The Satellite Review Magazine 2017 Satellite Review Magazine_pages hi res | Page 27

Add to this the fact that many prod-
ucts don’t have the sales volume
to justify having considerable real
estate on the warehouse floor. Thus,
you have a lot of product that is not
readily available for picking, which
is where automation or other types
of systems can play a greater role.
Solution: Automation
High-density automated storage and
retrieval systems (AS/RS) enable
companies to store more of their
product on the floor, without ac-
quiring additional square footage or
sacrificing efficiency. Many compa-
nies who have implemented AS/RS
have reduced their overall building
footprint by up to 50 percent (ver-
sus conventional warehouses), while
at the same time expanding their
storage capacity by 30-50 percent.
Challenge #2: Wide-variety
of SKUs and Expiration
Dates
Standard demand replenishing is
not as flexible for certain categories
of SKUs that may not be used for
full pallet shipments and can lead
to possible aging of materials or
products. For example, if you are
picking only a few cases a day off a
pallet that has 60 cases, the remain-
ing inventory can age, and the pallet
cannot be used to fill a full pallet
order. In this case, partial pallet
management such as using end of
run partial pallets may be necessary.
While this is a huge concern for
those dealing with expiration dates
in the food industry, other consum-
er goods manufacturers with long
expiration dates can combine lots to
create a more efficient picking and
replenishment process.
Solution: Warehouse
Execution System (WES)
Depending on the design of the
syste m and the category of SKU or
product, you’ll likely have a variety
of replenishment schemes embed-
ded in the WES. The first one is
the most simple, which is; there is
space for two pallets in a typical
gravity flow lane, and as soon as
one is depleted, the other one flows
forward creating an empty space,
which triggers a replenishment. For
the slower moving products, users
can set up an algorithm within the
WES where even if there is space
for replenishment, it is not triggered
until a future order contains that
product. That way, the pallet can be
used to fill a full pallet order since it
is still located in reserve storage.
Challenge #3: Overly-com-
plex Systems
Since the needs of each warehouse
are unique, there is no “one size
fits all” automation system. The
system that works perfectly for the
warehouse that ships mostly full
pallet orders will not be as efficient
as a warehouse that ships a smaller
order quantities
For example, let’s say you run a
typical conventional warehouse, and
one of your customers is Amazon.
When your warehouse receives an
order for a single case, you have to
bring a full pallet down to pick one
case and then return it to reserve
because you don’t have that low
volume product located on the
floor. You basically could be moving
a 2,000 pound load to pick and re-
trieve a single case. This slows down
efficiency and wastes resources.
Automation can help, if implement-
ed properly.
www.WestfaliaUSA.com
In the end, the entire order has to
go on one truck, no matter what
picking solutions are used for differ-
ent product volumes. This “consol-
idation/merging” of partial orders
can get complex due to timing and
productivity differences.
Solution: Planning
This is where the logistics designer
comes into play. System plans need
to be based on the way products are
moving today, while looking toward
the future as well. This is where or-
der analytics are used to determine
what type of system is suitable for
what class of product and how you
manage the integration of all these
different systems or methodologies
of picking. That has to all be coordi-
nated and managed by the WES and
the automation. That’s a challenge
that requires a lot of thought.
Designing the best system for a
warehouse is a careful balance. The
logistics designer has to determine
how many machines to buy in order
for somebody to pick that case effi-
ciently. They must find the tipping
point between using enough auto-
mation needed to gain efficiencies
and using too much and incurring
huge amounts of capital cost for
very little return.
These solutions are a starting place
in tackling the order fulfillment
challenges faced by warehouses.
Since every warehouse’s situation is
unique, the ideal solution is one that
takes into consideration not only
the product movement through the
warehouse, but also the business
needs of the company as a whole.
The Satellite Review
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