药单子一：你得搞点Slotting咚咚，也就是储位优化，你Y别在10个搁板区域上搞，你得在高储量的拣选流离架上招呼，这样，你转悠的距离又少，还有备用的库存在旁边！介个聪明的slotting咚咚，别只考虑sku的流动速度，你Y还得考虑SKU的体积，要选择刚刚好能够充分利用空间拣选模组！关键是你得盯着点，因为包装TMD经常变的！你若是搞快时尚的，也就是俺们这里的体育用品商店，你考虑季节因素，不是光光考虑为每一个SKU都创建一个专门的架槽，而是按照季节轮着搞！介不篮球季节到了吗，咱足球咚咚不都空了吗，将介两个咚咚搞在一起，你不光光是省空间啊，关键还共享了拣选位，它还提高了拣选效率！
When it comes to the economy, not much has changed. Many
supply chain analysts are calling this the new normal, with
warehouses and distribution centers (DCs) routinely operating under
tight budgets while still expected to satisfy increasing customer
demands. With limited capital dollars, the recurring theme has been
to make do with what you have; and what you have is existing space
that’s only so wide and so high. So, how do you make the most of
it?
Well, it could be worse. You could be experiencing a string of
warehouse and DC closings and consolidations that would inevitably
push space issues even more into the limelight. “Even in these
remaining facilities, management may still not be willing to
expand, putting the onus on DC managers to maximize existing
space,” reports Bill Elenbark, senior engineer for the supply chain
consulting firm Transystems.
Could this be mission impossible? It actually helps if you
look at your space from a 3D perspective. “You pay for three
dimensions when you buy or lease a building: length, width, and
height. The basic premise of the warehouse/DC business is that you
need to use all three dimensions,” says Lou Cerny, vice president
for Sedlak Management Consultants, a logistics consulting
company.
We shared a few space optimization tricks for using all three
dimensions in last year’s feature titled “5 ways to find hidden
warehouse space.” This month, we continue in that vein, but we’re
now going to focus our attention beyond the storage areas to the
more critical operating areas: order picking, docks, returns, and
value-added services (VAS). These high-traffic areas are notorious
for eating up too much footprint while not fully utilizing the
height of a facility.
Along with Cerny and Elenbark, we’ve tapped Ed Romaine, a vice
president at KardexRemstar, a leading manufacturer of space-saving
equipment, and Ken Ruehrdanz, distribution and warehousing market
manager for logistics and distribution solutions provider Dematic,
to offer even more ways to maximize operating space.
Many operations only utilize the first 10 feet of building
height leaving “too much air” in the remaining empty space up to
the ceiling. “With many buildings having clear heights of 30 feet
to 35 feet, that’s a lot of wasted space that has operating costs
associated with it—cost to heat, cost to cool, and cost to
illuminate,” points out Dematic’s Ruehrdanz.
In addition, look for empty space within pick modules such as
case flow racks and shelving as more evidence of underutilized
space. It’s not uncommon to see a three-inch carton located in the
same shelf opening as a 12-inch carton. “I’ve given many seminars
on saving space over the years,” says KardexRemstar’s Romaine, “and
I always start out by asking who in the audience has taken a shelf
and readjusted it after it was built. I’ve had only one person in
10 years ever raise their hand.”
The presence of too much dust in an otherwise clean facility
can also be a telltale sign. Romaine recalls
walking through a large DC in New Jersey with rows upon rows of
high-value, pick-to-light case flow rack and performing the
infamous “white-glove test” on products in prime pick facings. He
found many with up to a quarter of an inch of dust.
“Pick-to-light flow rack is meant for highly-active picks,”
says Romaine. “Management at this facility had been complaining of
not having enough space, but these products hadn’t moved in awhile-
maybe even years. They’ve been taking up space and pickers have had
to pass by them to find the one item that they really needed,
compromising productivity.”
After identifying the symptoms, it’s time to address the
possible cures. They range from simple slotting strategies with
little or no capital required to the installation of mezzanines and
more automated, high-tech pick and storage modules that usher in
significant productivity gain, allowing management to realize an
attractive return on investment (ROI).
