Setting The Pace — Brookstone, Inc.

The one and only distribution center for Brookstone is remarkably fast and efficient. Thanks to intelligent planning and the right baling solution, empty boxes never slow down the operation.

As one of the country's premier retailers, Brookstone, Inc. of Merrimack, New Hampshire, sets an amazing pace in distributing thousands of products. Remarkably, all of this happens through a single distribution center. Here, empty boxes flowing from order fulfillment lines never slow down operations. Thanks to intelligent planning and the right baling operation, this center sets the standard of efficiency that keeps Brookstone on a fast track.

Brookstone's consumer product line includes home and office furniture, health and fitness equipment and apparel, travel and automotive convenience items, as well as Brookstone's traditional hard-to-find tools. The company sells through 309 retail stores located across the country. Substantial sales are also generated from its direct-marketed catalogs, and from an extensive e-commerce operation (www.Brookstone.com).

Without divulging away specifics, Brookstone management described the annual order volume in the hundreds of thousands. Since startup in 1965, all orders have been distributed through a single DC located in Mexico, Missouri. Just recently, that distribution center underwent a remarkable transformation.

In 2004, the existing 180,000 sq. ft. facility was expanded to 400,000 sq. ft. Thanks to a highly efficient highway of conveyers and pick modules, workers can now quickly unpack and stock thousands of daily incoming shipments. At the same time, Brookstone employees pick and repack hundreds of thousands of outbound shipments to the company's retail stores and to individual catalog and e-commerce customers. The result is a streamlined process that generates an enormous volume of empty boxes — up to 400 tons of corrugated scrap annually.

Before the expansion, a single 40-horsepower baler was used to bale all corrugated scrap. Empty boxes typically needed to be pre-shredded or crushed before going to the baler. Once shaped, the loose bale had to be pulled out and tied by hand. The entire baling process was handled by a single, full-time operator.

Brookstone's management team knew that this baling system could never handle the increased corrugated scrap of the expansion to come. It began planning for the baling upgrade, not just with one new baler, but with two new 40-horsepower balers that would each be directly fed by an overhead conveyer system.

With so many reputable baler manufacturers to choose from, the Brookstone management team didn't know where to start. A consulting firm was quickly hired to assist in evaluating the choices and narrowing down the selection to the best four manufacturers.

Don Magnus, Brookstone's DC Facilities Manager for the past six years, was put in charge of the final evaluation and selection process. Of the four baler manufacturers, only two came in to evaluate the new space. Of those two, only one manufacturer ever evaluated Brookstone's plans for the entire picking process as well as the company's proposed dual baler solution to handle the anticipated corrugated scrap.

An unexpected alternative

Don Wheeler, a 25-year veteran of the recycling industry and regional sales manager for American Baler, proposed a uniquely different alternate. After reviewing Brookstone's packing and repacking processes and "conveyorized" flow of empty boxes, Wheeler recommended the company install three 30-horsepower, wide-mouth, auto-tie balers. In doing so, each of the two regular conveyer lines would feed directly into its own baler, while a separate conveyer line for oversized boxes would feed the third baler.

This new plan resolved Magnus' concern of what to do with the stream of oversized boxes. Wide-mouth balers, with feed openings of 43 by 50 inches wide, proved to be the perfect solution for all box sizes. As an added bonus, pre-shredding and crushing would no longer be necessary. "There is no prep needed. Just throw the box on the line and it gets baled. It really is that simple."

Automation pays off

To further automate the baling operation, Brookstone specified a touch screen operator interface on all three balers. American Baler's touch screen control simplifies operator settings through color prompts and diagrams. The panel even provides visual diagnostics to help troubleshoot safety or mechanical faults.

Each baler was also specified with an automated wire tie system. As bales are pushed through the baler's extrusion chamber, five wires are wrapped around the length of the bale. The tier automatically ties and cuts each wire when the bale reaches the operator-specified length. Magnus particularly likes the swing-away design of the American Baler auto tier that allows easy access to all tier components.

By producing highly compacted bales, Brookstone will save thousands of dollars over the life of the baler by using less wire per baled ton. Brookstone's management was also pleased to discover that minimal labor was required to run the newly automated baling operation. "We now have three balers instead of one," Magnus explained, "but the new ones are so easy to operate and so reliable, we still only need one person to run them."

Bale Size vs. Shipping Capacity

The new wide-mouth balers are designed to produce bales measuring 42 inches wide and 42 inches high. Bale length, however, can be easily programmed to create custom-sized bales. With a variable bale length, Brookstone would now be able to optimize truckload shipments to the recycling center.

Brookstone sells its bales of corrugated boxes to Batliner Paper Company in Kansas City, Missouri, one of the largest waste paper brokerage and processing centers in the Midwest. When the new balers were first installed, Brookstone was having difficulty achieving the maximum shipping weight of 40,000 pounds. As a result, Brookstone was being assessed a surcharge by the recycler for each trailer that didn't make this weight.

To help resolve the issue, American Baler programmed, and shipped to Brookstone, new PLCs for the balers, all at no charge, to ensure the bales would maintain a set 1,800 pound bale weight. Since the newly programmed PLCs were installed by Brookstone, spot checks have shown that optimum trailer weight is being met on a routine basis. Magnus also noted that the bales fit better and stack more neatly in the trucks. According to Arnold DeLeon, Batliner Plant Manager, agrees. "Brookstone's bales are very good bales…they're easy to work with and handle. They pack so well that they easily meet our 40,000 pound trailer weight."

Durability is key

"Brookstone's DC operations have never run smoother," Magnus proudly states. Two multi-level pick modules, the oversized product line, and a returns line are run two shifts per day, seven days a week. All three wide-mouth balers are operating at the same time -- 16 hours a day, 365 days a year.

According to Magnus, the decision to buy balers based on dependability, ease of operation and maintenance, and manufacturer support, has really paid off. "Under the heavy work load at this center, the wide-mouth American Baler models have met the challenge and have exceeded our expectations in all areas. They really help us set the pace."

American Baler Company has been helping businesses lower the cost of recycling "the American Way" for more than 60 years. Today, American Baler remains a pioneer in the design and manufacture of baling equipment for an expanding range of applications. From corrugated boxes and shredded documents to non-ferrous metals and mixed materials, American Baler matches the right baler to every operation for maximum throughput and lowest total cost-per-bale. With a full line-up of manual and auto-tie models and capacities from 2 to 50 tons-per-hour, American Baler is continuously developing improved solutions to deliver materials "baled like a brick" and backed by 24-hour live service support.
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