When the trailer pulls away from the dock doors, it's over. You've done all that you can do to ship your customers the right product in the right quantity and have it delivered on time. It's also your final opportunity to get it wrong, which is why manufacturing executives need to pay as much attention to creating a lean material flow in their picking, packing and shipping areas as they do in the factory.
A lean distribution operation is an integral part of a pull-based value chain that begins with the customer order. Such operations apply lean tools and techniques to simplify packaging, streamline material flow, reduce errors, eliminate extra handling, reduce floor-space requirements and improve inventory management. In the ideal state -- admittedly a far-off vision for many companies -- warehouse workers do not have to rush through a large batch of shipments at the end of the month or quarter
Getting to that point and setting up a lean distribution operation does not start with equipment. It's not about having new conveyors or the latest material handling automation to eliminate labor hours. New equipment and technology may be part of the final solution, but lean distribution starts by thinking about how to apply the lean principles of eliminating waste, creating flow and implementing pull-based processes to create a value chain driven by customer demand. The goal on the floor is to create a linear material flow, based on takt time (the total net daily operating time divided by the total daily customer demand), where product comes from manufacturing and goes directly to the shipping dock with no double handling. Current equipment may or may not support that objective.
For example, picking orders from flow racks with products slotted based on sales velocity and ergonomic factors (with fast movers located between the thighs and shoulders) will be far more efficient than picking orders from pallet racks. Flow racks allow incoming product to be loaded on one side and then slide forward to the pick face as it is consumed, supporting first-in, first-out inventory management.
In one of our client's facilities, the travel time for order pickers in the existing pallet rack shrank from upwards of two minutes per item to 40 seconds or less with flow racks. New labels with specific colors for each part family further reduced opportunities for error during put away and order picking. Other efficiency improvements and reductions in travel time not directly related to new equipment came from zone picking waves of orders rather than have each order picker work on a single order at a time. This tactic allows order pickers to simultaneously fill lines on multiple orders, which are later consolidated by order.
Another common warehouse practice that can contribute to errors and extra handling is releasing orders to be picked in the order that they happen to come in or by some other random method that's not linked to the shipping schedule. What's picked in the morning should go out in the late morning or early afternoon, not that evening or the following day. Otherwise boxes and pallets just sit around, taking up space on the shipping dock.
Packing to Perfection
Packing is another area where there's a lot of opportunity for a lean approach to make dramatic improvements. Packing departments in many companies are haphazard, chaotic areas with randomly placed tables and equipment -- scales, taping equipment, label printers and shrink-wrapping machines -- surrounded by shelves of corrugated material and shipment staging areas.
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