Cure #1: Adopt smart, up-to-date slotting strategies.
Although slotting is done primarily to improve order picking
efficiency, it’s also known to save space. “Instead of slotting
items in 10 shelving sections,” says Cerny, “slot them in denser
case flow rack, allowing you to walk much less and still have the
inventory back-up behind it.”
Smart slotting involves not just taking into account a
product’s movement, but also its cube so that a product’s cubic
velocity can be matched and maximized to the space provided by the
appropriate pick module. Once in place, remember to continually
monitor your slotting strategy. Products may have changed
packaging, creating smaller, more efficient shippable cases.
“During baseball season, they were not selling any football
goods, yet they had all the empty spots for them in the same space;
so we recommended switching baseball and football in and out for a
more compact footprint.” Not only did the move save space, but it
increased pick productivity as workers do not have to travel by all
the empty slots.
Cure #2: Where appropriate, use mezzanines. If you have
40 percent of your floor space allocated to receiving and shipping
docks, Cerny suggests using mezzanines. “It could be for active or
reserved storage, offices, quality control, or VAS
processing.”
He warns, however, that you have to make sure you meet with
local authorities especially when you’ve got a significant area of
mezzanine proposed. “Generally, the rule is not to exceed 33
percent of the footprint of the building, otherwise you’re looking
at all sorts of additional fireproofing, quickly making it
cost-prohibitive.”
Cure #3: Pay closer attention to your slow and medium
movers. Twenty percent of the fast-moving SKUs typically get the
most attention—and the fanciest equipment—but you still have to
deal with 80 percent of your slow and medium
movers.
Romaine recommends using carousels and vertical lift modules
(VLMs) for these slow and medium movers to save space. Carousels
and VLMs not only save space but improve productivity because
instead of a picker going to the product (person-to-goods), a
mechanical device brings the product to the picker
(goods-to-person).
Limited to eight feet in height, horizontal carousels can be
stacked on top of each other with workers stationed on narrow
mezzanines at one end of each level to pick or replenish items.
Vertical carousels and VLMs utilize the cube of a facility by
storing over 60 feet high within a compact
footprint.
In VLMs, product is stored in trays and a central extracting
device grabs the required tray and delivers it to the pick window
for picking. Both carousels and VLMs are typically arranged in
“pods” of two or more units so that a worker can be picking from
one unit while the next unit is busy indexing or extracting the
next product, improving productivity.
Romaine tells the tale of how a luxury goods producer and
distributor was able to consolidate their three facilities into one
existing facility by using three VLMs. “This company not only saved
up to 80 percent of otherwise wasted floor space, but also
increased productivity by 40 percent.” He adds that the system was
originally calculated for 18 months ROI, “but it came in at 13
months, while contributing significantly to the closing of two
warehouses.”
Cure #4: Create space-saving layouts for special
processing areas such VAS and returns. According
to Elenbark, special processing areas have a tendency to creep in
size and spread out over larger areas than are required. It may be
high time to take a closer look and consider making space-saving
changes. If a lot of pallets are sitting on the floor, consider
adding a short section of pallet rack to take advantage of cube.
Carousels can be used as buffers to accumulate processed returns
before returning them to inventory.
Cure#5: Automate. Ruehrdanz says that if a user’s
business objectives can be linked to objectives such as improving
product security, optimizing space, and addressing ergonomic
issues, then the use of high density devices such as an automated
storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) may be justified. He adds
that the business case can often be very compelling, especially
when it eliminates the need to build a new facility. “Typical ROI
for AS/RS,” he adds,” ranges from 2 years to 4 years.”
So, now that you listened when do you start? Our experts were
unanimous: “Yesterday.” Our panel agrees that performing spatial
analysis on your facility should have already been part of your
organization’s continuous improvement programs.
If you’re finding that work too difficult to complete then
getting help may not be a bad idea. “Many times we often don’t see
the forest for the trees; thus, it helps to get an outsider’s
perspective. A week’s analysis can certainly help facilitate the
process,” adds Cerny. “Many material handling vendors offer free
initial space and density analysis as part of their solutions
package. Maybe it’s time to call.
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