The Satellite Review Magazine The Satellite Review Magazine Vol 2 | Page 22

inventory and maximizing space, manufacturers and distributors can focus
on more critical areas, like fulfilling
orders.

Warehouse design and the
picking process
With a diverse number of SKUs and
a need to best serve the customer in
a timely, accurate manner, warehouse
design and the picking process presents another challenge for many companies. As SKU growth continues, it
brings a change with it that affects the
warehouse in other ways, including
more frequent, more complex and
custom-tailored orders.
While in the past most customer
orders were made up of full pallets of
one SKU or pallets with multiple layers
that each contained one SKU, now
orders are going down to the case level.
Case-level picking is especially useful,
given the number of SKUs, and helps
assemble a pallet with multiple types
of product to fulfill a single order. This
creates a larger and more complex area
needed for creating these orders. More
SKUs, either in pallet form or in case
flow racking, need to be presented to
picking operators to fulfill the customer orders. As this complexity grows,
companies are looking to automation
in different ways to minimize their
impact.
To meet these demands, distributors
and manufacturers are under pressure
to fulfill orders within a shorter time,
while maintaining the highest level of
service, reaching a broader range of
customers and remaining competitive. Designing a warehouse to utilize
automation, via an AS/RS, whether
small or large, provides operators with
the ability to ensure optimal order
fulfillment, from end-to-end while
maximizing the space. A high-density

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The Satellite Review

AS/RS has the ability to combine and
simplify different processes inside of
the same building footprint. Combining different picking strategies, automated and manual order fulfillment
technologies, and warehouse execution
system software, often sets the business
up for success.

Stop the transportation crisis
The trucking crisis is beginning to take
a toll on manufacturers and distributors and the way they need to operate.
The reality of the trucking industry is
that they may drop the order and say
they aren’t doing it because they found
a better deal, and are taking a different
load for a different customer.
With consumer demands shifting
towards quick delivery of products,
manufacturers and distributors are
forced to prepare orders prior to the
trucks arrival. Although this allows for
timely and accurate shipments while
minimizing loading times, this doesn’t
take into consideration that the truck
might not arrive on time or at all. This
places a huge burden on the manufacturer or distributor as for every hour
a product sits stagnant, more costs are
incurred.
According to the American Transportation Research Institute, many of
these issues can be attributed to driver
shortages. With the exception of 2009,
truck fleets have been reducing capacity in both drivers and trucks every
year. And if the shortage continues,
the industry could be facing a gap of
approximately 240,000 between driver
supply and demand by 2022.

shipment is prepared in advance, and a
truck doesn’t show up, the warehouse
is now clogged, and product can’t go
anywhere.
Due to these new demands, successful
automation must provide companies
with a way to fill orders quickly and
efficiently, instead of days in advance.
Solutions need to provide automated
ways to operate a warehouse, provide
throughput and outbound capacity
at much higher rates than manual
workforces, and focus on space saving
factors. All of those combined factors
allow a company to fu