing in private label clothing and accessories, as well as home furnishings. Likewise, Spiegel Catalog is a subsidiary of Spiegel Inc. To better handle continuing growth, Spiegel Inc. created a new company called Distribution Fulfillment Services (DFS). In addition to the capacious building in Columbus, DFS also operates a newly built distribution center in Groveport Ohio, which handles catalog sales fulfillment for Spiegel Catalog and Eddie Bauer. The Columbus facility, in addition to supplying the retail and outlet stores, ships certain merchandise--usually larger items, such as microwaves and furniture--to catalog customers. The Columbus distribution center employs approximately 800 people, adding another 400 workers during the peak season of October through December. Currently, the facility operates two shifts a day, five days a week. It handles roughly 11,000 SKUs for catalog-sale fulfillment. Orders are funneled into the center electronically from the host mainframe, located in suburban Chicago. As many as 480,000 units a day will depart the facility. To handle that kind of volume, DFS relies on a powerful data management system that controls the 24 miles of high-speed conveyors at its Columbus facility. Managed by a highly intelligent and interactive data management network, the conveyor system hustles cartons along at 290 feet per minute, supplying all departments in the facility with the smart use of real-time data. This it is able to do through the use of barcode "license plates" and a network of stationary and handheld barcode readers that tell the system precisely where every carton is at all times. Chosen to develop the new distribution control system was ScanData Systems of Dublin Ohio, a firm that specializes in distribution management systems. Two Compaq ProLiant 4500R computers, linked with the offsite host, serve as the heart of the conveyor control system. Each machine has been enhanced to triple processor level, with 256 MB of RAM and a 16 GB hard drive. One Compaq functions as the production server, controlling the sortation, shipping, and routing. The second unit, acting as a communication server, takes data from the mainframe and feeds it into the facility's database. Software for the Windows NT-based system includes ScanData's Distribution Control System (DCS) and Microsoft's SQL Server 6.5. In addition to the ProLiant machines, the distribution center uses Compaq Deskpro systems to communicate with scanners and local databases to direct the activities of automatic sorters located along the conveyors. There are six high-speed sorters, the fastest of which runs at a rate of 110 boxes per minute, which means that the data management system is making roughly ten routing decisions every second of every minute of every shift. Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) from Allen Bradley Co. direct the shipping and conveying systems. When a box runs past a fixed-station bar code reader, data from that read is sent to the PLC, which relays the information to one of the Compaq desktop systems. The Deskpro submits the barcoded data to the database for instructions as to what to do with the box. The database replies to the Deskpro, which sends the message back to the sorter, diverting the box to the proper exit. Primary data resides on the host mainframe in suburban Chicago. However, the action is driven by the local systems. For instance, the host might transmit a batch of purchase orders to the Columbus system along with some shipping priorities, and the local system will figure out what to do with them. "It's a great example of hierarchical processes," explained John Dalton, president of ScanData systems. "The host migrates to an aggregate level of that process while the detail level of that process is controlled by the localized processor which is a Windows NT server-based system." Local managers, using set-up tables and other critical information, can change routes daily, hourly, or by the minute. They have a global view of all the SKUs and all the cartons that are on the inbound process all the time, so they can start making decisions as to which ones should be processed first, second, third and so on.
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