|
CONTRACT
WAREHOUSE OPERATION
CLIENT:
A medical supply manufacturer and its
contract warehouse operator were negotiating a new long
term agreement.
DESCRIPTION
OF OPERATION:
The company had six operating divisions
with several plants supplying material to a contract warehouse.
The company's distribution department consisted of a director
and his secretary. The data needed to obtain the best contract
price was not available.
OBJECTIVES:
Gross & Associates was retained to determine
the storage and throughput requirement for the next five years.
Working with the contractor, Gross & Associates was to
develop the handling and storage methods which would compare
both capital and operating expenditure and validate the result
with simulation.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Gross & Associates recommended the
following:
- Build a new 600,000 square foot distribution
center with a capacity for 59,000 pallets.
- Use a very narrow aisle (68 inch)
storage and retrieval.
- Limit storage height to 25 feet to
take advantage of Early Suppression/Fast Response (ESFR)
fire protection devices.
- Provide wide (10 foot) aisle for picking
of fast moving product.
- Pick from two levels with pallet jack
equipped with steps.
- Include a tugger system to transport
product between areas of the warehouse.
- Provide 72" between rack space
for tugger traffic to by-pass picking, storage and retrieval
operations.
- Use long beams to accommodate the
multiple pallet size received from the manufacturing sites.
- Provide a forward picking area.
RESULTS:
The recommendations have been implemented.
Careful planning of the transition has resulted in a seamless
move. The design resulted in a 20% smaller building with substantial
construction savings. The ESFR system saved $1.5 million.
|
