Time may be money but so, too, is space so any plan for new storage techniques should not only consider the most appropriate mix of racking and shelving types but also the interfacing materials handling equipment, like the wide variety of forklifts. Given the changes in distribution techniques brought on by multi-channel shopping, another key factor to bear in mind is flexibility to cope with highly fluctuating demand while still trying to meet JIT schedules. This could mean consideration of temporary storage structures.
Such is the complexity when planning the innards of a new warehouse, especially the automated kind, it might be wise to bring in consultants specialising on racking/shelving or systems integrators, where, in the latter’s case, the buck stops for everything should matters go wrong. The advantages of both these partners is that they should be knowledgeable on what is available on the market and are not tied to recommend any particular equipment. Many leading warehouse equipment suppliers, however, are usually chosen as the route to go down, but beware that the supplier’s offered solutions may not be the most efficacious on the market. The systems integrator, on the other hand, may even suggest an alternative solution superior to the one a potential client is moving towards.
When starting from scratch, to get the best from the many kinds of racking/shelving options it is essential to conduct a full survey of the stored products dynamics for each group of products stored. This would look at the volume flows by SKU throughout the year, product sizes, weights, fragility, time sensitivity, packaging and hazard ratings. This essential exercise, which admittedly could take months, must be conducted before any simulation exercise can be done to test any “what if” scenarios.
Various advances in dense storage techniques over recent years have emphasised the necessity to save space, and no where is this more obvious than in automated warehousing. But what of the space that could be wasted in the racking aisles which can be very important in cold store applications where energy costs alone can account for about 25% of total running costs? Cold store solutions are often a compromise between the need for dense storage through racking options like mobile, drive- in and push-back and the drive to satisfy delivery time constraints. If the latter is more important and so demands 100% instant stock access, then APR racking would be the choice but the wrong choice of forklifts here could be a costly mistake.
Traditionally, reach trucks were the favoured choice but they require a minimum operating aisle width of 2.6mt. A smarter choice today would be the articulating, cabheated forklifts needing only 1.6mt-wide aisles that could render 30% more pallet storage positions and so not only cut the energy bills but also the high cold store construction costs.
Such trucks can prevent the high cost of seeking new storage premises owing to business growth reaching saturation point. A good example is the oil rig supply company, Draka, which doubled its storage space by switching from a counterbalance truck for yard work and a reach truck for inside work to a 4-way Combilift and articulated Aisle-Master.
There have also been advances in techniques to cut costs of APR and sprinkler system relocations within a warehouse to take advantage of more cost-effective forklifts. Rearranging racking can be a labour intensive process but according to Flexi Warehouse Systems their new method in the UK has sharply cut the relocation times and operational disruption, reducing the net cost by over 50% compared with traditional methods.
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