Archive for the ‘Warehouse managment’ Category:
Material Handling Shows on the Card in Coming Time
Things are well set for new material handling shows to be organized at South East and South West regions of the UK. The ShD South East and ShD South West are the second and third brand new material handling shows of regional importance organized by IMHX organizer, Quartz.
As the both shows as ShD South East at Maidstone’s Kent Showground on 17th September and ShD South West on 12th definitely would be going to be of great help for local firms which deals into any type of good and product commodities. There, many programs are scheduled during the course of both of the exhibitions. The most important of the events are free seminars and lectures delivered by leading members of the UKWA (United Kingdom Warehousing Association).
The issues as covered under seminar could are handling in-house theft, implementing energy-saving initiatives, strategies for avoiding the rate liability of empty warehouses, top tips for designing a successful warehouse and how to recruit the best logistics professionals. Presentation on each of the topic is set with time frame of 30 minutes with a question and answer session.
Both exhibitions have live demonstration areas for displaying innovative ideas to reduce cost and maximize supply chain efficiency. There a wide range of companies will be showcasing their inventions at the show like fork-lift firms Aisle-Master, Briggs Equipment, GC Hurrell & Co Ltd, Linde, Narrow Aisle, Nissan, Still, Translift and TVH, as well as traction battery specialist, Norco. Visitors with an interest in packaging will be able to talk to packaging specialists FROMM, Schoeller Arca Systems, Easypack, Sealed Air Ltd and Ranpak. Also present will be shrink-wrap machinery suppliers Shrinkfast and AETNA.The distribution network PalletForce will be represented, along with emissions reduction solutions provider Envirosafe and explosion protection specialist Pyroban.
For more info and registration, log onto http://www.shdregionalshows.biz.
Subscribe to the comments for this postKeeping Safe from the Ground Up
There always remains an opportunity for an accident in ware housing and material management handling from the floors to the loading dock. And companies irrespective of industry and location are required to give an appropriate and safe environment for their employees, especially in active warehouse and distribution centers. In a recent data as released by Bureau of Labor Statistics from the all occurred occupational accidents, one forth happened at jobs related to transportation and material handling jobs.
Recently, two New England distribution centers charged with fine of $100,000 from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) when a worker got injured and repeated violation were found. There are many places that are prone to accidents in warehouses like unguarded conveyor, large unstable storage racks, open sided work platforms which led to falls, crushing injuries and electrocution as told by OSHA.
Ted Fitzgerald, OSHA spokesman for New England and New York, said in materials handling, keeping safe can involve a number of issues, including ergonomics, lift truck precautions, machine guarding and wiring. “It’s a matter of being aware of the hazards associated with work processes, equipment and the nature of the workplace and determining what the required safeguards are,” Fitzgerald said.
However, this fatality for ware house safety can be sorted out by keeping up in the mind a number of measures in the mind. The American Society of Safety Engineers and American society for Testing and Materials prepared a 200 page document give escape routes to the accident by giving ideas on slip, trip and fall prevention, floor choices, spill cleanup and layout can make a warehouse or other facility safer. Sometimes due to lack of attention on part of workers these fatalities occurs at ware houses and material storage centers.
Increase productivity by shifting pallets of racks in Warehouse
The magic words for productivity, that 80% of it comes from the 20% is correctly applicable for floor space in many warehouse and industrial operations. You can save ample space in your ware house while choosing for rack system with big open spaces.
You can choose racks for higher productivity items if your entire inventory does not get adjusted into the pallets. Could you move each-pick or case-pick operations off of floor pallets or static shelving into flow storage embedded in your racks?
The other goods that can be easily adjusted into the pallets without disturbing the entire set up are higher velocity items. For example by keeping free-standing products in flow storage instead of keeping them on the top of rack or on the floor you can save higher cost of packaging. This way you can increase picking productivity as well as accuracy. It puts away cartons from the ground, improves over ergonomics and frees up that floor space for other uses.
Further, completely removing rows of shelving by shifting their contents to flow storage in your racks you can find new space as well can increase packaging efficiency. This way a bit manipulation in shelving up to 20% can leads up to the improvement of productivity to the range of 80%.
Manufacturers Switching to IT to Maximize Their Profits
While in this period of global recession every company is trying to devise new methods to cut costs and remain competitive and survived, IT has emerged as a better way for companies to cut cost, build longer and more complex supply chains to accommodate it to respond faster to changing demand.
A manufacturer enabled with technology can communicate in better way with far flung suppliers can manage shorter product life cycles and collaborate more emphatically with its business partners. ARC Advisory Group a consultant in manufacturing technology predicted the growth of IT budgets in manufacturing sector is inevitable as more and more companies would use IT to support supply chain processes as to run their manufacturing operations in a better way.
But there also problem thrives for hundreds of manufactures globally as regarding containing algorithms for analyzing manufacturing processes. Now companies are paying attention on the example of Japanese company Toyota’s example where it adopted lean thinking by cutting out waste, put emphasized on making small regular improvements and focused more on customer service. They are facing one other problem as the analytical software have become cheaper though business analyst find it very difficult to handle flood of data to interpret pending before them.
Still big investment ERPs are with 40% of manufacturer’s but the interest is now declining towards relatively small projects with a payback of year or two. The new trend of getting software prepared on order bringing many industries to closer to the Information Technology. As manufactures now can get supplies at their facilities as soon as get an order by phone or on internet as they can inform to their supplier instantly.
