Retail Expansion Demands Unique Motion Control Solution For
Landmark Manhattan Store
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Photography
enthusiasts worldwide are familiar with the name of B&H
Photo located at 34th Street and Ninth Avenue in New York. The
70,000 sq ft superstore has become something of a Manhattan
landmark. This 'Aladdin's cave' of photography, video, audio,
computer and home electronic equipment is famed for its huge
product range, highly knowledgeable staff and competitive
pricing.
According to Gary Eisenberger, Sales Manager at B&H, one of
the biggest challenges for B&H is ensuring that any one of
the 150,000 plus SKUs that they carry is available to customers
and staff in a timely fashion. Displaying every SKU in a retail
store is simply not an option.
Says Eisenberger, "B&H is one the world's largest
retailers of imaging products and our philosophy is to ensure
that we carry every significant brand, every product within that
brand and every accessory made for that product. We do not
cherry-pick products based on popular mass- market demand, like
the big electronic chains. It's B&H's goal to ensure that
customers are able to find whatever they need, no matter how
specialized their interest or application may be."
"The challenge within such an old building with limited
space (above us are residential apartments) is to find a way to
house so many SKUs, while ensuring products can be quickly
transported from the basement warehouse where they are stocked
to a specific location on the sales floor for customers to
examine them first hand."
"About 10 years ago we developed a lift system within the
building that delivered products from the basement to specific
sales desks located all around the store. Once customers have
inspected the products, they are then either sent back down via
the lift for re-stocking, or delivered by a conveyor system to
the pick-up area where customers make the final transaction. The
original development and installation of the system was no small
feat and B&H made the decision to make it a 'feature' within
the store."
In 2007, B&H decided to expand its retail space and moved
the corporate offices from the second floor to a new location,
thereby freeing up valuable real estate for retail sales. The
expansion required a redesign of the famous but aging lift
system. B&H approached United Sortation Solutions of Owings
Mills, MD, for a new design.
The new system had to ensure that product could be delivered
from the basement warehouse up to either the first or second
floor in the same time period as the old system, or even faster,
and with less maintenance and noise.
"This project really did present a unique set of
challenges," reports Ed Hrehocik, Senior Engineer at United
Sortation Solutions. "While B&H happily makes a feature
of its product delivery system, its imperative that it does not
adversely affect the comfort of the customer in any way."
"Operating noise had to be kept to a minimum and B&H
emphasized the need for reliability. The old system was a
lubricated chain drive and due to the high throughput of
products being delivered around the store, a tremendous amount
of maintenance was required. That is simply not acceptable in a
retail environment where the customer's comfort is
paramount."
"B&H also wanted to reduce the size of the footprint of
the system because retail space is extremely costly in Manhattan
and any additional space that can be dedicated to displaying
product is very valuable," notes Hrehocik.
"The old conveyor system was replaced with a low-voltage
motorized roller conveyor which reduces fire issues and is much
safer for use in a consumer environment because it's a lot
easier to cable 24 volts. By using many small motors we were
able to modulate the system to enable control of the conveyor in
'zones' around the store. This is particularly helpful when
product traffic is very high because product can still be moved
around the store even in the rare event of a back-up in the
basement stock room."
The new system implemented by Bastian Material Handling required
the installation of 29 lifts throughout the store - double the
previous amount. One of the key issues was deciding where to
drill the holes for the lifts because old buildings in Manhattan
present their own challenges and there was no margin for error.
Above B&H are many floors of offices and residential
apartments so the building is full of existing HVAC
infrastructure and other equipment. In addition, the building is
turn of the century so nothing is uniform and the codes
requirements of New York City are extremely strict.
Hrehocik continues, "Typically, when we develop a lift
system, products are coming in and out of the system in two
directions north and south, or in and out of the same direction.
However, because of the B&H's motion requirements, we had to
custom design and develop a three-way lift system that could
take products from one direction and then route them into a
second or third direction. As far as we were aware at the time,
nothing in the industry like this existed."
"A right-angle transfer had to be integrated into each
lift. This is a fairly typical bulk handling part, but a
smaller, lighter version had to be developed so that it could be
integrated into each lift. Typically, right angel transfers are
driven by pneumatics but we wanted to avoid this so a brushless
DC motor was integrated for a quieter, safer consumer retail
environment."
