Knowledge Racking & Shelving
In tune with the times
Companies across Europe are fine-tuning their warehouses to increase capacity and efficiency to avoid the cost of building new facilities, writes Edward Hutchison, MD of BITO Storage Systems.
C
ompanies across Europe are deploying a range of stor- age techniques and equip- ment to fine-tune the efficiency
of their warehouses to maximise their existing space, rather than build new warehouses or extensions. In Germany they simply refer to it as ‘tuning’. The aim is smooth material flow, mini- mised floor space occupation, maximum utilisation of storage volume and immedi- ate product availability, which are all important contributors towards improving logistics productivity and efficiency. In many countries, particularly those with lower labour costs, companies are seeking storage and picking solutions which deliver picking efficiency and storage density but without the financial investment required for automated storage solution. Hence the growing popularity of storing products in racking lanes – such as drive-in, pushback or live storage systems. Compared to standard racking facilities, which stock only one load- carrying unit (such as a pallet or a carton) per bay per level, these lane-based storage
age systems. Companies are installing banks of flow shelves for new or additional pick zones in free areas of their warehouses to gain faster picking, reduced manpower and improved space saving and organisation. Live systems will initially cost more than static shelving or pallet racking. But the far greater pick location density that a live storage installation can offer will save up to 20% of floor space for small parts storage compared to static shelving, while travel time for pickers can be improved by two-thirds.
RECONFIGURATION FOR EFFICIENCY
Mindful of the resilience in their supply chains, companies are moving towards agile storage solutions that can adapt readily to changing business circumstances. For exam- ple, rather than set up new pick locations to deal with peaks that will be under-utilised for most of the year companies are gain- ing significant advantage from optimising existing pallet racking by retro fitting live storage flow shelves in the lower bays of the racking to provide Carton Live Storage. This can be carried out quickly using flow storage modules that simply use the beams
“In many countries, companies are seeking storage and picking solutions which deliver picking efficiency and stor- age density but without the financial investment required for automated storage solution”
systems increases storage capacity by reduc- ing the space required for service aisles. There has been a particularly marked shift across Europe to order picking from live stor-
38 June 2012 Storage Handling Distribution
available in the existing racking. Drop on modules can be quickly reconfigured or removed to restore the static racking back to its original state when or if required.
www.shdlogistics.com
Mezzanines – with one or more levels – will enable picking zones to occupy otherwise wasted airspace in the ware- house cube, especially when installing long-span structural mezzanines to house pick zones over marshalling areas. Operations that do not need to retrieve goods in a specific sequence are using drive- in racking to efficiently and safely store huge stock volumes. This is particularly relevant for large volumes of the same line item, pressure- sensitive goods and unstable pallet loads. Loading and retrieval is done from one side only (using the LIFO-principle) using fork lift trucks that drive into the racking lanes.
MOBILE RACKING
Mobile shelving and racking is another popular alternative for optimising new or existing space. Mobile pallet racking or mobile cantilever racking can improve storage capacity by up to 200% on the same footprint or reduce floor space oc- cupation by 50%. The trick is to have the right controls technology that can adapt to growth without major capital investment while also offering low-cost storage in multi-shift operations and instant product availability. Even standard pallet racking can be tuned to deliver greater efficiency by using racking designs that can accom- modate the increasing variety of handling units used in today’s global supply chains. These may include Euro pallets, Euro-black plastic pallets, slip-sheets as well as the traditional 1200 x 1000mm pallets. Companies are gaining a wider range of location configurations by using rack- ing systems that offer a variety of differ-
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