Riverside Distribution Co. | A First Project Simulation
Subject Matter Expert: Michael Collins
This is not a test. It is a simulation of your first real project. You will be put in situations, given information, and asked to make decisions. Some information will be handed to you. Some you will have to ask for. Some you will have to figure out on your own. Work through it in order. Each section builds on the one before it. If you skip ahead you will make assumptions that an earlier section would have corrected. Document your reasoning at every step. A decision you cannot explain is a decision you cannot defend. Your mentor will review your work with you as you go. This is a conversation, not a submission.
It is a Tuesday morning. You have just arrived at your desk. Your phone shows a voicemail from a number you do not recognize. You play it back.
"Hi, my name is Dana Merrill. I am the Director of Engineering and Technical Operations at Riverside Distribution Co. We are a third-party logistics provider out of the mid-Atlantic region. We have a real problem with our outbound operation and I have been told your firm knows conveyor systems. I would like to set up a meeting. Please call me back at your earliest convenience."
Before you call Dana back, what do you do?
You are at Riverside Distribution Co. The facility is a 50,000 square foot single-level building in a standard industrial park. Three dock doors are visible on the south side as you pull in. Two have trailers backed in. The third is empty.
Dana Merrill meets you at the front door. She is direct, moves quickly, and clearly knows her operation. She walks you into a conference room where three other people are already seated.
"Thank you for coming. Let me introduce the team. Tom Ruiz is our VP of Finance. He will be involved in any capital decisions. Ray from our IT department is here because I have a feeling this project is going to touch some systems and I want him in the room early. And this is Michael Collins, our facilities and maintenance lead. Michael has been in this building longer than anyone. If it moves or makes noise in this facility, Michael knows about it."
"Here is the short version of our problem. We ship for five retail clients. Apparel, housewares, and packaged food products. All outbound sorting is done manually right now. Our associates are making carrier decisions by hand at the staging area near the dock. We are running a misdirect rate of about three percent. Two of our five clients have issued chargebacks. During peak wave releases the staging area becomes a complete bottleneck. I need that to stop."
"I will be brief. If this project does not make financial sense I cannot support it regardless of the operational benefit. I will need to understand the return before we go any further. Dana can give you the operational picture. I will answer questions about the financial side when you are ready for that conversation."
He does not say anything when Dana introduces him. He nods. He is watching you.
When you make eye contact he says: "We have had equipment in here before. Twice. Neither one of them made it past the first year running the way it was supposed to. I am not against trying again. I just want to make sure somebody actually thinks about how this thing gets maintained and not just how it gets installed."
"I am honestly not sure why I am here yet but Dana said to come so I came. We run a WMS. I manage it. If you need to talk to our systems at some point I am the person you need."
You have heard the opening. Who do you talk to first and what do you ask?
You ask Dana to walk you through the current operation.
"Our picking operation is split across two zones. Zone A is on the second floor. That is where we handle apparel and housewares. Zone B is on the ground floor in the northeast quadrant. That is packaged food products. Both zones use pick-to-light systems at static shelving. Pickers fill orders and put them on carts. The carts get walked to the staging area near the dock doors on the south wall."
"At the staging area, associates look at the shipping label on each carton, figure out which carrier it belongs to, and walk it to the right dock door. Carrier A gets Door 1. Carrier B gets Door 2. Door 3 is shared overflow and returns. The problem is that at peak volume we are pulling from both zones at the same time and the staging area cannot keep up. Associates are making carrier decisions without confirmed scan data because there is not enough time. That is where the misdirects come from."
"I want a system that reads the barcode on each carton, knows which carrier it belongs to, and routes it to the right door automatically. I want my associates focused on packing and loading, not on sorting."
Dana has described the problem. What do you ask her about?
"Throughput. Our current peak is 18 cartons per minute across all three doors combined. I want the new system designed for 20 cartons per minute. That gives us headroom for the growth I am projecting over the next three years."
"Volume split at the doors. Carrier A at Door 1 gets about 55 percent of our outbound volume. Carrier B at Door 2 gets 35 percent. Door 3 is the remaining 10 percent."
"Product mix. I will have my team pull a WMS report and send you the exact data."
"The building. 28 foot clear height. Sealed concrete floor in good condition. We have 480 volt three phase power available at two panel locations. One in the northwest mechanical room and one near the southeast corner. Zone A picking is on the second floor. The mezzanine deck is at 16 feet above finished floor."
You turn to Michael. He has been watching the conversation. He has not looked at his phone once.
You ask him what happened with the previous systems.
"First one was a pneumatic accumulation system. Worked fine for about four months. Then the compressor started having issues. Air pressure would drop during peak volume and the zones would stop releasing cleanly. Maintenance calls started coming in. Nobody was trained to work on it. The vendor sent someone out twice. After that the operators started pushing product around the jammed zones by hand. Six months after install it was off and we were back to manual."
"Second one. When anything downstream slowed down, everything stopped. The whole line. Every time. We lasted three months before it came out."
