Welcome to the 15 November Warehouse & Logistics News. Here’s to all of you with your heads down, busy making sure the goods get delivered for Christmas!
In our features in this issue we help you get more out of your operations, starting with the warehouse itself. ‘Buildings/Facilities’ looks at main structures and key equipment, including temporary structures. ‘The Loading Bay’ takes in industrial doors, dock levelers and dock lifts. And ‘Power Sources’ covers all aspects of motive power in the warehouse and logistics environment, including batteries, LPG and engines.
The business spotlight right now is on enhancing supply chain performance, and nowhere more than in the retail sector. On our front page we hear from SDI Group, whose technology is enabling fashion and homeware retailer Matalan to maximise their sales potential sales and allocate inventory more efficiently by the project ‘Moving to Singles,’ moving to picking and replenishing stores in single items. The change allows Matalan’s supply chain to be more responsive to demand and present the product at size, colour and complexity where it is required. The result is that Matalan’s stockrooms are less cluttered, unpacking and shelf replenishment are less laborious for busy sales staff and goods can be re-stocked quickly, allowing them to present a consistent offer to the customer.
Matalan’s Corby DC was the first part of the operation to be transformed by ‘Moving to Singles.’ SDI’s solution meant a radical redesign of the 320,000 sq ft site. Transforming the replenishment operation from a system for handling and distributing full cartons to one capable of picking and supplying in single items required the use of sophisticated automated warehouse technology.
Following the ‘go live’ of the new system, work is now underway on refurbishing and upgrading the old storage areas. By early 2015, the refurbished storage areas will have been integrated into the new automated materials handling operation.
As the autumn mists swirl around us, at times much of Britain looks like a Turner landscape painting (well, some people like to think so.) If you’ve seen the film ‘Mr Turner’, which is currently packing in the punters across the UK, you’ll know old JMW enjoyed painting trains and ships almost as much as the landscapes that made him famous. He would have loved our modern warehouses, logistics parks and motorways, with plenty of light and movement for his brushes and paints to capture. If you know anyone out there who is painting pictures of such things these days, we’d love to know about it…
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