streamlining the warehouse

7/31/2019 Streamlining the Warehouse

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St r e a m l i n in g t h e w a r e h o u se

There are several challenges facing warehouse managers in todays competitive

environment, including:

Keeping warehouse running costs to a minimum Rotating stock correctly, thereby avoiding the need to write-off stock,

which has expired or is obsolete. Picking and despatching sales orders as efficiently as possible Handling staff turnover

There is one aspect of a warehouses operation that should also be considered for

improvement i.e. bulk to pick replenishment. In a conventional rackedwarehouse, which has a dedicated pick face in the lower tiers and bulk storage of pallets in the upper tiers, the traditional method of ensuring that the pick face isreplenished, ready for the next days picking activity, is to replenish the pick faceat a suitable point, frequently at the end of the days picking. This may beundertaken either by visually scanning the pick locations, or with the assistanceof a WMS software package, which could automatically identify those picklocations in which the quantity of physical stock has fallen beneath a predefinedtrigger level. Possibly the replenish quantity is also identified. However, there areproblems associated with this manner of replenishment:

1. It is very unlikely that the pick location will be empty, so either the new

stock (from the bulk location) is located on top of the existing stock in thepick location, thereby disrupting rotation, and2. The replenish quantity which is moved from a bulk storage location is

likely to be a part-pallet. Ideally a complete pallet would be moved, as thisis labour and time efficient. Pulling a pallet from bulk location, thenbreaking it to assemble the required number of cases onto a new pallet,then replacing the original pallet back into the bulk location is very labourand time intensive.

The use of RF technology and associated WMS software provides a number of benefits to a warehouse operation, including:

The ability to scan barcodes for pallet identification, location labels andproduct EAN codes, thereby increasing the stock integrity within awarehouse.

Stock rotation can be automatically controlled. Stock putaways, bulk-to-pick replenishments and picking activity can be

determined based on the rules given to the system. A complete history of the activity relating to all stock movements, is

recorded, which can be analysed, establishing the warehouse KeyPerformance Indicators.

New staff requires less training and are therefore productive in less time.

An additional benefit of utilising RF technology is that the warehouse activity and


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the associated tasks are created and completed in real-time. In other words,the WMS software knows the stock position for each pick location immediately, assoon as a stock movement has been completed. This has significant implicationsfor the replenishment of the single product pick locations, since the WMS systemcan identify instantly when a pick location has been emptied and can reactaccordingly, creating a bulk-to-pick replenishment, selecting on a FIFO basis theappropriate pallet from a bulk location.The replenishment of the pick face has therefore moved from a proactive to areactive environment. Assuming that a forklift operator is active, the bulk-to-pickreplenishment would be given the highest priority, ensuring that the picker is onlywaiting one or two minutes. Alternatively, the picker could skip that particularpick and return to the pick location later.

In addition to the better utilisation of time in the replenishment of the picklocations and ensuring that rotation of stock is adhered to within the pick face,there are further opportunities to streamline the warehouse. The most efficientmethod of moving stock within a warehouse is by the pallet, whether the stock ison a conventional CHEP pallet, a smaller Euro pallet, a large pallet or is stored as

half-pallets. Palletised stock is shrink-wrapped and is therefore protected and canbe identified at any time via a pallet label.

Ideally the bulk-to-pick replenish quantity would be a single whole pallet,whatever the actual size of the pallet. Likewise each pick location would be ableto accommodate a pallet. Potentially, there would be a number of pallet sizes,based on the product characteristics. Therefore, consideration should be given tothe layout of the pick face, which could be segregated into different sections toaccommodate conventional CHEP pallets, Euro pallets, half-size pallets, quarter-size pallets and so on.

This analysis of the pick face may have implications for the bulk storage racking,

in order to efficiently utilise the space available in the bulk racking. In a similarmanner to the pick face, there may be a certain area of bulk racking dedicated toCHEP pallets, another area dedicated to Euro pallets and yet another area forlarge pallets, with each bulk bin location having a capacity of a single pallet formaximum visibility.

For those products where the normal pallet size is a half-pallet or a quarter-pallet, then within the conventional racking, the bulk locations that will be used tostore these pallets should have a storage capacity of 2 or 4 pallets respectively.Alternatively, additional racking is implemented, increasing the number of locations in this section of the warehouse. It should be noted that if a location hasa storage capacity of more than one pallet, there might be issues with rotation of

stock within these bulk locations.Finally, there are likely to be implications in receiving stock. The supplier maydeliver stock in pallet sizes that are different to the size of the pick location.Possible options include:

The supplier delivers in pallet sizes determined to your specification Re-palletisation occurs on receipt into the required pallet sizes, although

there are obvious labour and time implications The size of the pick location is changed to accommodate the suppliers

pallet size.

It is also necessary to take into account the stock turn for the products, with the


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faster moving products having the larger pick locations in order to reduce thenumber of bulk-to-pick replenishments.

Streamlining the warehouse in this manner will ensure that the replenishment of the pick locations is completed as efficiently as possible, thereby reducing thetime and therefore the cost involved in bulk-to-pick replenishments. An indirectbenefit is that a greater number of stock movements now involve palletised stock,which should lead to fewer damages and / or loss of loose stock.

D a v e M i l l s - Se n i o r Co n s u l t a n t Pr o t e u s So f t w a r e

For further information please call Linda Rodway on +44 (0) 121 717 7474 oremail [email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]

streamlining the warehouse

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