Facing mounting public pressure to meet rapidly growing order complexity with an outdated order fulfillment system, the Washington State Liquor Control Board elected to meet this challenge by transforming its entire operation from an aging, paper-based, manual order-filling facility into a new, highly automated distribution center.

            The new 163,200 sq ft facility, located in downtown Seattle , opened in September 2001 and reached full compliance in October 2002.  The $30 million distribution center now operates an automated order fulfillment system that rivals private commercial distribution facilities in both cost savings and efficiencies — handling around 3,000 active SKUs and scaling from processing 12,000 cases per day to over 30,000 cases per day at peak season demand.

            The need to automate came from four primary drivers.  These included the need to improve order fulfillment rate, order accuracy, inventory accuracy and ergonomic/labor conditions. The WSLCB formerly operated in an outdated building; utilizing pushcarts, hand trucks and paper pick systems.

            “We wanted to offer a better level of service to our 360 stores, which are made up of state owned stores, contract owned stores (a liquor section within a private store typically in an unincorporated area), military stores and tribal stores,” says Gene Kremer, general manager of WSLCB. “With a once per week delivery schedule, the DC had to execute every order within a given window of time while achieving high order ...

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