Britain’s warehousing industry faces a Darwinian struggle over the next few years. Put another way, there are unprecedented changes and challenges on the way, which if ignored could see many operators disappear. The ones who survive and prosper will be those who make the most effective use of valuable storage space and have the flexibility to cope with the continuing growth of multi-channel distribution – the strong trend to order picking for direct deliveries to the consumer.
This doesn’t mean an Ice Age-style shift towards mega sheds, though of course some goods providers will do just that. Some experts believe that in coming years there may also be a growth in medium-sized ‘mini 3PL’ companies to service small e-tail businesses, resulting in the need for flexible, localised distribution centres.
Home delivery, currently boosted by online shopping, is already a huge factor in the changing face of order picking, and as we know has killed off many of the retail dinosaurs that stalked our high streets. This may not mean that the number of orders and order lines picked in the average warehouse will increase significantly over the next few years, but what’s certain is that the warehouse must be able to support both case picking and item picking. So automated solutions need to be designed to cater for this requirement as a matter of urgency.
One interesting development we’re already seeing in this respect is an increase in mezzanine floors to allow multi level picking. Fortunately, the business of choosing the right mix between forklifts, racking and automated handling hardware can be made easier with simulation software, and many leading forklift suppliers offer free help on this.
Given the move away from full pallet load handling when fulfilling shop-based orders towards more single item picks for direct home deliveries, the need for picking speed becomes paramount. Individuals walking down aisles or using order picking trucks is time consuming and tiresome. If companies are unwilling to invest in appropriate picking processes, they will soon see their ‘units per hour’ productivity rates decrease significantly as well as increased congestion in busy picking areas.
To get around this, various automated material handling suppliers have developed ‘goods to person’ systems, which are not only fast but also highly space efficient and ergonomically easier on the pickers. They are usually backed up by paperless picking methods like pick-to-light, voice and hand-held RDTs. Such paperless picking is more accurate than paper pick lists and allows real time stock updates. In terms of payback, they can often deliver within a year and sometimes justify themselves on huge reductions in order picking errors and big increases in order picking rates. Full automation of hardware equipment, however, often requires a longer payback period, typically at least five years.
Many warehouses will of course continue to deliver full pallet loads to other businesses and retail distribution centres and so a truck-based handling solution, backed up by a WMS, will remain the most viable option. But the use of space will determine the leaders and laggards. Various pallet racking formats have been developed over the years to provide warehouse operators with a choice of pallet storage density. These include automated pallet storage and retrieval (APR), drive-in/drive through, VNA, pushback, gravity- fed live or dynamic storage, mobile and block stacking.
APR is normally used with conventional counter balance trucks, and achieves only 40% of space utilisation. Reach trucks can offer 46%, and VNA trucks 59%. Drive-in racking offers 65%, live storage 80% and aisle-free high-density systems, 85%. However, as the racking gets more complex, the more that instant pallet selectivity is diminished, so there is a trade off between pallet access time and maximum space efficiency.
But it doesn’t all come down to achieving the best use of space. The choice of forklift can also be critical, because some trucks are far more productive than others in terms of pallets moved or even the number of trucks used. These super-productive trucks include the articulated forklifts first developed here 25 years ago. These machines can work outside in the roughest yard as well as within 1.6 metre-wide aisles. They can lift to over 12 metres, well above conventional counterbalance trucks. This flexibility can dispense with having different truck types and mean you can move more pallets per shift.
There are many other ways in which warehouses can save significant sums. Some are environmental, others to do with the method of forklift acquisition. One significant challenge facing warehouses is the need to comply with the Energy Act, 2011, by 2018. Failure to do so, according to Government figures, could see up to 18% of buildings outlawed if their energy rating performance is F or G. The problem could be far worse than that: DTZ Global’s recent audit of over 1,000 energy?performance certificates (EPCs) indicated that around 40% of commercial property would be on a borderline E?rating or below. Warehouse operators must start looking urgently at what can be done to save energy and create energy in a carbon-free way, or cut their carbon footprint sharply.
On truck acquisition methods, around 70% of all forklifts are on some kind of rental/lease agreement. Owing to the competitive nature of this business, truck hirers have had good value for money, as hire rates have not changed significantly over 20 years and a truck on a single shift of 40 hours a week equates to a car hire of 62,000 miles a year. But some users have been shocked on returning hired trucks to be faced with repair bills for damage that was not fair wear and tear. To clarify this, the FLTA has issued a useful booklet outlining dealer expectations when a truck is returned at the end of a hire period. The message is clear to all truck hirers: treat the truck as though you owned it, and you are less likely to be hit with expensive but justifiable repairs or replacements.
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