Great ideas for materials handling: Problem-solving solutions

Great materials handling designers always have a few tricks up their sleeves for optimizing throughput and creating efficiencies.

By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 4/2/2008

Every warehouse and distribution center is unique. But the processes managed in those facilities, and the problems confronting the managers, are common. For that reason, good materials handling designers, like good magicians, always have a few tricks up their sleeves for optimizing throughput and creating efficiencies.

While we would never ask a magician to show us how he gets the rabbit in the hat, back in 2002, we asked four materials handling consultants to reveal their best timeless ideas, both big and small, for materials handling.

Many of these tips can be easily adapted to an existing facility with little or no investment. Others you may want to jot down and keep handy for your next major upgrade or a new facility.

We asked for 50 ideas, and they surprised us with 70 ideas. They include:

1. Know the ultimate disposition of a return before you touch it. Maybe you can handle it only once.

2. Install mezzanines over shipping and receiving docks to make use of vertical space that often goes empty.

3. Use rack structures to support a branch of a conveyor system in lieu of using the ceiling or floor for support.

4. Create a holding area for shipped goods that is accessible to trucks during off-hours, but does not provide warehouse access. This allows trucks to come and load when the warehouse is not in operation. This is also useful when you have to ship a large quantity in a short amount of time and can also help to stagger shipping to off-hours without requiring a warehouse staff.

5. Make use of unused run-out space at the end of high-bay aisles. If lift trucks do not need this space for turn around, consider installing shelving along the wall line. The shelves can be easily accessed by order pickers operating perpendicular to the high-bay racks.

6. Vary zone boundaries from batch to batch to provide equal workload for each picker based on picks needed, instead of an equal pick face based on SKU quantity or space.

7. Use consolidation carousels to accumulate multiple tote orders. This eliminates the need for additional accumulation for staging as well as manual sortation at packing.

8. Observe the best operators to discover process tricks. They have spent a career perfecting them.

9. Paint a line on exterior walls and pavement to help over-the-road drivers with backing up.

10. If uneven terrain is making construction of a new distribution center challenging, consider placing your shipping and receiving dock on a mezzanine level, but even with the higher ground outside. The main floor can then be level with the lower terrain. Inbound and outbound conveyor can take product to and from the warehouse floor from the docks.

Make sure to check out the other 60 tips. Share with us on the feedback link any tips of your own.