FAcILITIES MAnAgEMEnT


insulating materials; look for overheating or loose wires. Remember that small issues can lead to big risks and can be an early indication of potentially catastrophic faults. With the right service, maintenance and


refurbishment, switchgear can last up to 50 years, but leaks can cause flashover leading to injury, a breach of HSE regulations and damage to the environment with oil entering any localised drainage or a potent greenhouse gas being released in the case of SF6. This is why it is vital to detect any issues early. Do not overlook the smaller electrical


infrastructure sub-components either. If not inspected, serviced updated or replaced often enough, they can have a big impact on the reliability and resilience of your power supply. These can include MV/LV circuit breaker sub- assemblies, MV/LV switchgear cubicles, battery/UPS systems, high-voltage bushings, insulators, and protection relays. If possible, a full energy infrastructure audit


should be conducted either by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or by an organisation able to independently assess the performance of your assets.


Have a long-term riSk mitigation Strategy Any infrastructure issues identified by the audit will need prioritising and rectifying . Again, the OEM should be your first port of call as they have quicker access to technical experts and replacement parts and know how to optimise equipment performance. In addition, they may be able to offer a more tailored remediation solution. Ripping out and replacing is not always


necessary and should be a last resort. Often, equipment can be serviced on site instead, taken for a factory repair or be refurbished with new parts. Retrofitting or upgrading legacy equipment with new technology to extend its lifecycle can also be an option provided by the OEM. A skilled OEM will offer this flexibility of approach to limit downtime and costs to site. Once immediate issues have been addressed,


implement a long-term energy resilience strategy to mitigate future risks to your electrical infrastructure through regular maintenance and development of a closer relationship with your OEM. This should include annual maintenance on site, up-to-date training for staff and service level agreements to guarantee site emergency response support and a spares and repairs club. Remote monitoring solutions can also be implemented to track the performance of key electrical assets, alerting onsite teams when conditions change. Finally, keep your wider business targets in


sight and make sure that your electrical infrastructure can continue to support changing needs. Whether that is site growth, just-in-time manufacturing, increased automation or a goal to decarbonise – securing the resilience of your infrastructure will ultimately be the springboard to all of this.


Siemens www.siemens.co.uk


Balancing act


online order fulfilment is complex and brings inherent customer service challenges. Does that make it easier to make the case for greater automation within fulfilment centres? charlie Walker discusses the approach taken by his company, Walker logistics.


F


or third party logistics (3PL) services companies investment in automation has traditionally been hard to justify: the


technology required a relatively high level of financial commitment over an extended period of time before evidence of payback began to appear on the bottom line. This meant that unless a 3PL had a client that


was prepared to commit to a contract of at least five years, automating any aspect of the goods- in, storage, order picking or goods-out process was rarely seen to be fiscally prudent. However, recent developments have made


automation more scalable and flexible and, with the emergence of alternative products to the type of costly fixed assets that had historically been thought of as central to an automated warehouse project, payback times are being cut significantly. But while much of the new automated handling technology appears ideal for operators of single-user mega sheds where the day-to-day business activity predominantly involves moving and storing full pallet loads, online order fulfilment operations are more complex and bring inherent customer service challenges. There is tremendous pressure on all aspects of a fulfilment operation – especially the picking process. Indeed, the higher frequency of lower volume picks coupled with the fact that a cheap item ordered online costs as much to pick and pack as a high-end product, means picking speed and accuracy is more important than ever. As a company that picks a wide variety of goods from a single lipstick to a complete set of garden furniture for nearly 50 very vastly different online retailer clients, should Walker Logistics look to automate a process that has always relied on manual workers? To some degree Walker already has: we run sophisticated warehouse management software


and our shop floor personnel all use the latest hand held data capture devices, which ensure that our pick-accuracy statistics are, we believe, among the highest in the sector. But the task of actually picking each order remains something that is undertaken by a worker. We operate a modern lift truck fleet as well as a


range of other materials handling equipment, including state-of-the-art wave pickers and parcel conveyors, which we upgrade regularly. Indeed, we have recently introduced wire-guidance technology to optimise the efficiency of the reach trucks that serve one of the latest additions to our client portfolio. Yet, we rely on trained forklift operators to drive our materials handling fleet. Like many online fulfilment services


companies, our operational processes are a balance of technology and the traditional – or automation and manual labour – and, while developments in automation and robotics are moving forward with tremendous pace, we believe that, for now at least, there are no fully automated or robotic solutions that present a viable alternative to the way certain key tasks have always been performed within our business – such as order picking. This means, I am really very pleased to say, that humans still have an essential role to play within our organisation. In fact, we plan to add some 200 more permanent staff to our workforce when Walker’s new warehouse facility opens early in 2023. But, when we consider that there are cost


savings and efficiencies to be made by supplementing our workforce with technology – such as, for example, during end of line packaging and bagging operations which we are currently reviewing – we will not hesitate to invest.


Walker logistics www.walkerlogistics.com


FAcTORY&HAnDLIngSOLUTIOnS | jULY/AUgUST 2021 27


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