Logistics Planning Blogs - LPC International

Warehouse automation is often pitched as a money-saving or efficiency strategy, and this is definitely one of the main benefits of investing in automation. However, automation also has a wide-ranging impact on warehouse safety, with the potential to reduce injuries, sickness, and downtime, and improve the happiness and well-being of your workforce. Here’s how:

A Homecare Pharmaceuticals company contacted LPC to support them in the fit-out design and operational layout for a new facility.

This entailed determining the requirements of the warehouse to support the operation, with particular emphasis on the flow of raw materials and the storage, handling, picking and packing and dispatch of finished goods.

Temperature control environments for chilled products also needed to be considered with a bespoke fridge with internal mezzanine for future growth.

LPC were engaged by an overseas client who distribute quality global  branded foods to determine the optimum materials handling system for a new multi-temperature facility. The project covered warehouse processes from receipt through putaway to picking, assembly, packing and despatch, optimum sizing of chambers, storage layout and appropriate fork truck specifications.

LPC have worked with this overseas client for over thirty years and have supported the business with their continued expansion on their original site. The business source and develop global food brands and supplies to businesses and consumers alike.

LPC were retained by a leading European 3PL to consider automated goods to man picking options for the fitout of their new facility for existing and potential clients. A number of schemes covering the technologies available were developed and options produced. A high level business case was developed for each covering storage capacity, capital and operating costs to enable a comparison to be made between options and the conventional manual shelving option in use in the existing facility.

LPC were asked to review a proposed automated storage and handling system for an internet retailer for their new facility and to look at alternative solutions and assist with developing the business case for a solution to support their planned growth.

A UK manufacturer of equipment for the telecommunications approached LPC to review their logistics operation. This included the supply of components from the Far East to their UK warehouse with a view to improving the material flows between their suppliers, their manufacturing and their overseas operations and the design and layout of the UK warehouse operation which supported production and customer orders etc.

Methodology

To assist or enable all elements of the study a base case model was built using historical delivery data of two average and two peak weeks.  The model was built with all routes exactly as planned down to the route content, drop order and vehicle size using the same software Distributer use for daily planning.

LPC were retained by a leading retailer to support the sizing and mechanical handling requirements for a new distribution centre. The client was consolidating its network into a single site.

The purpose of this case study is to illustrate the following:

1. Blue sky distribution network development.
2. The universality of our modelling tool:
   
   1. Delivery units included pallets, oversized pallets, stillages and nested or stacked products, all converted into standard pallet footprint equivalents.
   2. Some products or customers required vehicles with mechanical offloading capability; others could be served with conventional flat beds.
   3. Vehicle overloading was a risk, so order weight was also used as a constraint