mm (W × L) Dimensions in inches (W × L) Country of use 1219 × 1016 48.00 × 40.00 North America 1000 × 1200 39.37 × 47.24 UK and Asia; pallet
commonly referred to as a UK or industrial pallet 1165 × 1165 44.88 × 44.88 Australia
1067 × 1067 42.00 × 42.00 Most countries 1100 × 1100 43.30 × 43.30 Asia
800 × 1200 31.50 × 47.24 Europe; pallet commonly known as a euro pallet
They have also embedded RFID tags into the pallets to enable tracking to take place and there are also barcode and alphanumeric identifiers. The pallets measure approx. 48″ × 40″ (1200 mm × 1000 mm) and are four-way entry (logistics.about.com).
Products delivered in outer cartons need to be labelled in such a way that they can be easily identified. Information can include barcodes, which need to be compatible with your radio frequency (RF) equipment and which hold data such as product code, description and pack quantity. Ease of identification speeds up the in-handling process.
With regard to carton quantities, many suppliers continue to supply in mul- tiples of 12, yet customers who have grown up with the metric system tend to order in multiples of 5 and 10. There needs to be consistency within the supply chain in terms of pack quantities supplied, pack quantities stored and pack quantities sold.
The pack quantities will depend on the value, weight and volume of the product and, although there is no legal limit, outer cartons should not weigh in excess of 20 kilograms (44 lbs) from a health and safety point of view.
Individual unit sales will always necessitate opening cases to satisfy orders; however, the fewer times this occurs the more productive the warehouse.
There also needs to be consistency by product line to ensure accuracy during stock counts and reduce picking errors. I have come across many instances where different suppliers of the same generic product pack in different quantities. This leads to inaccuracies and delays both on receipt, picking and despatch.
Discussions between the warehouse, procurement, customer services and the supplier should alleviate many of these problems.
The premise is to discuss requirements with the supplier and if you need them to do things differently then you need to take the initiative. There may be an additional cost. However, this needs to be weighed against the additional costs incurred within the warehouse. The supplier may surprise you by chang- ing the way they present things to you. In fact, there may be occasions when this is also advantageous to the supplier. The old adage of ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get’ is very true.
Another truism to bear in mind is the 80/20 rule as it applies to suppliers. Not only is it likely that 20 per cent of your suppliers provide 80 per cent of your stock but it is likely that 20 per cent of your suppliers cause 80 per cent of your goods-in problems.
You need to put measures in place to identify the suppliers who are not performing to standard and work with them to introduce improvements. You can be reasonably sure that your suppliers aren’t deliberately causing you problems. The issues arise because they are not aware of the effects of their actions on your operation. You will benefit more from a hands-on approach to the problem and work with the supplier to improve the situation.
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In-handling
One of the main challenges for a warehouse manager is to match labour hours with work content. Handling a product the least amount of time possible (labour touch points) leads to reduced labour hours and as a consequence, reduced cost.
Depending on the operation, labour can be the single biggest cost within a warehouse. It can be between 48 and 60 per cent of the total warehouse cost depending on the amount of automation utilized. It is also the most difficult cost to control.
In-handling makes up approximately 20 per cent of the total direct labour cost within a retail warehouse.
Preparation
Prior to the actual receipt a number of processes need to take place. The first step is to ensure that suppliers deliver into the warehouse when you decide, not when it suits them. There will be exceptions to this. For example, it is difficult for parcel delivery companies to adhere to booking times because of the nature of their deliveries; however, pallet and full-load delivery companies expect to be given specific delivery times, albeit this is not their preferred option.
By providing delivery times for each supplier or their subcontractors, you are in control and able to match your work hours to work content. A booking-in or dock scheduling system needs to be introduced. Many of today’s WMS have a dock scheduling module these days however an Excel spreadsheet will suffice.
Initially you need to decide on when you are going to receive products into the warehouse. Are you going to have deliveries throughout the day or limit them to a morning shift, for example?
