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selling and how often you want to replenish the inventory offsite into temporary storage. You
pick faces. There are no hard-and-fast rules for can also, in a pinch, move receiving capacity
replenishment. Some will regard a week’s worth offsite, particularly if you have to do quite a
of stock in the pick face as excessive. Others bit of processing. In that case, though,
The last thing
will consider two weeks’ worth as too little. hopefully your receiving will peak before
It all depends on demand volatility and the your picking does so that you can relocate
you want is to
responsiveness of your replenishment process. staff offsite as well.
The other capacities all relate to physical You have four other options:
activity, which is much more diffi cult to
•
Smooth the peaks. One way is by extending
fi nd out the
assess. Basically it comes down to how many cut-off times, adding, say, a day to your
people you can get into the operation promised delivery service or designing hard way that
before congestion has a detrimental effect out any process ineffi ciencies that create
on effi ciency and, more important, safety. peaks (trust me, every business has them).
you are unable
Eventually you get to the point where adding You could also consider implementing
more people can actually reduce your promotions that encourage customers to
throughput. Then, too, the number of people place their orders well ahead of the peaks,
to meet your
you can get into an area depends on the space such as a 10-percent discount for ordering
available. prior to a certain date.
peak-season
Assessing throughput capacity comes down
•
Work longer hours. Of course, if you are
to experience—of your own operation as well already working full round-the-clock shifts,
as the operations of others. The fi rst step is to this isn’t an option.
demand
assess the operation from a health and safety
•
Decouple processes. People waste a lot of
point of view. Do you want to have people and time waiting for a process to be completed
trucks working together in an aisle? Do you before they can go ahead with their own
want to restrict the number of pickers in any process. This is usually because different
one area? The next step is to use examples processes are too closely coupled. Break them
from your operation of very busy days when you apart, and people no longer have to wait for
felt that you were close to the limit (although each other. There are many ways of achieving
make sure that was a true limit and not caused this. It could be by setting up staging areas,
by some avoidable process error). Finally take installing conveyors, increasing the size of
examples from other facilities. What do they buffers, etc. Reducing interdependencies will
manage to achieve? free up resource and increase throughput.
(For more, see “Revamp and review” in the
Playing it smooth April issue.)
So you’ve analysed your requirement,
•
Improve effi ciency. This is likely to be the
calculated your capacity, and found that you biggest opportunity and has the bonus of
have a problem. It may be in one area. It may reducing your costs, so it’s well worth looking
be everywhere. Now the question is what to do at. How you go about a full performance
about it. improvement programme is beyond the
Storage capacity is the easiest to solve. scope of this article (though it was discussed
Most businesses have stock that they don’t in “Value-added only, please” in the February
need quick access to. It may be old stock, issue), but it’s worth doing even if you don’t
forward purchased, excess, whatever. Move this have capacity issues.
Now you know how to cope with the
Temporary advice
distribution demands of rapid growth and
steep peaks. Prepare a plan that starts with
understanding what capacity you need.
When faced with steep peaks in
Compare this with the capacity that you have,
demand, you may feel you have no
and if there is a shortfall decide how best to
choice but to resort to temporary
fi ll that gap. But do it early. It takes time, and
the last thing you want is to fi nd out the hard
labour. These workers will not
way that you have a problem. If you don’t
have knowledge of your products
have the resource or expertise in-house to
or processes, however. To get the do this, think about bringing in an interim
most from your temporary workers
manager or a consultant. It could save you a
with the least disruption, simplify
lot of time and money.
your systems as much as possible,
provide adequate training before
Simon Tomlinson is director
the peak hits, and implement
and cofounder of The Logistics
thorough supervision and quality-
Business, a supply chain and
checking processes.—ST
logistics consultancy.
ceb175.indd 19 7/11/09 13:10:05
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