How’d they do it?
With some open minds, a little creative thinking and a mix of new and used pallet rack to save the bottom line.

Performance Food Group (PFG) is a leading foodservice provider in the US, serving over 130,000 restaurants, schools and institutions. Their growing Little Rock, AR needed help with some major capacity and material handling challenges.

Challenges:

1. Extensive rack damage – PFG Little Rock had over 3,000 pallet positions of damaged 2-deep roll-formed drive-in rack. Located in a small cooler with narrow aisles, the lower sections of the frames were bent and bashed and repeatedly repaired. PFG was concerned that the damaged system posed a risk of failure.
2. Needed pick faces – PFG faced a common foodservice distribution struggle; how to accommodate ever-increasing numbers of SKUs. This was particularly the case in their cooler category where they needed to find several additional floor-pick faces, all within the confines of their existing cooler space.

PFG turned to E-Distribution, long-term storage integration partner with over 30 successful systems projects completed throughout the PFG network.

E-Distribution Solution Saves $150k in Equipment Costs
E-Distribution proposed a used (or like-new), Frazier 2-deep push-back system to replace the existing roll-formed drive-in. Budget and durability were top priorities and this used structural rack met both requirements; structural pallet rack is far more abuse-resistant than roll-formed and very capable of withstanding extensive forklift abuse. Push-back also offered added rack safety by delivering pallets directly to the aisle face vs. drive-in which requires the forklift to drive into the rack.

Simple, Quick Fix for To Gain Pick Slots
A creative and cost-effective solution was also developed to create additional case pick locations. The floor level pallet locations were already used for case selection – we added an extra case-pick level using used structural beams and decking located just below the push-back and above the floor level. This created 6-8 additional pick faces (approximately 4-5 case deep) per bay.

To see read the full story, including details of a seamless implementation with no disruption of operations.  Download the case study here.

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