1. You are assigned to determine the total construction area for a
warehouse. Overall, a warehouse consists of two parts: an external dock area
and an internal storage area. (15 pts)
a) When you design the dock area, what sections (or sub-areas) do you
need to consider and what impact their sizes?
b) When you design the storage area, what sections (or sub-areas) do
you need to consider and what impact their sizes?
2. When determining the size of the internal storage area, the first
thing you need to decide is to select a storage method suitable for your need.
There are two methods: randomized (or floating) storage and dedicated (for
fixed) storage. (15 pts)
a) What are the randomized storage method and the dedicated storage
methods?
b) What are the advantages and disadvantage of these two methods?
3. The proper arrangement of merchandise inside a warehouse plays a
critical role at decreasing the travel time and distance to find an item,
selling products more quickly and increasing customers’ satisfaction. It needs
to follow a few of general storage principles. (20 pts)
a) What is the principle of popularity? How does it impact the layout
of storage area? (Please use Figure 7.24, Figure 7.26, and Example 7.6 to
explain your points)
b) What is the principle of similarity? How does it impact the layout
of storage area?
c) What
is the principle of size? How does it impact the layout of storage area?
Name______________________________________________________________________ 1. You are assigned to determine the total construction area for a warehouse. Overall, a warehouse consists of two parts: an external dock area and an internal storage area. (15 pts) a) When you design the dock area, what sections (or sub-areas) do you need to consider and what impact their sizes? b) When you design the storage area, what sections (or sub-areas) do you need to consider and what impact their sizes? 2. When determining the size of the internal storage area, the first thing you need to decide is to select a storage method suitable for your need. There are two methods: randomized (or floating) storage and dedicated (for fixed) storage. (15 pts) a) What are the randomized storage method and the dedicated storage methods? b) What are the advantages and disadvantage of these two methods? 3. The proper arrangement of merchandise inside a warehouse plays a critical role at decreasing the travel time and distance to find an item, selling products more quickly and increasing customers’ satisfaction. It needs to follow a few of general storage principles. (20 pts) a) What is the principle of popularity? How does it impact the layout of storage area? (Please use Figure 7.24, Figure 7.26, and Example 7.6 to explain your points) b) What is the principle of similarity? How does it impact the layout of storage area? c) What is the principle of size? How does it impact the layout of storage area? PAGE MSU, Qingzhou Xu Chapter 5 ETM 430: Operations & Facilities Management Chapter 7: Warehouse Operation Qingzhou Xu 105E LC Building Outline of Chapter 4 Introduction Mission of warehouse Function of warehouse Receiving and shipping operation Principles Space plan Storage operation Order picking operation Space plan Layout plan This chapter mainly talks about four parts: How to design dock area? How to design storage area? How to arrange merchandise? How to achieve efficient order picking? 7.1 Introduction This chapter talks about how to improve the efficiency of warehouse operation through using the best-practice procedures and available material handling systems. 7.1 Introduction Concept of SKU SKU is the acronym of a stock-keeping unit, which is an alphanumeric part number to identify and keep track of the items stored in a warehouse. 7.2 Mission of a Warehouse The mission of a warehouse is to effectively ship products in any configuration to the next step in the supply chain without damaging or altering the products’ functions. There are key warehousing issues to address: How to improve the order-picking operation. How to utilize cross-docking. Cross-docking is a practice in logistics of unloading materials from an incoming semi-trailer truck or railroad car and loading these materials directly into outbound trucks, trailers, or rail cars, with little or no storage in between. How to improve productivity: Productivity is not just the efficiency of labor performance but also includes the efficiency of space and equipment utilization and a combination of factors that impact efficiency. How to use space efficiently: The old rule of thumb is that when a warehouse is more than 80% full, more space is needed. Slow-moving items are stored in slow-moving locations while fast-moving items are stored in fast-moving locations. 7.2 Missions of a Warehouse (continued from last slide) How to increase the value-added services: Warehouses are no longer just picking and shipping locations. Their role has extended to include services that can add values to products. Any of the above warehouse issues or a combination of them can be found within today’s warehouses. The old definition of a warehouse as just a place to store, reconfigure and shorten lead times has become much more complex and technology-driven. 7.3 Functions in the Warehouse It is easy to think of a warehouse as being dominated by the storage function, but there are many activities that occur as part of the process of getting materials into and out of the warehouse. The following list includes the activities found in most warehouses: Receiving: it is a collection of activities including a) the receipt of materials coming to the warehouse, b) assuring that quantity and quality of such materials are as ordered, and c) disbursing materials to storage or to other organizational functions that need them. Inspection and quality control: it is an extension of the receiving process and are done when supplies are not consistent in quality or the product being purchased is heavily regulated and must be inspected at all steps in the process. Packaging: it is performed when products are received in bulk from suppliers or in combination with other parts to form kits or assortments. Put-away: it is an action of placing products in storage. 