The latest tour sponsored by the Chicagoland Chapter was an overwhelming success as a capacity crowd of more than 50 members toured Wilton Products' Romeoville distribution facility on Thursday, May 14.

Wilton is a food crafting company that offers candy making, cookie making, bakeware, wedding, and seasonal products for the specialty home products industry. Their 691,000 square-foot distribution center was recently redesigned to nearly triple throughput.

Attendees were greeted by Tom Gibadlo who gave a brief overview of the facility and provided some operating statistics.

The group then split into two for the tour which included a look at the planning office, the warehouse receiving area, and put-away which involves turret truck operators using a wire-guided system.

The tour then continued with other operations, including less-than-case picking, sortation, case picking, and outbound staging.At the conclusion of the tour, both groups reunited for a Q&A session in the facility's lunchroom.

The Wilton tour proved itself the most successful tour sponsored by MHMS Chicagoland to date. Special thanks are due to Wilton President Mary Merfeld and other staff members, including Tom Gibadlo, Debbie Bennett, Steria Bain, and Al Gargulo.

For more information on the Wilton facility, click here to read an article on the facility in Modern Materials Handling magazine.