2. History
Benefits achieved
Dick’s Sporting Goods was founded by its namesake Dick Stack when he was just 18
with new system
years old in 1948. Stack worked at an Army/Navy store in Binghamton, New York, when • Achieved a 20% increase in
productivity in the facility’s
his idea of expanding its product line to include fishing supplies was mocked by the breakpack area.
owner. Relating his disappointment to his family that night, his grandmother decided
• Achieved a 10% increase in
to give him her life’s savings and instructed him to “follow his dreams” with it. Stack productivity in the facilities
receiving area, with increased
opened the first Dick’s as a “bait & tackle” fishing supply store that same year, and
volume.
expanded into general sports merchandise in the late 1950s.
• Experienced zero down time
to existing operations during
In the early 1990s, Dick’s Sporting Goods began chain operations, opening additional project implementation.
stores across Upstate New York, before moving its headquarters to Pittsburgh in 1994.
In 2004, the company acquired forty-eight locations from Galyan’s Trading Company,
another sporting goods store. In 2007, they acquired Golf Galaxy which operated 65
golf superstores.
Through its 340 store locations and a growing internet order business, Dick’s provides
authentic full-line sporting goods with a broad assortment of brand name sporting
goods equipment, apparel, and footwear in a specialty-store environment.
The Facility
To accommodate the requirements of the facility and system, Dick’s Sporting Goods
expanded the Plainfield facility from 360,000 square feet to 725,000 square feet. The IntelliMerge® in Receiving
system consists of receiving, backstock, semi-bulk, quality audit/ ticketing/open to hang,
active/singles picking, return to vendor/claims, breakpack, store consolidation,
and shipping.
Intelligrated developed an implementation plan with minor tie-ins performed
at strategic times. Dick’s Sporting Goods continued to use the existing system until
new areas of the system were ready for tie-in. The outcome resulted in a brand new
conveyor system in an expanded building with no interruptions to existing operations.
The System
The key components of the system include a high speed IntelliSort® sliding shoe sorter
in the receiving and shipping areas. The breakpack sorter is a dual-sided high speed
IntelliSort shoe sorter. A high speed IntelliMerge® is located in the receiving area and
Dual Sided IntelliSort ® Shoe
the shipping area. The merges and single-sided sorters are capable of running 630 feet Sorter
per minute and are designed to sustain a throughput rate of 180 cartons per minute
based on a 24” average length case. The dual sided IntelliSort shoe sorter is capable
of running 550 feet per minute and is designed to sustain a throughput rate of 100
cartons per minute.
www.intelligrated.com 2
3. The breakpack area has 12 modules consisting of a
“Intelligrated combination of gravity and powered conveyor with
developed and shelving locations for store cartons. Operators put
delivered an merchandise into store cartons via RF. Finished store
implementation plan cartons are pushed onto a powered takeaway conveyor
that allowed Dick’s and transported to the carton seal area. Empty cartons
Sporting Goods are placed onto an empty corrugate conveyor for
continuous transport to the trash baler.
uninterrupted
operations. The passion The ticketing area has banks of gravity roller conveyor
and flexibility that Intelligrated provided was
®
feeding workstations where the quality audit,
refreshing and appreciated.” ticketing, or open-to-hang operation is performed.
Cartons are manually pushed down active lanes to the
Bill Palmire
operators. Finished cases are placed onto a powered
Sr. Director of Distribution
takeaway conveyor for transport back to the receiving
sorter and onto the next processing destination.
The system is controlled via Intelligrated’s
InControlWare® software that communicates with Full, open cartons that are destined for shipping first
the Warehouse Management System (WMS), which travel to the carton seal location. The carton seal area
is located at Dick’s Sporting Goods corporate has an Intellisort pop up wheel sorter for round-robin
headquarter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Support sorting to any of the 5 carton seal lines. Outbound
center lets corporate trouble shoot system problems. sealed cases travel to the shipping IntelliMerge
ViewCenter, a 3D graphical representation of the merge lines.
system, provides ease of monitoring the system
real time. Shipping at Dick’s Sporting Goods Plainfield, Indiana
facility is via palletized loads. The IntelliSort shoe sorter
Receiving consists of 18 uptake lines for conveying shipping sorter has 33 aftersort diverts. The diverts are
cases from trucks located at the receiving dock. These clustered into 8 banks of 4 divert lines. The last divert
18 lines merge into 3 takeaway lines that feed the on the sorter is for backstock and also serves as the
receiving IntelliMerge merge lines. Also merging at no-read divert. Diverted cases travel off the sorter to
this location is the recirculation line from the receiving gravity run out lanes where the cases are scanned by
sorter and a line from backstock. The receiving the operators and placed onto the appropriate
IntelliSort sliding shoe sorter has 6 divert locations. store pallet.
The diverts include 3 cross-dock lines, 1 no-read/
jackpot line, 1 breakpack line, and 1 ticketing location. Cartons that are not successfully diverted travel to
the recirculation line located at the end of the sorter.
Cases destined for the cross-dock lines transport Full pallets are transported via fork lift trucks or
directly to the shipping IntelliMerge merge lines. The pallet jacks to stretch-wrap machines. The pallets are
breakpack line conveys product to the dual sided wrapped and staged in the bulk storage area and are
IntelliSort shoe sorter for delivery to the put-to-store now ready for shipment to the store.
locations. Cases destined for ticketing transport to the
mezzanine level located directly above the breakpack
area. No-read or jackpot cases convey to a floor
location near the first receiving uptake line.
IntelliSort® Shoe Sorter in Shipping
www.intelligrated.com 3