Moreover, in present period of the competitive edge every company is trying to go ahead of others while using improving over their Supply Chain. All the modern and coming supply chains aims to keep the amount of produce as low as possible in chain while tracking it through all the possible locations and IT can solve their this problem in this regard to a greater extent. To handle these problem technologies like radio frequency identification (RFID), bar codes and voice recognition has evolved as a very appropriate solution to the problem. However, whatever may be the pattern and use of technologies IT would definitely help companies to gain profits.
Common Warehouse Mistakes
By Priya Jestin, Staff Writer
How does it feel when you are on your way to an important meeting and your car breaks down? Sheer frustration! Well, as the saying goes, “stuff happens”. And it happens in warehouses also leading to the best-laid plans for a new system going haywire.
So why is it that bad stuff happens despite meticulous planning? Probably because there’s some little glitch in the plan. Sometimes, we go ahead with complicated plans without laying the proper groundwork for accomplishing these goals. This could mean that your planned strategy doesn’t move at an efficient pace and you may end up spending a lot of time doing rework because you didn’t do things in the right order. Three common mistakes that could lead a plan astray are:
When you implement a new warehouse system or process, you should be able to expect the unexpected. Remember, ‘if something can go wrong, it will’. When a problem does occur, you must modify or adjust plan you prepared months in advance to keep pace with the changing scenario. You must not try to stick to your charted course of action when you know it is not the right path any longer.
You may have laid the groundwork and done the planning meticulously. But the best test of a system is when it actually works. If the system performs differently than was anticipated, you may have to modify it to meet your requirements. Similarly, in case the profile of orders and products being handled changes between designing and implementing a system you’ll have to modify the system to meet the new requirements. In such a scenario, ensure that everyone gets on board and signs off on the changes.
Any new process or system is always a team effort. To get the most effective system up and running, it’s important to not only identify a project team up front, but to also clearly identify every team members’ roles and responsibilities.
Harness Technology to Improve Warehouse Management
– By Pushpa Sathish, Staff Writer
Technology is playing a lead role in improving efficiency at warehouses, according to The Warehouse Productivity Benchmark Report compiled by the Aberdeen Group after a survey of 180 warehouse managers. The companies with best warehouse management practices were those who were able to cut logistics costs, enhance productivity and reduce cycle times. How were they able to achieve these objectives? By harnessing the right technology, of course!
Research analyst at Aberdeen, Jeff O’Neill, says that the differentiating factors between the success stories and the also-rans are RFID support systems, warehouse management systems, warehouse invisibility infrastructures that permit information sharing across the enterprise, and the ability of employees to be well-versed in various tasks.
The report revealed that 60 percent of those surveyed had not been able to cut down on costs, while 56 percent struggled to reduce order fulfillment times.
Tools used for Picking
In most warehouses, selection of orders is the single most expensive part of the warehousing process. Conveyors and sorters are the most expensive. However, they are more effective in reducing the labor involved in order picking. Most conveying systems are a combination of mobile and static equipment. The frame is static, but there are rollers or wheels within the frame.
Carousels and automated storage and retrieval systems are designed to bring the product to the picker. Carousels can be effective when there are sufficient number of items of appropriate size and weight. They may be less than optimal if the application requires fewer than two or three units.
Read my previous post titled “NewsStand Introduces LibreDigital Warehouse Service” to know the recent happenings in the warehouse management sphere.
Effective Warehouse Management
Warehousing requires effective management of time and space. The material handling tools used in facilities are used to conserve both time and space effectively. Trade-offs must be made. When space is at a premium, enormous creativity has been applied to finding ways to use the least amount of space possible. When both labor and real estate costs are high, the time/space economic calculation tends to fly out.
Within the four walls of distribution centers, material-handling equipment is broadly divided into three varieties. They are static equipment, mobile equipment and order picking tools. Static equipment consists of items without wheels such as storage equipment in the form of metal track. While some varieties are movable, none of them is mobile.
My previous post titled “Warehouse Management Systems” provides complete information about warehouse management systems.
Aldi Expands Tully Warehouse
Aldi Foods, Inc. is expanding its food-distribution warehouse in Tully. The expansion is prompted by a need for space to supply its increasing number of stores in the area. The company expects the warehouse to be completed as soon as possible. There are 65 Aldi stores statewide. The company has over 550 stores in the United States and 7,000 stores worldwide. Aldi Foods is a privately owned company. Aldi Foods is relying on the Charlotte, N.C.-based management firm A.M. King Construction Company to build the warehouse expansion.
To know about the voice technology in warehouse management modules, read my previous post titled “Voice Technology in Warehouse Management Modules“.
NewsStand Introduces LibreDigital Warehouse Service
NewsStand, Inc. has launched a new service that allows book publishers to digitally capture and deliver selected book content online. NewsStand serves the digital content delivery needs of magazine and newspaper publishers. The new LibreDigital Warehouse service is designed to offer book publishers a one-stop shop that simplifies Internet distribution and partner management, while providing secure, controlled portions of online content to help sell their books. The features offered by LibreDigital include content digitization, asset ingest, automated tagging, digital rights management, digital content display, search and page view control.
To know more about warehousing services, read our previous post titled “Voice Technology in Warehouse Management Modules“.