He pauses. "I am not telling you this to talk you out of anything. I am telling you because if you design something that my one maintenance guy cannot keep running, we will be back here having this same conversation in two years. I need to understand what it takes to maintain whatever you put in here."
Michael just described two systems that failed. What did each failure tell you?
You ask Tom what financial return Riverside is expecting from this investment.
He straightens up. This is his conversation now.
"Three year payback. That is the threshold for capital projects at this company. If we cannot pencil it out in three years I cannot bring it to the ownership group."
If you ask him what that means in terms of annual savings, he will tell you.
"The misdirect chargebacks are part of it but the bigger number is labor. Right now we have associates dedicated to manual sorting and staging during peak shifts. If this system eliminates that function those positions either go away or get redeployed to higher value work."
Tom has given you a framework. He has not given you all the numbers. You know the payback requirement: three years. You know labor is the primary savings driver. You do not yet know how many associates are involved or what they cost. If you want the number, ask for it.
You ask Ray about the WMS and what the system will need to interface with.
He leans forward. Now he understands why he is here.
"We run a standard WMS. It manages all picking, inventory, and order release. When an order wave goes out the WMS knows which carrier each carton is going to. That information is tied to the barcode on each carton."
"If your system can scan the barcode and send a query to our WMS, we can send back a routing instruction. Carrier A goes to Door 1, Carrier B goes to Door 2, everything else goes to Door 3."
You ask him about response time. How fast can the WMS respond to a routing query once the barcode is scanned?
"Honestly? Off the top of my head I would say half a second. Maybe less on a good day. But I am going off memory. I should confirm that with our IT manager before you design anything to it."
Ray gave you an estimate: half a second. He flagged it himself as unconfirmed. Log this as an open item. Your controls architecture cannot be finalized until you have a confirmed number. You have enough to proceed with the flow diagram and product analysis. You do not have enough to finalize the scan point location or the belt speed calculation. This item will come back.
Dana walks you through the building. Michael comes along without being asked. That tells you something.
You start at the dock doors on the south wall. Three doors. Two active, one empty. The staging area in front of the doors is crowded with carts and loose cartons. Two associates are working the area, moving fast. You can see a carton sitting in the wrong lane. Neither associate has noticed yet.
You walk north toward Zone B in the northeast quadrant. Ground floor. Pick-to-light shelving. Orderly. Product is moving. Picks come off the shelves into cartons that go onto carts. When a cart is full an associate wheels it south toward the staging area.
You walk to the northwest. Stairs go up to the mezzanine. Zone A is on the second floor at 16 feet above finished floor. Apparel and housewares. Same pick-to-light setup. Cartons onto carts. But here the carts have to come back downstairs before they can reach the staging area.
You stand at the edge of the mezzanine and look down at the ground floor.
You are not a cart. You are a carton. You just got picked on the second floor. You are in a corrugated box. You weigh 12 pounds. You are 13 inches long, 9 inches wide, and 3 inches tall.
How do you get from the second floor pick shelf to Dock Door 1 on the south wall?
Trace that journey. Every transition. Every moment where something could go wrong. Every point where you have to wait. Every point where you change direction. Do this before you draw a single line.
"That mezzanine edge is going to be your challenge. Whatever comes down from up here has to land somewhere before it can go south. You have got about 40 feet of horizontal run from the mezzanine edge to where the ground floor zone ends. After that you are in the main aisle. Forklifts run that aisle all shift."
"We had two near misses last year. Carts coming down from upstairs crossing paths with a forklift in the main aisle. Nothing happened but it was close."
He looks at you. "If you put conveyor across that aisle you need to think about how a forklift gets through."
Dana's team sends over the WMS product report two days after the facility walk. Here is what it shows.
| Product | Length | Width | Height | Weight | % Volume | Product Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small Case | 8" | 6" | 4" | 3 lbs | 4% | Packaged food |
| Standard Case | 13" | 9" | 3" | 12 lbs | 78% | All clients |
| Tall Case | 10" | 8" | 14" | 18 lbs | 12% | Apparel client |
| Large Case | 22" | 15" | 7" | 28 lbs | 6% | Housewares |
You have four products in front of you. Before you open the Product Spec Calc, answer these questions in writing.
Which product is the system going to see most of the time? What does that tell you about what the design needs to be optimized for?
Look at the volume percentages. Do any products stand out? What questions do those numbers raise?
Which product concerns you most on a decline conveyor coming off the second floor mezzanine? Why?
Answer these questions before you open the calculator. Your answers will tell you whether you are ready to use the calculator or whether you are using it to avoid thinking.
Tools: Product Spec Calc
Using the product data from the WMS report, run the Product Spec Calc and produce your analysis. Your analysis must address the following:
Before you open any drawing tool, you need to tell the story of this system.
Start with blocks and arrows. Every block is a process step or functional area. Every arrow is a movement of material. No equipment names yet. No model numbers. Just the story of what happens to a carton from the moment it is picked to the moment it is loaded onto a truck.
Tools: Pen and paper or any block diagram tool
Produce a Layer 1 process flow diagram that shows:
Use blocks and arrows only. No equipment. No dimensions. No speeds. Just the story. Read it out loud when you are done. If you cannot narrate it as a clear, logical story without stopping, the diagram has a gap.
