Pallet Storage and Picking Optimization Lecture Transcript

3

(07:40): There's no rack. What happened to the equipment cost over here? Zero. How about operating flexibility? It's good, right? What's the problem? Storage density is a big problem because of a factor called honeycombing. Why is it called honeycombing? It's because if you look at this picture, once you start operating it, it looks like a honeycomb and here's the reason. Let's look at that aisle right there. How many SKUs should I put in an aisle one because if I put more than one SKU in that aisle, what happens? Yeah, you need the one in the back. I dunno what that's about, but maybe it's to teach us not to do that. (08:36): We had one client, they actually had a budget item for the warehouse called shuffling, and I thought, what are they talking about? Like shuffle off to buffalo or is it some new dance step that they do? I thought maybe it was an aerobics instructor. They had come in, I said, what is this? He said, oh, that's when we have to take some of the SKUs out of a lane to go get the one we need. I thought, wow, that's amazing, right? That's amazing. That's amazing, so we can't put anything else there. Can we put another SKU on top? Same phenomenon. Those loft lives that are due to one SKU per lane, one SKU per stack are called honeycomb losses. (09:22): What are some of the other limitations in the warehouse to the use of the cube? Why can't we not store all the way to the ceiling? One is you might crush the product. This is potato chip, so that could be a problem, right? Two is the equipment. Three is what kind of load can the floor tank? Four are the regulations, five is the weather. How could the weather play a role in how high you can stack material? Yes. The humidity. We had one client and they set up a warehouse in the Philippines and they had to redo all of their stack height requirements because the humidity level, it's the firmness of the corrugated. Sometimes it's the firmness of the product itself. Now, this is not so much a weather thing, but a Coca-Cola, you can stack Coca-Cola classic three pallets high and their orange drink. You can only stack too high. Why? (10:36): This is a weird one, the carbonation very good. The carbonation in Coke Classic creates a very rigid surface and it says cushy in the orange drink. Low stability is another one. We do a project with a dog food company and the tops of the surface of the load is not even, so you can only stack those two high where if you've got nice even pallets, you can stack those three or four. How do you really figure this out? How do you really figure this out? Trial and error. The parking lot. That's a fun day to be at the warehouse. Have you ever seen the national Oreo stacking contest? If you're really bored, you can't find anything else on tv. Every year they have a national Oreo stacking contest and literally kids compete on how high they can stack the Oreos. It's like that. Unfortunately, most people think if it's floor storage, this thing must be really easy to operate. Actually, it's not that easy to operate. There's some rules we're going to need to keep the honeycombing losses at a minimum. Let me give you an example.

Pallet Storage and Picking Optimization | © RightChain™ Incorporated | All Rights Reserved