Good Luck Is a Residue of Preparation - Jack Youngblood

As we celebrate the annual St Patrick’s Day festivities, it’s a good time to talk about luck. Good luck is indeed the residue of preparation.  Distributors and manufacturers alike must continuously prepare themselves for changing tastes and expectations of faster delivery and cheaper products.  No longer do our customers need to ask themselves if they’re getting a good deal because our phones now serve as a bar code scanner that can provide multiple prices and delivery options for the exact same item.  In our world, customers know the rules of thumb for cost per linear feet of conveyor by type and cost per pallet position. 

So how do we prepare ourselves so good luck may follow? 

·         Do you know the dimensions and weights of your SKUs so you may do an automatic comparison of the actual weight to of an order to the expected weight of the order?

o   Reduces overages

o   Reduces returns

o   Reduces omissions

o   Reduces unit of issue problems

o   Most importantly, it improves your customer experience

·         When you walk through your Plant or Distribution Center, are you using rack for pallets, individual cases individual SKU’s and everything in between?

o   Are there big pockets of space where there is no product?

o   Are SKUs mixed in with each other so it’s cumbersome to pick, put away and cycle count?

o   Do you have a lot of cubic space available but you are not sure how to take advantage of it? 

·         Do your smaller SKUs fall between the openings in wire decks? Is there a lot of product on the floor?

·         Are you using standard cases for all shipments, paying unnecessary shipping costs for air?

·         Are you using one shipper for all your outbound orders or do you rate shop for the best deal?

·         Are you applying shipping labels manually? 

·         Do you have record of products shipping from your facility in case of customer complaints of missing orders?

o   Pictures, date time stamp, bar code scan?

o   Are you dealing with inbound cases and bags with no bar codes on them? 

If these questions sound familiar, let’s prepare together so we can make our own luck. 

 

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