Retail distribution facilities have multiple options for shipping product to store locations. They can send full pallets which must be unwrapped, unloaded, and stocked at the store location. They can send packed carts that can easily be rolled onto store floors and stocked at the point of sale. What method works best?
Tags: Retail distribution, Safety & Ergonomics, warehousing, order fulfillment
Posted in Order Picking & Fulfillment|
The amount on your purchase invoice isn’t the last time you’ll pay for that conveyor, but those ongoing costs of operations can be dramatically reduced by making good decisions at the point of purchase. Conveyor systems designed for future considerations slash costs and perform better.
Tags: Conveyor, warehousing, conveyor systems, ROI, Sustainability
Posted in Conveyor Optimization|
If you’ve ever stopped at a traffic light, and shuddered at the texting, teenage (or all too often, an adult) driver in the next lane, you probably thought this is an irresponsible person who shouldn’t be behind the wheel. Given statistics that smart phone users are impaired as drunk drivers, it’s a serious and deadly issue; most states have laws specifically forbidding texting on the road. The question is, do you tolerate that kind of distractions for forklift drivers in your warehouse? Should you have the same rules? (Short answer: yes).
Tags: distracted driving, warehousing, Pallet Rack, forklift safety
Posted in Forklift - Pedestrian Safety|
Cliff Holste at Supply Chain Digest (opens in a new window) has a good piece on ways to improve picking productivity.
Distribution centers will benefit from emerging automated case picking technologies, but those don’t fit for every operation, at every level. They’re also expensive upgrades, so your ROI has to be considered as well.
Tags: Warehouse Management, warehousing, order fulfillment, distribution center, ROI, Order Picking & Fulfillment
Posted in Order Picking & Fulfillment|
It ought to be fairly simple, but specifying the right workbench for your application is something that requires thought and pre-planning if you want to maximize your time and labor. Minor differences in the type of bench can provide critical benefits that add up to major productivity gains over time. Benches aren’t the simple, static equipment many believe. Here are some traits to consider.
Tags: work bench, warehousing, workstations, ergonomics, workbenches
Posted in Storage, Organization & Workstations|
Next time you’re standing there wondering where you’re going to put an inbound shipment while your dock is stacked with empty pallets, look at those doors (or at the void above them)Â —Â the copious space between the top of the doors and the ceiling is unused. Multiply each door by that amount of space, and in many operations, we’re talking serious amounts of unused square footage.
The easy solution: find a use for it with over-dock-door storage. You can’t really rack heavy stuff up there without some significant structure. The best thing to consider is empty pallets, which take up a ton of room and are relatively lightweight. And usually, they’re all over the floor and always in your way. Empty pallets clutter up the shipping & receiving docks or can take up positions in your racks that would be better suited to full pallets of finished goods or incoming shipments.
Tags: Pallet Rack, space savings, industrial safety, dock doors, pallets, warehousing, Material Handling
Posted in Space Optimization & Planning|
Gravity skate wheel conveyor is probably the most economical conveyor option around for quick, portable movement of lightweight boxes, totes, or trays.
You see it used in shipping & receiving areas, in assembly operations, or as a transitional piece between workstations and powered conveyor lines. You can even slap casters on it for a conveyor that can be rolled in & out of use areas. We even plug it into gravity flow racks to create heavier-duty, FIFO flow storage.
For such a simple piece of conveying equipment — in fact the simplest — errors can and do crop up when it’s ordered incorrectly.
Tags: Conveyor, warehousing, Material Handling, Hytrol
Posted in Conveyor Optimization|
This is a series of posts we’ll be making about saving space in your facility. There are plenty of ways to better utilize space, and some of them might fit your circumstances while others certainly won’t. In today’s challenging business climate, it is particularly critical to use space wisely in your facility.
Tags: materials handling, saving space, modular storage systems, warehousing
Posted in Space Optimization & Planning|
When you are running an operation with lots of racking, it isn’t uncommon to have to replace an occasional upright or beam, or to add new bays onto an existing row. Sometimes you cannot avoid it, as the rack was purchased years ago, by someone else, or from a source you can’t even locate. It might be that you bought used rack and need to fill some gaps in, or it may be perfectly good, 10-year old rack that just needs some damaged components replaced.
This is done all the time, and although it isn’t an optimum situation for rack stability and safety, you can minimize the issues by following the following guidelines:
Tags: warehousing, Material Handling, Pallet Rack, warehouse safety, storage, industrial accident prevention, beams, uprights
Posted in Pallet & Warehouse Racks|
A few months ago, we posted a Guide to Vertical Reciprocating Conveyors (you might find it useful if you’re looking at any application that moves a load up and down at least one level integrated with a shaft, mezzanine or other area). That guide includes the following questions, should be helpful as you move ahead with your project.
Tags: Automation, warehousing, Material Handling, vertical lifts, vrc, mezzanine lifts
Posted in Lifting & Lift Systems|
