Case Study: Random House achieves 50% faster order turnaround with Honeywell Intelligrated's Intellisort TT tilt-tray sorter

Order fulfillment sortation system is a great story for publisher

Random House, the world’s largest English‑language trade book publisher, faced a growing fulfillment bottleneck at its 1.3 million ft² Westminster distribution center as its third‑party publishing business expanded. Manual split‑case picking across 26 aisles and more than 40,000 titles forced orders to traverse seven to ten pick aisles, resulting in low throughput, slow turnaround times and high labor costs.

To solve this, Random House partnered with Intelligrated to install an IntelliSort TT single‑tray tilt‑tray sorter with custom double‑level chutes and 12 high‑capacity induction stations, engineered to fit a constrained mezzanine and protect book inventory. After prototyping and acceptance testing, the system increased throughput by 40–50%, cut order turnaround by about 50%, reduced labor and safety risks through ergonomic design, enabled rapid cross‑training, supported next‑day shipping for orders received by 2 p.m., and continues to be supported by Intelligrated service.

Random House

Annette Danek

Vice President