Construction & Mining Equipment Manufacturer

Problem Statement & Challenges Faced

• Client was using conventional SPR racks since the beginning of their facility in the 1970s.
• Client did not have sufficient space in their warehouse to accommodate the growing material volumes. With conventional SPR racks, the volumetric utilization of warehouse facilities was very low.
• Picking efficiency was very poor, as the client was storing even smaller SKUs in pallets, and they were retrieving the entire pallet every time for picking even a small single quantity of a tiny SKU.
• Since it is a working plant, they were forced to use maximum vacant land for building new assembly lines and retain the existing storage facilities and look out for improvements in storage methods.

The Solution

• We have studied their internal handling processes such as material receipt, LE qty segregation, binning, put-away, picking, line segregation, kitting and dispatch operations (Part number-wise) in detail.
• Upon detailed study of part-wise SKUs, we understood client was underutilizing storage height & cubic space within each pallet resulting in overall loss of storage volume & performing multiple picks.
• As FIFO & selectivity was mandatory, client was unable to convert conventional pallet racking system since many years.
• To overcome above, we have segregated less than 8Kg unit weight part items based on their overall storage volume and proposed VStore for these part numbers (goods to man, instead of man to goods), thereby substantially reducing no. of pallets picked/handled.
• For part numbers with more than 8Kg unit weight and LE quantities ranging more than 1 pallet volume was allocated in Pallet racks.
• MPR was proposed to optimize the Cubic space utilization, while ensuring selectivity.
• Picking efficiency improvements, WMS integration, Rack loading pattern, location allocation, Aisle light integration were proposed for overall operational efficiency of the warehouse

Benefits to the Customer