Tools: Your throughput requirement and the volume splits Dana provided
Add a second layer to the same diagram showing throughput at each section.
Note: the two pick zones do not contribute equal volume. Zone A handles apparel and housewares. Zone B handles packaged food. The brief does not tell you the exact split between zones. This is an open item. Make a defensible assumption and document it. Flag it as something to confirm with Dana.
Tools: What you learned from Ray about the WMS interface
Add a third layer identifying every point in the system where a decision is made.
Label every smart decision point. Identify who or what makes the decision at each one. Note the WMS latency as an open item on your diagram. Mark where it will create a design constraint once the confirmed number arrives.
Tools: What Michael told you about the facility
Add the final layer: people, access, and physical constraints.
When Layer 4 is complete your diagram should carry enough information that a knowledgeable person could look at it and understand the system intent, the rate requirements, the control logic, and the physical constraints without asking a single question. That is the standard. Hold yourself to it.
You have been working on your flow diagram and product analysis for several days. Your draft design is taking shape. You have been using the half-second WMS response estimate from Ray as a placeholder in your controls layout.
An email arrives from Ray.
"Hey. Checked with our IT manager on the WMS response time question. The half second I mentioned in the meeting was best case on a normal day. Under peak load conditions the guaranteed response time is one second. That is what you should design to. Sorry I did not have the right number in the room. Let me know if you have other questions."
The confirmed WMS response latency is 1 second. Not 0.5 seconds. Go back to your controls layout. Every calculation that used the half-second estimate needs to be revisited.
At your current belt speed, how far does a carton travel in 1 second? Is the distance between your scan transmit point and your divert mechanism still sufficient? Does your belt speed need to change? If it changes, what else changes?
Document what changed and why. This is a normal part of real project work. The engineer who catches this now saves the project. The engineer who misses it creates a field problem.
Zone A is on the second floor at 16 feet above finished floor. Product needs to get from the mezzanine deck down to the ground floor conveyor system. That transition requires a powered decline conveyor.
This is not just a geometry problem. It is a product handling problem. Before you specify anything, you need to know whether the products in your design envelope can safely travel a powered decline at the angle your building geometry requires.
Tools: Box Tumbling Calculator, Conveyor Pitch Calculator
The mezzanine TOD is 16 feet AFF. You have approximately 40 feet of horizontal run available from the mezzanine edge before the main forklift aisle.
If any product in your design envelope cannot safely travel the decline at the available angle, document it. Present the options for resolving it. Do not assume it will work out.
Tools: Speed Gap and Sorter Speed Calculator, Case FPM Calculator, Speed of Takeaway Spur Calculator
Using the flow diagram rates from Deliverable 2 and the product envelope from Deliverable 1, calculate the following.
You have the product envelope. You have the flow. You have the rates. Now you select the equipment. Every selection must be justified. Michael is going to ask you why you chose what you chose. So will Dana. So will Tom.
Tools: Lesson 12 transportation vs accumulation framework and E24-EZ vs ABEZ selection criteria, Lesson 16 sortation product handling matrix
For each major technology in the system, state what you selected, why you selected it, and what you considered and eliminated.
Michael mentioned two near misses at the forklift crossing last year. Dana mentioned that associates are working the staging area at peak volume. You are designing a system that will operate in a live facility with active forklifts, operators, and a maintenance team of one.
Safety is not a final engineering checklist. It is a design discipline that starts right here.
Tools: Lesson 27 guarding framework
Produce a safety and guarding summary that addresses the following.
Safety items identified now cost nothing to add. Safety items found during final engineering erode margin. Safety items found during installation create problems. Document the safety scope now so it is in the proposal from the beginning.
Tools: Lesson 18 five-layer controls topology, Lesson 22 data exchange handshake
Produce a one-page controls architecture summary that the controls team can use as their starting point.
You have done the engineering. Now you have to communicate it. Dana, Tom, and Michael are going to be in the room. They are three very different people with three very different questions. Your proposal has to work for all of them.
Tools: Part VII scoping, quoting, and presenting framework
Assemble a complete proposal package for Riverside Distribution Co. Your proposal must include:
You just designed a complete outbound conveyor system for a real customer with a real building, a real product mix, a real budget constraint, and real people who have been let down by technology before. Before you close this document, do one thing. Look at every major decision you made and trace it back to where you learned the tool or framework that made it possible. Not to check a box. Because that trace will tell you something important about how this program was built and how your own thinking developed over the course of it. Some of those connections will be obvious. Some will surprise you. Both kinds matter.
Riverside says yes. The proposal is approved. Tom signed off. Dana is ready to move. It is Monday morning. The project is live. What is the first thing you do and who is the first person you call?
There is no single correct answer to that question. There is a well-reasoned answer and a poorly-reasoned one. Your mentor will ask you to explain yours.
Riverside Distribution Co. is a fictional company. The engineering you did to solve their problem is not.
Authored by Michael Collins, Material Handling Academy Professional Training Program.