7.3 Functions in the Warehouse Storage Order picking Postponement: it may be done as an optional step after the picking process. Sortation Packing and shipping Cross-docking: it picks the orders from the receiving dock directly to the shipping dock. Replenishing (continued from last slide) 7.3 Functions in the Warehouse These activities can be illustrated in the following figure: 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations It is useful to think of the carriers that interface with the receiving and shipping docks as a portion of the warehouse. Hence, all the carrier activities on the site are included in receiving and shipping facility planning. Receiving and shipping functions will be defined to begin and end when carriers cross the property line. The activities required to receive goods include: An inbound trucker informs the warehouse to get a delivery appointment and provides information about the cargo. The warehouse personnel verify the advance shipping notice (ASN) and confirm it with the information received from the inbound trucker. The truck arrives and is assigned to a specific receiving door. 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations (continued from last slide) The vehicle is safely secured at dock. Seals are inspected and broken in presence of the carrier representative. The load is inspected and either accepted or refused. The accepted merchandise is unloaded. All unloaded materials are staged for counting and final inspection. The load is stored in assigned location. 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations The requirements for a facility to receive goods include: Sufficient space to stage and spot carriers. Dock levelers and locks to facilitate carrier unloading. Sufficient staging area to palletize or containerize goods. Sufficient area to place goods prior to dispatching. A host information system for ASN/EDI (advance shipping notice/electronic data interchange) on purchase orders to allow for report generation. 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations The activities for shipping goods include: Accumulate and pack the order. Stage and check the order. Reconcile shipping release and customer order. Spot and secure the carrier at dock. Position and secure dock levers and locks. Load the carrier. Dispatch the carrier. 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations The requirements for a facility to ship goods include: Sufficient area to stage orders. In-house host information system for shipping releases and customer orders. Sufficient area to stage and spot carriers. Dock levelers to facilitate carrier loading. 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations Some desirable attributes of receiving and shipping facility plans include: Directed flow paths among carriers, buffer or staging areas, and storage areas. Continuous flows without excessive congestion or idleness. Concentrated area of operation that minimizes material handling and increases the effectiveness of supervision. Efficient material handling. Safe operation. Minimization of damage. Good housekeeping. 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations A key decision on designing a receiving and shipping facility is whether to centralize the two functions. The figure gives several layouts for the centralized and decentralized configurations. The decision to use centralized or decentralized docks depends on many factors. For example, if receiving is restricted to the morning and shipping is restricted to the afternoon, a centralized dock is appropriate. If receiving and shipping occur simultaneously, a decentralized dock may be a better choice. 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations 7.4.1 Receiving and Shipping Principles The following principles serves as guidelines for streamlining receiving operations. They are intended to simplify the flow of material through the receiving process and ensure the minimum work is required. In order, they are: Don’t receive: For some products, the best receiving is no receiving. Having the vendor to ship directly to the customer can save the time and labor. Pre-receive: There is often a need to hold a material for location assignment, product identification and so on. The popular terminology is advance shipping notice. Cross-dock materials: Since the ultimate objective of the receiving activity is to prepare material for the shipment of orders, the fastest, most productive receiving process is cross-docking. The simplest kind of cross-docking activity is one in which an entire inbound load is sorted and then reloaded onto one or more outbound vehicles. 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations 7.4.1 Receiving and Shipping Principles Put away directly to primary or reserve locations: When material cannot be cross-docked, material handling steps can be minimized by bypassing receiving stages and putting material away directly to primary picking locations, essentially replenishing those picking locations. When there are no severe constraints on product rotation, this may be feasible. Otherwise, material should be directly put away to reserve locations. Stage in storage locations: If material has to be staged, the floor space required for staging can be minimized by providing storage locations for receiving staging. Complete all necessary steps for efficient load decomposition and movement at receiving: Once the demand for the product has been received, there is little time for any preparation prior to shipment. Hence, any material processing that can be accomplished ahead of time should be accomplished. (continued from last slide) 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations 7.4.1 Receiving and Shipping Principles Sort inbound materials for efficient put-away: As zone picking and location sequencing are effective strategies for improving order picking productivity, inbound materials can be sorted for put-away by warehouse zone and by location sequence. Combine put-away and retrievals when possible: To further streamline the put-away and retrieval processes, their transactions can be combined in a dual command to reduce the amount of vehicles’ empty travel. Balance the use of resources at receiving by scheduling carriers and shifting time-consuming receipts to off-peak hours. Minimize or eliminate walking by flowing inbound material past workstations: An effective strategy for enhancing order picking productivity, especially when a variety of tasks must be preformed on the retrieved material (e.g., packaging, counting, labeling), is to bring the stock to an order-picking station. (continued from last slide) 7.4 Receiving and Shipping Operations 7.4.1 Receiving and Shipping Principles Many of the good receiving principles also apply in reverse to shipping, including direct loading (the reverse of direct unloading), advanced shipping notice (pre-receiving), and staging in racks. In addition to those principles, good shipping principles include: Select cost- and space-effective handling units. Minimize product damage. Eliminate shipping staging and facilitate the direct-loading of outbound trailers: The most space- and labor-intensive activity in shipping is staging