Warehousing Insights | Material Handling Systems rack | Warehousing Insights | Material Handling Systems - Part 30
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5 Sheet Metal Storage Alternatives

September 18, 2012
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stacks of sheet metal

Above: how difficult is it to access these sheets?

Sheet metal is one of the most difficult handling challenges out there. It’s simultaneously bulky, heavy, somewhat flexible and prone to damage if handled incorrectly. It often has sharp edges and corners, making it dangerous to manually move and turn. At higher gauges or in bundles, it requires forklifts, cranes or scissor lifts for safe and effective handling. Even a thin sheet, if it’s 4 x 8, can be too much for a single worker to handle.

Yet, sheet metal is commonly used in manufacturing and fabrication, so finding better sheet metal storage and handling methods is key. What can you do to handle it better?

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Posted in Pallet & Warehouse Racks|

Seeing Around Corners: The Danger Spots in Warehouses & Factories

August 28, 2012
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pallet rack row end and forklift traffic

In an industrial environment, intersections can be dangerous. With fast-moving workers who are busy and probably distracted, and fast-moving forklifts that may have loads elevated that can obstruct the driver’s view, corners, ends of rack rows, and intersections can be the cause of many accidents. Whether it’s a worker walking and carrying a load, or a forklift on its way to the next pick, the chances of collisions, injuries, and damages are greater at intersections than most anywhere else. What are your options when it comes to making your intersections safer?

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Posted in Forklift - Pedestrian Safety|

10 Ways to Reduce Inventory Errors Through Order Picking

June 25, 2012
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worker performing inventory with a tablet device

Mistakes happen, but in order picking operations, reducing the number of errors is critical. Because order picking is the last touch point between you and your customers, it’s more important than public relations, press releases, or your website. Whether you’re shipping direct to consumers or to another processing operation, customers are directly impacted. Not only is the customer with the incorrect order harmed, so are potential future customers who suffer because of inventory errors delaying orders.

What are some ways you can increase inventory accuracy related to order picking?

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Posted in Order Picking & Fulfillment|

How to Store Stacks of Empty Pallets

May 4, 2012
by

worker using pallet jack to move empty pallets

Most distribution and manufacturing operations deal with empty pallets. Sometimes, a lot of them.

Empty pallets take space you could use for something else as they clutter your receiving area. Sometimes they’re splintery, with nails protruding from the sides ready to bite a passerby. People re-use their pallets, holding onto them for a period of time until they’re used for an outbound shipment. But while they’re in your facility, they can eat space, potentially injure people, and generally cause trouble.

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Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|

Vertical Lift Modules vs. Horizontal Carousels

May 2, 2012
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Horizontal Carousels vs. Verticla Lift Modules

When you are considering an automated picking solution, you have lots of choices. One of the more frequent comparisons is between horizontal carousels and VLM’s – vertical lift modules. Both promise similar efficiency gains: they bring products to pickers rather forcing pickers to move to picking stations in shelving or racks. But which is best? That depends on what set of criteria you use, and what’s important to you.

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Posted in Automation, Labor & Efficiency|

How to Benchmark Your Warehouse

March 26, 2012
by

warehousing operation

Comparison is natural – and necessary

Everyone likes to see how they’re doing vs. their industry peers.  This isn’t just a natural urge to compare yourself, it’s a vital part of doing business.

Benchmarking, at the heart of it, is comparing your performance to others like you. You look at your business processes and outcomes, and how they stack up to the performance metrics of industry leaders, your peers, and the best from similar operations. In warehousing, it is particularly important to understand where you are, and where you could be with reconfigurations, tweaks, and innovations that others are using to improve their numbers.  What do you specifically measure? Typically this can include quality, cost, and time. Specifically, it can get much more complex.

At the end it helps you understand the success of your peers and how you can reproduce that success.

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Posted in Warehousing & Distribution|

9 Ways to Reduce Product Damage in Your Warehouse

February 16, 2012
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damaged cardboard box with fragile sticker
In warehouse & manufacturing operations, things get broken. They break in a number of ways, and it’s expensive. You’ve probably seen product broken or damaged in amazing and improbable ways  if you’ve been in this business for any length of time. We had a client once buy a bunch of mismatched, used industrial shelving (not from us), only to see it collapse and dump thousands of tiny aircraft components on the floor. It had to be swept up and discarded since it was all mixed up and visually impossible to sort.

Those are extraordinary examples, but everyday inventory damage that cost “only” a few hundred or thousand dollars can savage your bottom line.

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Posted in Warehousing & Distribution|

To-Do List for Moving a Warehouse

February 7, 2012
by

warehouse reconfiguration

Over the past four decades, we’ve seen plenty of operations move. We’ve installed entirely new conveyor systems into functioning operations without disturbing the flow of existing work. We’ve seen companies pick up an entire distribution operation and move it across two hundred feet of parking lot into another building. It’s not new territory for us, and if you have managed a manufacturing or warehousing operation long, it’s probably not for you either.

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Posted in Warehousing & Distribution|

How to Implement the 5S Approach in Workcells & Workstations

January 4, 2012
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workstation with 5S implementation

Based on 5 Japanese words that begin with “S,” the 5S Philosophy homes in on effective work place organization and standardized work procedures. When correctly implemented, it reduces waste and increases efficiency and overall work quality. You’ll also have a safer, more effective operation and employees who are more checked in than they were before. It simplifies work flow and helps you find inefficiency.

You may see things like empty flow racks, needless processes, over stocking, redundant operations, looming maintenance problems and more.

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Posted in Storage, Organization & Workstations|

6 Ideas to Keep Your Warehouse Clean

January 3, 2012
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One easy way to gauge a warehouse or manufacturing plant’s effectiveness is to check how clean it is. Cleaner facilities are more productive, tend to be safer and tend to be more organized.

Whether your facility features gleaming floors or just keeps debris from packaging materials, pallets and accumulated junk under control, being cleaner is well worth the time investment. People who work in a disorganized facility where things just feel sloppy won’t work as well. They may make more errors. They won’t have pride in the operation. An inch of dust on rack beams or beneath conveyor legs sends a message to workers. You don’t need a sparkling facility with floors so clean you could have lunch on them, but a well-lit, organized, pleasant place to work can be helpful in employee attitudes and retention.

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Posted in Warehousing & Distribution|

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