Yes, this article is about walking. The title is from a song by Ben Rector, one of my favourite artists at this stage in my life.
After Jeffrey’s range of articles about what he saw at Promat 2019 and the technological advances we’re expecting to see here in Australia in the next few years, we figured it was time to come back to solid ground again. As much as we love technology, robots, AMRs and drones, a lot of our time and effort is still focused around your stock standard manual warehouse.
Therefore, this article is going to talk you through how we look at a warehouse operation the first time we walk in. Almost every single place we walk into, with very few exceptions, we instantly find opportunities to improve, identify safety hazards and provide value to the people who invited us in. This is also the case if we just do a site visit, without any commercial arrangement because that’s just who we are and what we do. We can’t really help ourselves.
Why the title? The reason why we identify improvements and notice safety hazards is because we come without any preconceived ideas, we have no knowledge of the history of a site. We don’t know the people, we don’t know the processes. In some cases, we don’t even know what the warehouse does until we walk in.
The people who operate these warehouses know everything or are supposed to know everything. That also means that they are used to things being done a certain way. It’s almost like your own house. I’ll give you an example. I recently moved house. Well actually it’s been a few months now, but there are still moving boxes in some of the rooms, the painting hasn’t been fully finished and there is a list of things to do longer than my arm. But when I walk into the house and drop my bag on the floor, I don’t notice these things because I’ve gotten used to them. It’s not until I look at the to do list or trip over a box that I think about what has to be done.
This applies to warehouses as well. Unsafe situations, process inefficiencies, etc. are all the result of habits, WMS restrictions, budget constraints, and the list goes on and on. Usually they’re not the top priority of a warehouse. Their priority is ensuring they meet their DIFOT, KPIs, SLAs and whatever abbreviations they get thrown their way.
This is where we come in and where we add a lot of value. That’s also where the title came from because we walk in between the lines, with a fresh perspective and with an open mindset. It’s like having someone come into my house and ask me what all these boxes are? Or what colour I’m going to paint the other half of the hallway.
It’s about making people think about their warehouse as if they were walking in for the first time like we are.
So where do we start?
Let’s take the safety aspect first because it’s actually the easiest. As simple checklist you can use is:
- General safety
- Is there a safety induction before we’re allowed into the warehouse
- Does the warehouse require us to wear safety shoes and a safety vest
- Are there spare safety vests and other PPE (personal protective equipment) available on site for visitors
- Is the warehouse equipped with the relevant safety signs where required (PPE required, forklift area, dangerous goods, first aid location, spill kit, etc.)
- Walkways
- Does the warehouse have clearly marked walkways and are they in good condition (not faded or covered in black stripes from forklift/reachtruck tires, which should tell you something…)
- Are the walkways logically placed to separate MHE (forklifts, reachtrucks, etc.) from operators on foot
- Are walkways protected by barriers in areas of high foot traffic
- Do operators on foot adhere to these walkways
- Do operators using MHE adhere to avoid these walkways
- Does our host adhere to these walkways
- Materials Handling Equipment
- Do the forklifts and reachtrucks look like they’re 10 years old (dents, scratches in the paint, leaks, uneven wheels, bearing noise, etc.)
- What is the speed limit of MHE
- Do operators beep their horn when they enter or leave an aisle or manual area
- If they do, does anyone pay attention or do operators just do it because they were told to
- Is there a clear separation of MHE and operators on foot
- Are MHE allowed in areas where operators on foot operate
- Storage equipment
- Are there (current) load signs on all aisle ends (AS4084-1999 or AS4084-2012 depending on when the racking was installed)
- Does the storage equipment still match the load signs
- Are there damaged beams or uprights
- Are all the baseplates still attached to the floor with 1 or 2 bolts (1 bolt is AS4084-1999 which changed to 2 bolts with AS4084-2012)
- Are all baseplates in good condition
- Are aisles used for storage of stock
We have a much longer list than this one but this should give you a good indication, at a glance, of how safe a warehouse actually is. The number of times we walk into warehouses where baseplates are bent or have their bolts sheared off completely is astounding. And most times people don’t even know about it. The same applies to the condition of the MHE on site. If it looks in really good condition, it’s generally a good way of telling that operators take pride in their work and therefore take precautions to keeping the place safe.
We then move onto the operation itself. One of the first things we discuss is volumes. How much stock comes in per day/week/year. How much stock is held on site, what is the weeks stock cover or the stock turns per year. How many orders are picked and despatched each day/week. What are the KPIs and SLAs associated with this. Same day picking and despatch? Next day picking and despatch?
We start to get worried when people are saying they’re happy with a 3-day turnaround of orders…
We’re even more worried when people stare at us with a blank expression on their face during these discussions… Any warehouse manager, DC manager, operations manager should at least know the basic numbers of their operation.
Which brings me to the next part of a visit. The processes, constraints and system limitations.
Have you ever heard of SOPs? Or Standard Operating Procedures? Basically a set of documents, whether they are flowcharts or written text, that describe the operation in detail. Are all the inbound cartons GS1 barcoded. Are all these barcodes linked to the product in the WMS system. Is the operator required to scan each carton during receiving, or just the first carton followed by entering of the total quantity of cartons. Without these process descriptions or operating procedures, what happens in a warehouse is anyone’s guess. If nothing is documented it suggests a heavy reliance on operators’ knowledge which is risky.
What happens if the operator who handles receiving and has been there 10 years falls ill and can’t come to work anymore?
So another checklist then:
- Operating volumes
- Inbound
- Stock on hand
- Picking/outbound
- Packing
- Despatch
- Value added services
- Staffing levels
- Inbound
- Inventory control
- Putaway
- Replenishment
- Picking
- Packing
- Loading
- Supervision
- Other??
- Is the staffing in line with the volume or are there excess operators
- Standard Operating Procedures
- Is there a copy available
- How old is the copy and has it ever been updated
- Do all operators know what they are supposed to do
- Are processes followed or have operators developed their own work-around
- Are the processes in line with the WMS processes
- Are workstations equipped with a “cheat sheet” for operators to follow
- Are there checks in place to ensure operators follow the standard process
- How many steps in the process are surplus, in other words are operators having to do things that don’t make sense such as scanning barcodes multiple times during a single process
- Staff/operators/culture
- Have operators explain their area/responsibility in their own words
- Is this aligned with the SOPs
- How knowledgeable are operators about their area/responsibility including the volumes they handle, the KPIs and SLAs that apply, etc.
- How safety focused are operators in general
- Is there a culture to promote safety
Once we have gone through all of the above we start thinking about where the low hanging fruit is for their specific warehouse. We start to form a picture of the operation itself and we start doing our “internal” calculations.
If a warehouse is picking and despatching 1,000 orders per day with 10,000 orderlines and operators can pick between 60 to 120 orderlines they should have between 10 and 20 order pickers. If there are more than that, there is definitely room for improvement.
Is there an ecommerce component? If so, how many orders consist of only a single unit? Are all orders picked discreetly? Great, batch single unit orders together which greatly enhances the efficiency of picking. At packing operators don’t even have to worry about mixing up orders anymore because every unit they pack is a single order. We’ve seen instances where single unit orders made up 50% of all orders and every single one was picked discreetly. Batching orders increased the pick rate per order by a factor of 5 and the packing rate per order by a factor of 3.
What about wholesale/store orders and ecommerce orders. If they co-exist, do they share the same stock? We see a lot of warehouses where ecommerce stock is physically, and logically, separated from general stock because of WMS constraints/restrictions. The result of that is generally lost sales somewhere or extra handling in the warehouse. If you have 10 units in stock, 8 in ecommerce stock and 2 in general stock and one of your wholesale customers wants 3 you’re stuffed unless you move stock back again from ecommerce, logically first so you can sell it to them and then physically, so someone can go and pick it. Now multiply this by 10 instances per day and you do the math.
These are only a few examples of the things we uncover when we go and visit a warehouse, but it provides a glimpse of what efficiency gains can be achieved within a single visit. And don’t think this wouldn’t apply to your warehouse. We’ve yet to find the first warehouse where we can’t find any safety issues or efficiency improvements.
About the author: Bas Schilders is the principal consultant at Fuzzy LogX who are the leading warehouse, logistics, and process improvement consultants in Australia. With a career spanning 2 continents and 20 years in warehouse improvements and solution implementations, Bas is one of the most experienced consultants in the country when it comes to logistics improvements and implementing warehouse automation solutions.