Archive for Material Handling
I’m still catching up from my brief vacation. But here is what caught our attention this week:
- Dematic Group Announces Intent to acquire HK Systems
- Con-way Inc. Reports Second-Quarter Results For 2010
- YRC Worldwide Reports Second Quarter Results
- Postal Service Ends Third Quarter with $3.5 Billion Loss
- SAP Releases Sustainability Update Including Carbon for the Second Quarter
ARC recently published a strategic report called Asset Performance Management: An IT Perspective (available to ARC clients only). As I read through the report, I started thinking about a distribution center (DC) I recently visited. This 750,000 sq. ft. warehouse, which cost $250 million to build, made extensive use of conveyors and sorters directing jobs to people at computerized workstations or pick-to-light stations. The conveyors moved packages through box… Continue reading
Kellogg’s Use of Automated Guided Vehicles
· CommentsThe ongoing developments in intelligent and flexible material handling systems, which are basically robots, continue to fascinate me. For example, automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) used to be fairly dumb machines that moved from point to point by following a preset trail of magnets in the warehouse floor. Humans loaded them at one end of the warehouse and unloaded them at the other. But AGVs have gotten a whole lot smarter. … Continue reading
More flexible forms of warehouse automation are emerging. One example of this is real-time location forklift automation—i.e., forklifts equipped with a real-time location system that allows drivers to proceed to a specified location and pick up (or put down) a load without the need for the driver to scan the location to prove that they have picked up (or delivered) the right load. This solution is designed for full pallet… Continue reading
The Importance of Design for Logistics
· CommentsI recently spoke with Ralph Rupert, Director for Unit Load Design at Virginia Tech. If you are not familiar with what a unit load is—I must confess, the term was new to me too—a unit load is “a single item, a number of items, or bulk material which is arranged and restrained so that the load can be stored, picked up, and moved between two locations as a single mass.”… Continue reading
We all remember the story of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, where one bed was too soft, one was too hard, and third was just right. When it comes to warehousing technologies for food distribution, I see the same thing.
In grocery, most store shipments are composed of mixed-SKU pallets. The layout of a grocery distribution center (DC) generally mirrors a store’s layout. So, if fruits and vegetables are… Continue reading
In the last annual survey done by WERC, the average warehouse’s turnover was between 9.4 and 15 percent. This is too high, and turnover is expensive. How can companies perform better in this area? Could the composition of the workforce make a difference?
In recent research conducted by the Pew Research Center, they comment that “the American work force is graying—and not just because the American population… Continue reading
A few months ago, a client asked me to help him put together a short list of best-of-breed warehouse control system (WCS) vendors. Here is the problem he faced: his company uses a warehouse management system (WMS) that worked well when it was initially implemented. Over time, the company added various material handling systems, each with its own interface and “island” of control logic. The company now wants to upgrade… Continue reading
