Most warehouse and delivery operations have significant opportunites to reduce costs and improve the bottom line profits. Chet Willey Associates specializes in conducting detailed analyses of your operations and recommending potential cost savings and productivity improvement opportunities that could save you in excess of $500,000 for most operations above 5,000,000 cases per year.
Here are a few of the areas that should be considered.
Warehouse/Pick Area Layout
Since 70% of pick time is looking for product or travel time, one of the biggest productivity improvements can come with optimizing the pick area layout and the order in which products are stored. Pick area paths should also be one way to minimize traffic flow issues.
Walkie-Rider vs. Forklift Picking
Walkie rider productivity can easily exceed that of forklifts by a minimum of 15%. To be effective, the correct options need to be incorporated in the walkie rider specifications. Forklifts become ineffective as the number of SKU's being picked per pallet exceed 3-4 items.
Automatic Stretchwrappers with Scales
Automatic stretchwrappers easily justify themselves when 500 or more pallets are wrapped per night. Also incorporating scales into the design will improve picking accuracy. The wrapper shown below was designed to be used with walkie riders with 3 pallet capacity.
Layer Picking
Layer picking rates can exceed 3,000 cases per hour with 1 operator and 1 support person replenishing the line and removing completed pallets. Several distributors today are learning how to maximize productivity if the orders contain at least 15% layer opportunities. We will be happy to evaluate your data to determine if layer picking is cost effective for your operation.