Materials handling: Breaking tradition is good for business
Now realizing that a pioneering spirit actually pays off in terms of productivity, Kroger has firmly embraced the benefits of automated handling and shows no sign of turning back.
Michael A. Levans, Group Editorial Director -- Modern Materials Handling, 5/1/2009
Take another look at this month's cover. Anything missing? While there's nothing that resonates more with Modern readers than seeing a peer highlighted on the cover, this month we decided to put the focus squarely on Kroger's new automated system design—and the system design alone.
I guess you can say that we've broken with tradition to accentuate a point. Kroger—like several of its rivals in the highly-competitive grocery industry—was an early adopter of warehouse management and labor systems, and was certainly in the forefront of applying wireless bar code scanning and voice technology.
Now realizing that a pioneering spirit actually pays off in terms of productivity, Kroger has firmly embraced the benefits of automated handling and shows no sign of turning back. Starting on page 16, Executive Editor Bob Trebilcock explains the thought process behind the grocery giant's new automated design philosophy and how it's weaved into Kroger's long-term supply chain strategy.
In short, the system can receive and putaway full pallets, break them down and rebuild them into story-ready mixed pallets according to how they will be placed on store shelves—and do all of this with nearly no human intervention. In fact, operators only touch product once at the receiving dock and once on the shipping dock.
"When we began working with our system integrator to create this design, we were looking for a paradigm change in grocery warehousing," says Kroger's John Winkels, the company's senior director of logistics engineering and network strategy—a title that indicates where Kroger is heading. Once you comb through the details of how they've already rolled this design into two facilities—with more on the way—you can say with some confidence that Winkels and his team are well on their way to achieving that paradigm change.
Another piece of required reading this month is "Getting more from your WMS," which begins on page 23. Over the first quarter of this year Modern, along with sister publication Logistics Management, have been consistently reminding readers that yes, software and technology investment is down, and in many cases being completely shelved at least through 2009.
But while software investment money may not be flowing from your fingertips, plans for optimizing what you already have should be on your drawing board. With the help of ARC's Steve Banker and a number of other WMS heavyweights, this month we offer some suggestions for how to tap deeper into the existing functionality you may already have.
And if our suggestions leave you wanting more, tune into the 2009 Warehouse/DC Best Practices virtual conference at mmh.com/warehousevc where AMR's Greg Aimi presents even more insight into the benefits of WMS optimization in tough times.
By the way, over 1,800 of your peers have already dropped by.
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