Once the multi-directional lifts had been developed, United
Sortation Solutions' biggest issue was the linear motion between
the lifts on all three floors. The huge distance between floors
meant that parts of the linear motion system would have to be up
to 27 feet long.
"27 feet is a huge distance and many linear actuator
manufacturers are unable to provide products this long,"
reports Hrehocik. "Fortunately the Uniline linear actuator
system from ROLLON can be specified in lengths of 10 mm
increments and assembled on site for lengths even longer than
B&H's 27 ft requirement. While the length was critical, the
ability to assemble on site was also significant because access
to Manhattan building is difficult and many of the items had to
be broken down before they could fit through the narrow
entrances."
The Uniline range of actuators is built on ROLLON's Compact Rail
linear rail, which is mounted in an extruded aluminum-alloy
profile and is compatible with standard mounting accessories.
Says Hrehocik, "Uniline is extremely versatile and many
configurations and sizes are available, including versions with
extra long and/or multiple trolleys. And because the linear rail
and slide are placed inside the extrusion, the units are very
safe for use in a high-traffic consumer environments such as
B&H."
Andrew Cook, General Manager for ROLLON Corporation, reports
that B&H's life and reliability requirements were the
greatest challenge.
"The B&H installation required multiple systems capable
of performing long vertical strokes, up to 26 feet, in a short
interval of up to 4 cycles per minutes over a life span of five
years of continuous operation."
"The application was not particularly complicated in terms
of layout configuration and pure load capacity - the maximum
load we needed to support was only 145 lbs, offset 15 inches.
However, the speed, length and acceleration rates were quite
demanding."
B&H specified a target number of products that could be
delivered per minute. For short distances a speed of eight
product deliveries per minute was required, while for
multi-floor deliveries, three deliveries per minute was needed.
"This is a challenging throughput for a linear motion
system," adds Cook. "When lifespan calculations were
made we worked out that at an average rate of four deliveries
per minute (assuming an eight hour day over seven days a week)
over five years, the Uniline would have to operate 3,494,400
cycles. In addition, it's quite a high speed application and the
speed of the linear movement required was 2m/s with an
acceleration of 5m/s ² because of the distance from the
basement to the second floor."
"We are very confident that the Uniline actuators will
comfortably meet the rigorous requirements without need for
maintenance because the estimated life of the Uniline products
far exceeds the requirements demonstrated by the calculations.
In fact, the 26-foot long actuators should work for a minimum of
six years, based on the initial cycle requirement, without any
need for maintenance. The shorter distance actuators should go
on for ten years."
Cook believes a couple of different factors contribute to the
long lifespan of the Uniline actuator. "The Uniline
actuators incorporate our Compact Rail linear bearing system and
the double 'T+U' rail combination maximizes the moment reaction
to the 15" offset cantilevered load."
"And considering the vertical configuration," he adds,
"our RPP parabolic profile belt and pulley system provides
a remarkable advantage over traditional T and AT systems in
terms of belt-pulley grip. The pulley plus belt design allows
the engagement of a higher number of teeth which significantly
reduces the belt slipping risk."
"In addition, our belt is reinforced with an entire line of
twenty (Ø1 mm each) steel wires uniformly distributed over the
whole width of the belt capable of ensuring maximum rigidity and
extreme levels of repeatability (0.1mm over a 2000mm
stroke.)"
According to Ed Hrehocik of United Sortation Solutions the final
piece of the puzzle was the utilization of a servomotor in the
system.
"Normally we would have specified a three phase AC motor
with a variable frequency drive but the servo provides B&H
with much greater control over the system. The movement of
products can be easily stopped and started which is critical
when there is a back up. It also eliminated the need for a
mechanical brake, which therefore needs less maintenance, and is
nice and compact for use in a retail environment."
Sam Klein, Director of Facilities at B&H, agrees.
"Because the building is so old and there are very few
uniform distances in old Manhattan buildings it was great that
we have the ability to make fine tune adjustments to the
movements of product with the servo motor."
"This also contributed to the overall size of the units.
The footprint of the new lift system is 30 percent smaller than
the old lifts, which provides valuable real estate for product
display in a city where real estate is extremely costly."
Klein concludes, "The system was installed just in time for
the Holiday rush and so far everything has operated very
smoothly. The new system is still a talking point for customers
but, most importantly, it delivers the products into the
customers' hands in a secure and timely fashion without
affecting the enjoyable atmosphere of the store." |
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