Hornet Horizontal Carousel and Scissor Lift System Improves Ergonomics

The extra high density and ergonomic Hornet horizontal carousel and scissor lift system from Sapient Automation is a cost effective way to automate storage and retrieval operations while optimizing available ceiling heights up to 25 feet. These systems can save up to 75 percent of the available floor space while reducing labor by two-thirds and improving accuracy to 99.99 percent levels.

The Hornet Horizontal Carousel is comprised of a series of bins with shelves that rotate around a horizontal track, delivering stored items to an operator driven via Inventory Management Software. An integrated Lightree Pick to Light device directs the operator’s actions, improving picking accuracy and productivity. A scissor lift workstation platform is used to move the operator from the floor to top position for 100% ergonomic order picking.

Two to four Hornet horizontal carousels are integrated into one workstation called a pod. The carousels can be triple stacked or tiered to maximize vertical cube up to 25 feet. A scissor lift effortlessly raises and lowers the operator to safely and ergonomically reach all the bins and shelves. The scissor lift workstation is equipped with Put Lights which allow the operator to batch pick from the carousels and place the correct items and quantities in the proper order effortlessly. Likewise, the pods are integrated with conveyor or carts to move orders to their next destination.

In operation, XPress Pix inventory control software downloads a wave of orders from the host. The software creates optimized batches from the wave and queues the carousels for picking. Likewise, the XPress Pix software automatically creates pick bands, or ergonomic height zones, within the pod of carousels. Pick banding allows operators to move only once up and down the pods pick faces with only one stop per band. This improves ergonomics by creating bands which eliminate reaching and stretching. This not only improves ergonomics, but increases throughput and operator productivity while reducing operator fatigue.

The operator begins by batch picking from the bottom of the pod until all picks for that band have been made, and then moves to the next pick band to repeat the process. When the order is complete, the scissor lift moves to the extraction conveyor or pick cart.

The conveyor can be mounted at the top, middle or bottom position to eliminate wasted motion and travel time. Carts can be mounted directly on the scissor lift, pushed off when its batch is completed, and replaced by an empty cart to complete the wave of orders.