Where Does an Oversize Pallet Go When Automated Storage Rejects It?
A few centimetres of cardboard overhanging a pallet can be enough to stop its journey into automated storage. On a busy receiving floor, the immediate response is to rebuild the load or find somewhere else to put it. The less visible job is making sure the warehouse record follows that decision. A pallet moved to a conventional rack may be easy for the operator to find today and difficult for the next shift to locate tomorrow. Planning for these awkward loads deserves a place alongside storage capacity and throughput when a warehouse prepares for automation.
A forklift brings a pallet to an automated storage lane, but one carton protrudes far enough to keep the load from entering. The operator can restack the cartons and try again or move the pallet to a conventional location if it still falls outside the lane’s limits. That second choice keeps receiving moving and creates a handoff between the equipment and the warehouse management system. If the handoff is missed, the stock may be physically available while the next picker is sent somewhere else. The decision for a site adding pallet automation is how to define that fallback and keep the destination visible to the rest of the warehouse.
Decide what to do before the pallet enters
Ryota Fujinami, co-founder, CTO and vice president of Cuebus Inc., described the handling sequence in written responses to The Supply Chainer following the company’s announcement of a three-level pallet-storage installation at a footwear and apparel logistics site in Yamanashi, Japan. He said a forklift operator first restacks an overhanging load and retries the move. If the pallet still exceeds the dimensional tolerance, the operator takes it to conventional storage. “All putaway, retrieval and exception events are recorded in the CUEBUS system log.”
For a rejected load, Fujinami said the operator updates the existing warehouse management system with the conventional storage location. The equipment log can then be cross-checked against the warehouse record. A useful acceptance test would send an overhanging pallet through both branches of the procedure and ask the next shift to find it from the system record. The test can also show whether the team can trace who moved the load and where it ended up when the equipment did not store it.
Make the same stock traceable in either location
In earlier reporting on healthcare distribution, John Lowerison, vice president of operations at The Stevens Company, described how size and picking velocity determine which supplies go into AutoStore at the company’s Winnipeg facility. “Traceability requirements don’t differ between conventional storage and AutoStore.” Lowerison was discussing a different kind of automated storage, where bin presentation can help enforce inventory rotation. His example illustrates why moving a load to a conventional lane still has to preserve the information the next operator needs to find and handle it.
Fujinami’s example covers a pallet rejected before it enters automated storage. His response leaves open what happens when a putaway instruction has already been accepted and the pallet fails to reach its assigned position. That is a separate test for an implementation team, including how an open move becomes visible and who is responsible for closing it. The overhang case can establish a workable fallback at receiving while the site tests that later failure separately.
