At a glance, VLM's and vertical carousels seem to be very similar, but they have significant differences. The first is product rotation. Carousels rotate all shelves in a unit, essentially rotating the entire carousel in order to deliver inventory to pickers. VLM's deliver only the required item, leaving the rest in storage. Secondly, VLM's are modular and can be expanded vertically, adding height and more capacity to the unit when needed (or removing it if that was the need). Carousels are fixed height and can't be modified to add or remove levels.
VLM systems deliver the required item to your order pickers in seconds, rather than moving workers to product. Walk and search time are eliminated, meaning workers are more accurate, less fatigued and faster. This dramatically reduces access times and boosts all aspects of the order picking process.
Many facilities do not utilize the vertical cube available to them. You can utilize all the available vertical space in your warehouse or manufacturing plant. The system stores loads in a manner that places the most accessed inventory closest to operators, reducing the amount of travel time while providing maximum storage density.
You'll have accurate and constant inventory and parts numbers to help reduce guesswork and increase your ability to make the right decision. Controllers can be used as stand-alone inventory management systems or communicate with customers' own data processing systems.
