April 2009 Material Handling Tips & Information Newsletter

Doing More with Less is the Core Mission of Material Handling

Achieving more with less is a core goal of most businesses. In the warehousing and industrial world, that means building more, shipping more, doing more – controlling more – with fewer resources. The typical issue is labor in many of these operations. It takes people to run a shipping, manufacturing or commercial operation, and plenty of them. In these tough times, how do you ensure that when things improve, that headcount won't disproportionately increase?

Comparison: Welded vs. Woven Wire Security Cages

With the focus on plant security the last few years, it’s little wonder that companies are outfitting their warehouses with security partitions and cages for high-value inventory, restricted access areas, tool cribs, and other places where more physical control of the property is needed. They are superb in these functions, keeping tools, components and inventories safe for a relatively low cost vs. other kinds of security measures.

We recently started offering welded wire partitions alongside the traditional woven cages that have been standard in the industry for years. Both are good equipment. Both will secure an area. Both will keep unauthorized people out of places they aren’t supposed to be. But they are different products, with different applications.

Calculating Locker Row "Growth"

Like many things (shelving, rack) that can be fitted into a row, lockers "grow" beyond their listed dimensions in a given space. Ten 12" wide lockers will occupy more than 10' of space. Sometimes that's okay if your installation area isn't tight. Other times it can cause a huge headache.

One of the things we are offering with this is a nifty little web application that lets you calculate “growth”, or the actual space a row of lockers might need. If you want to fit a row of lockers between two walls that are 10 feet apart, ten 12″ wide lockers will not fit in that space because each locker adds a little bit of growth to the row. Just plug in your lockers and the space, and it tells you how much growth to expect.

Why Dallas (and the South Central U.S.) is Great for Distribution

Dallas is an excellent place to locate your distribution operations. The points are solid, and in this tough economy, wringing out every atom of efficiency from your supply chain is more important than ever.

Among Dallas's assets is its central location (98% of consumers can be reached by truck in one day), lower operating costs, an excellent logistics infrastructure, import/export advantages, and continuous growth. Many of these same traits apply to south-central locations like Houston, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Little Rock.