Tag Archive for: SKU

Project Spotlight Smart Slotting

Project Spotlight: Smart Slotting

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You may have heard us mention our new Smart Slotting tool recently. In this project, the customer came to us looking for an answer to their low storage utilization percentage of 20% across the entire facility. With Smart Slotting, we were able to provide a practical answer to this problem, while also increasing productivity and efficiency.

By collecting some preliminary data, our experienced team uses Smart Slotting to provide a layout that best suits your needs. This new layout provides you lower operating cost, while also increasing the daily throughput of your facility.

In this example, the customer saw over a 12% decrease in their daily labor costs. They were able to find a location for all of their SKUs, and raise their storage utilization numbers over 70%. In addition, they were able to cut their storage mediums in half after the Smart Slotting evaluation. The new location types and sizes designed for stored items is much more efficient and simple.

This project had a significant impact on the customer’s operation by improving space utilization, reducing labor costs, and increasing throughput to lower operating costs. The new storage configuration also set the customer up with space for product growth for a minimum of five years.

Interested in learning more about the methodology and analysis behind this project? View the full case study here and contact us today to see how we can assist with your operational needs.

Why Storage Solutions C-A-R-E-S For Your Warehouse Design

Why should the Storage Solutions C-A-R-E-S warehouse design optimization process matter to your company? Everyone experiences challenges & changes within their operation. With the Storage Solutions C-A-R-E-S process, we follow a systemic approach to uncover any issues you may have. These guidelines allow us to address specific opportunities for improvement, pain points, growth objectives & more. We have tailored this process to be fully customizable to fit your budget, needs, and time frame.

For example, we can address issues you may have when it comes to order fulfillment. The cause could stem from picking challenges or e-commerce and omnichannel fulfillment demands. For this reason, it is imperative to design a solution that works best for you and is dynamic enough to adapt at the drop of a hat to meet external expectations.

Likewise, internal issues such as SKU proliferation or facility consolidation may be items that need to be addressed. Our C-A-R-E-S process can analyze these issues to provide you with the most efficient answer to your current problems. Similarly, we provide you with the most flexible solution to ensure you are ready for any changes down the pipeline.

In conclusion, by using our data-driven C-A-R-E-S process, we can help you create a solution that can be justified not just operationally but also economically. By developing your distribution to optimal efficiency, we can address your current and future goals. Our team of material handling professionals and our in-house design team make the perfect tandem to prepare you quickly for market changes and increased customer demands.

Now that you know why an optimized warehouse design is essential, you can learn more about our C-A-R-E-S process here!

Broken Case Picking

Broken Case Picking Design Criteria

Broken case picking is becoming more prevalent in almost all industries, creating operational challenges for many companies. When assisting with the design of your broken case picking solution, we ensure that we create the most efficient and cost-effective solution for your facility.

Our solutions development team will utilize our vast experience to help you optimize your operation and find the right equipment, automation or technology solutions to provide you with the lowest total cost per unit throughput solution.

Broken Case Picking Design Criteria

When going through a new facility design, or an existing facility optimization, we have a set of criteria that we utilize to determine the right solution to meet your specific needs.

Our team will gain a thorough understanding of the operational challenges that you are currently experiencing, such as labor, competition, market challenges and more. We then look at the overall volume levels that you are seeing in daily activity; such as the number of orders, the number of line items, and the number of units picked, packed and shipped on a typical day.

After understanding the volume of your operation, we also take a look at the order profiles. We look at the number of line items on a typical order, and the number of units per line item. The order profiles help us to determine the most efficient picking methodologies to apply to your operational solution. We break down your demand to the SKU level to identify ideal storage mediums and utilize ABC stratification to create a slotting plan that will maximize pick efficiency.

Maximizing space utilization and operational efficiency are of paramount importance. That’s why we want to partner with you to ensure your facility is running as profitably as possible.

Let us be the ones to enhance your broken case picking operation!