Honesty

In the long run, I believe that honesty is definitely the best policy. One can get away by being dishonest for a short term, but ultimately, honesty is what pays.

Kapil Dev

It is human nature to want to present the most rosy of pictures when we have a problem.  However tough it may feel or seem, honesty serves our customers best.

In the material handling world we have many facets of a project to consider as we design a new system:

• Manufacturer’s lead times.
• Installation estimates to include environmental or odd hour requirements.  
• Equipment performance to specifications required for speed and accuracy.  
• Software systems compatibility and communications.  
• Mechanical, electrical and software scope changes. 

Earning the trust of our customers is always the ultimate goal.  While most projects are accompanied with their set of challenges, it is always in the customer’s best interest to understand what the challenges are without a layer of sugarcoating on it.  Timely, honest reporting of a concern and the plan to address the concern will ultimately maintain customer trust even though it may be temporarily tense.   

Most project issues may be overcome though engineering to include technology modifications.   However, putting your main customer contact in a bind by not providing timely warning of any issues is difficult to overcome.  An honest firsthand report on the status of the project will allow the customer to plan for any operational changes in a timely manner if required.  Additionally, if there are any challenges that may affect the schedule, bring a plan B to demonstrate that you are engaged to meet and manage the original expectations. 

The saying is true “Nothing is more important than a customer”.  Speaking honestly before during and after a project will demonstrate the importance we place on our customers.   

 

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg

 

It’s Just Rack

The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity. - Douglas Horton

I have heard customers say many times “It’s just rack”.  To be sure, rack is equipment, treated as a commodity that should be cheap in cost and quick to purchase and install.  However, like most things that appear easy but are found to be complex after further inspection, rack can become troublesome very quickly.

On the surface, rack is simple.  When looking at it rack appears to be merely frames, beams and maybe some wire decks or cross bars.  However, it requires further assessment. 

Our storage rack holds a myriad of products and they vary from full pallets of all types to individual item storage.  As the loads we store can be of significant weight, we must have a safe means of storing the weight while using as much of available cubic space as possible “Safely”. 

If you access YouTube, you can find videos of rack accidents where the beams and frames were overloaded beyond rated capacity, under-protected from damage and misapplied. 

So let’s look out for several things when planning our rack system so we can be efficient while being safe. 

·         What kind of load do you expect to hold and is it palletized or individual items?  What is the anticipated weight per rack beam level?

·         How many beam levels will be in a bay? Are there different weights anticipated for each level of the bay or is it standard?  What are the beam level dimensions? It matters to the overall capacity of the frame.

·         Are your pallets of consistent quality?  If not, perhaps wire decks or decking is required.

·         Be honest with your employee assessment.  Are they rough with the equipment when handling pallets?  Have you experienced damage in the past?  Should we make provisions to protect the frames columns and end of aisles?

·         Will the equipment be in a cold room or freezer?

·         Are you in a zip code with seismic ratings that may require larger footplates or aisle ties?

·         Do you anticipate the need for sprinkler coverage?

·         Are hazardous material barriers required?

·         What type of forklift do you use and what is the maximum height it can reach to store and retrieve pallets? (Companies have bought rack only to find out their forklifts could not reach the top level of the rack)

·         What is the turning radius of your forklift?  Aisle sizes matters.

·         What kind of product density do we need?  Many SKUs or a few SKUs with high volume. 

Some companies buy used rack.  As such, do you know the frame and beam capacities of what you are buying?  Do you know where it’s been and subjected to in the form of loads and abuse?

In the end, rack is a commodity.  However, it must be designed in advance with plenty of detail about what you plan to store and how you plan to keep your associates safe and equipment damage free.   

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg

 

 

Traveling

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.  Lao Tzu

Travelling in distribution and manufacturing environments is the enemy of efficiency.  Traveling wastes time, creates workload imbalances and increases the cost of product manufacturing and distribution.  Traveling is deceptive since it sometimes appear to be necessary to get the job done. 

When we talk about traveling in the manufacturing plant or the distribution center, it usually involves manually transporting product from one value added process to another or picking items, walking along a designated pick path.  Since it’s only human to want to communicate with each other, walking past our fellow associates without sharing a how the weekend went or how your fantasy football team did is irresistible.  So what do we do about time wasted socializing?  How do we increase productivity without being the communication police?

While it is difficult to keep our team from excessively discussing the news of the day, it is easy to identify how we can reduce the opportunities for travelling. 

·         Assign pick zones or areas of responsibility so your order pickers have less reason to walk the floor

·         Employ “goods to you” systems such as carousels, mini-load systems, tote or case shuttle systems

·         Employ picking systems such as pick to voice or pick to light that tend to engage the picker, reducing the slack time between picks

·         Convey products from one value added process to another as conveyors don’t speak with each other or at least they don’t verbally

·         Use Human Machine Interface software to graphically depict your automation systems so you may identify jams, malfunctions and safety issues

·         Employ automatic scales, tapers, labeling systems and manifesting to keep personnel congestion to a minimum

Most of our associates are generally hard-working, dedicated and loyal.  We need them to successfully manufacture and distribute the products that allow us to grow and be profitable.  However, we are social beings and we need systems and an environment that reduces distractions, promoting focus on our respective tasks.  Are your associates travelling?

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg

BUZZERS, ALARMS, LIGHTS OH MY !

Walk into most distribution centers and manufacturing facilities with automation and you will hear a cacophony (my $5 dollar word) of screeches, alarms, bells and grinding.  You will see indicators, status lights, digital displays, stack lights, power displays and a host of visual means of understanding your equipment and its performance. 

With this bevy of sight and sound stimulators, we ask our operators, supervisors, maintenance technicians and front line managers to know what’s going on and to keep production or distribution running at max efficiency.  When a piece of equipment fails or cases jam or someone in the 500,000 sq ft facility pulls an e-stop, hopefully by accident, we expect immediate resolution of the problem.  After all, we spent good money on this equipment and it should perform as advertised. 

If you look at the technological advances in the devices we use at home, we see the migration to appliances with the ability to communicate with each other and with you the homeowner.  Ultimately, the goal is for the ultimate convenience of knowing the status of our home equipment and adjusting the settings to make our lives easier and more comfortable….this is debatable but that’s for a different blog. 

However, shouldn’t we have a central means of understanding what is going on with our distribution center and manufacturing automation?   Are you using the tools available with Human Machine Interface Software to simplify identification of issues such as jams, emergency stops, full lines, motor failure, faulty photo-eyes, and a host of other typical issues?  Are you tracking and reporting diverts statistics, full divert line times, successful scans and bar code quality?  Most importantly, are you managing your equipment so you can see things that will happen in advance, use your associates properly, and measure the performance of your equipment?

I don’t want my refrigerator communicating with me but I wouldn’t mind my distribution center or manufacturing facility telling me a thing or two. How about you?

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg