Mobile Pallet Racking Integrated with Vertical Storage for Construction & Mining Equipment Manufacturer
Summary
Craftsman replaced a world-leading mining and construction OEM’s 1970s legacy selective pallet racking with Mobile Pallet Racking integrated with VStore, significantly improving cubic space utilization, small SKU picking efficiency, and storage density without increasing the plant footprint.
About the Client
- The world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, off-highway diesel, natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotive.
- They do business on every continent, principally operating through three primary segments - Construction Industries, Resource Industries and Energy & transportation - and providing financing and related services through their Financial Products segment.
Problem Statement
- 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.
What solution did Craftsman Storage provide?
- 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 inPallet 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
How do Craftsman Storage solutions benefit customers?
- Increase in cubic space utilization of warehouse by using MPR & VStore
- For part numbers with more than 8Kg unit weight and LE quantities ranging more than 1 pallet volume was allocated in VStore (goods to man, earlier it was man to goods for picking even small SKU)
- Part numbers handled as pallets reduced drastically and this improved their location allocation in WMS
- VStore & MPR as a combined solution resulted in better cubic space utilization for storage, optimized handling method for respective part numbers, maximum utilization of storage locations.