You then need to match the length of the time slots to the time estimated to fulfil the task. Standard time slots do not work as each delivery is likely to be different. For example, it could take 30 minutes to offload a 13.6 metre (45 foot) palletized trailer and a further 15 minutes to check and move the pallets to the storage area, whereas a loose-loaded 20 foot container could take up to three hours depending on the number of SKUs and staff deployed.
You need to keep records of the time it takes for each type of delivery and share this information with your booking-in team. This will give you the amount of labour and equipment required to undertake the task, thus making planning a great deal easier.
By introducing a dock scheduling system you are able to allocate accurate time slots, measure productivity, organize labour and also check demurrage and penalty charges.
Warehouse staff need to be aware of the products being delivered, the type of vehicle and the equipment required to offload. Once this has been ascertained and the time calculated, a suitable booking slot is allocated and a booking reference given to the supplier.
Details of any pallet exchange agreements also need to be ascertained. The use of pallets within a rental system such as Chep, IPP Logipal, LPR and others requires both parties to accurately record movements within the system.
Pre-advice of the products being delivered is also advisable so that the details can be entered in the warehouse management system (WMS). This is normally in the form of an Advanced Shipping Notice (ASN). An ideal method of receipt is to accept the contents of the ASN as correct into the system as soon as possible through the use of RFID or barcode scanning. Some WMSs will use this information to pre-allocate pallet locations for the products prior to arrival. The information is also used to check the delivery.
offloading
On arrival, the vehicle details need to be checked against the booking reference and the vehicle allocated a loading bay or location in the yard. Any vehicle seals need to be checked against the delivery paperwork.
Prior to offloading temperature-controlled vehicles, the temperature history of the vehicle whilst in transit needs to be checked, together with the current temperature of the goods.
Once the vehicle has backed onto the appropriate bay or has been posi- tioned in the yard for offloading from the sides, the in-handling team should have appropriate labour and equipment to hand, to efficiently manage the offloading process.
Where vehicles are unloaded in the yard this usually necessitates the use of two lift trucks, one to unload the trailer and another to put the product away within the warehouse.
The introduction of articulated forklift trucks which can work both inside and outside the warehouse is going some way to reducing the requirement for two different types of truck for the latter operation.
The most common method of unloading palletized vehicles onto a loading bay is with a powered pallet truck, hand pallet truck or pallet jack. Some com- panies utilize counterbalance forklift trucks; however, the weight of the truck, driver and load on potentially weak or damaged container or trailer floors can be an accident waiting to happen.
Unloading times will vary depending on the equipment used and whether the load needs to be staged prior to put-away.
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In order to speed up this process, equipment companies have introduced auto- matic unloading systems, which means that a 26-pallet trailer can be unloaded within five minutes of arriving at the dock. Unloading methods include the use of rollers, tracks (see Figure 3.4) and slip chains whilst others use loading plates or giant slip sheets. These tend to be operated in high volume situations between production plants and off-site storage locations.
Combine these with conveyors or automated guided vehicles (AGV) and the requirement for labour within the receiving operation reduces significantly.
Unloading loose-loaded containers has always been a time-consuming operation. This normally necessitates having at least two people unloading within the container and placing the items onto a pallet. A third person is usu- ally waiting for the pallet to be stacked before taking it to the checking area before put away. This is very unproductive as the staff within the container wait for full pallets to be replaced with empty ones whilst the forklift driver is waiting for the pallet to be built.
There is no guarantee that the same product is together within the container, therefore more sortation needs to take place on the unloading dock. This is very inefficient and can be hazardous to the staff, who are continually bending and stretching within the container and are in close proximity to the MHE. Lighting is usually poor and conditions are not conducive to fast, accurate work.
Added problems arise if the warehouse is not equipped with loading bays and is dependent on a container ramp or worst still a forklift truck with an operator standing on a pallet, which can slow the process even further and has its safety issues.
Figure 3.5 shows a boom conveyor unloading cartons from a container. These can be static or can be moved between loading doors as required.