The main level of the facility has space dedicated to products for the retail stores and consignment along with space for direct-to-customer (DTC) products. Currently, this space is used for larger items (e.g., baskets) that are generally stored in pallet positions for the direct-to-customer channels. In addition, space on the mezzanine is available for direct-to-customer products. Currently, the mezzanine space is used for the smaller items (e.g. jewelry and scarves) that are generally stored in bins. Occasionally, direct-to-customer items are intermingled with the retail and consignment items. However, all design changes must be made within the footprint of the areas currently dedicated to direct-to-customer. Drawings with details are provided in separate files.
Inbound processes: Given the unique and varying characteristics of the items that flow through the facility, they arrive in a variety of configurations. Items arrive by parcel post, on pallets with a single SKU, and on mixed pallets with multiple SKUs. These items are generally transferred to the shelves on the main floor or to the bins on the mezzanine. Items may be placed in picking locations or they may be placed in overstock locations.
Flow through the facility: Inside the facility, larger items are stored in the space on the main level dedicated to direct-to-customer operations (with some overflow to other areas of the facility). Smaller items are stored in bin shelves on the mezzanine level, which is located above the offices.
Currently, order fulfillment for the direct-to-customer business occurs on the mezzanine level. The smaller items that are stored in the bins are manually picked into totes using carts. Larger items in an order are picked from the direct-to-customer storage on the main level and brought to the mezzanine on the elevator. These larger items are either transported to the mezzanine on pallets using pallet jacks or on carts if the product will fit. The elevator is known to be a bottleneck during periods of high demand. The small item picks from the mezzanine bins and the large item picks from the main floor, if any, are merged at the packing stations that are on the mezzanine level.
On the mezzanine, employees batch pick items to totes. Pieces are then manually sorted by order to pass-through shelves at the pack tables. The existing Warehouse Management System (WMS) limits the batch size to 14 orders. When all items for an order are available, a packing employee packs the order. The orders are then transferred to the lower level (either by a spiral package chute or the elevator) for distribution.
Outbound processes: Most of the items are distributed using parcel post.
Dock doors: Both inbound and outbound trucks utilize the same 11 dock doors available at the facility.
Resources: For the direct-to-customer processes, the facility currently has the following material handling equipment:
1 Narrow Aisle Reach Truck (similar to Crown Model RR5225-35)
3 manual pallet jacks
13 pick carts with 2 shelves (similar to Economy Service Cart ESC1630-2)
2 platform carts (similar to Fairbanks E95-Q-2448-RTE-408)
1 spiral chute from the mezzanine to the main level (similar to a Hytrol Transnorm Safeglide Chute (TS-Chute))
1 gravity conveyor on the mezzanine
The following sites contain extensive information on material handling equipment:
http://www.mhi.org/learning/cicmhe/resources/taxonomy
http://www.mhi.org/mediabank/
The facility has 7 employees for receiving, stocking, picking, packing, and shipping for direct-to-customer channels. In addition, the facility also has a maintenance worker who services the entire facility.
The normal warehouse schedule is 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, with a 30 minute lunch break, resulting in a 40 hour week. From mid-November until the end of December, warehouse hours are extended. During this time, direct-to-customer operates 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. from Monday through Friday and 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday. Individual employee schedules are staggered to achieve this schedule, and employees often work 45 hours per week or more during this time. Fair Trader often uses temporary labor during peak periods.
Storage in the facility: The main level of the facility is often referred to as Zone 1. The mezzanine level is also referred to as Zone 3.
For the main level (Zone 1), items are either stored on the lower shelf level for picking or on the upper shelf levels for overstock. In the data files, a designator of 1PICK indicates that an item is stored in Zone 1 in a pick area. A designator of 1OVER1 indicates that an item is stored in Zone 1, in the first level of overstock items. A designator of 1OVER2 indicates that an item is stored in Zone 1, in the second level of overstock items.
For Zone 1, in several places in the data, the shelf levels are also referred to as levels A, B, C, D, E, and F, with A representing the lowest shelf level and F representing the highest shelf level. Thus, a designator of 1PICK is an A level shelf in Zone 1. A designator of 1OVER1 is a B level shelf, and a designator of 1OVER2 is a C level shelf, in Zone 1.
For the mezzanine level (Zone 3), items are stored in bin locations. The bin locations generally hold boxes of 22”x15”x12”. This zone is primarily used for storing smaller items. The lower four levels are used for picking, and the top 3 levels are used for overstock. In the data files, a designator of 3PICK indicates that an item is stored in Zone 3 (the mezzanine) in one of the lower four levels for picking. These lower four levels are referred to as A, B, C, and D. A designator of 3OVER indicates that an item is stored in Zone 3 in one of the upper three levels used for overstock, referred to as E, F, and G.
Figure 1. Illustration of Storage Terminology
Bins within the shelves also have identifiers, with a naming scheme of ZRBBLP, where
Z: Zone (1-4)
R: single letter designating a row
BB: 2-digit number designating the Rack (sometimes referred to as a ‘Bay’)
L: a letter designating the level
P: a number designating the position on the Bay/Level
Throughout the data files, there are references to bin sizes and also box sizes. Bin sizes refer to the storage capacity for the shelf bins, as summarized in Table 1. Box sizes refer to the storage capacity of the containers that store the items, as summarized in Table 2.
Table 1. Bin Sizes
Pallet For full pallet (such as skid or Gaylord) locations: 48”x40”x54” = 103680 in3 = 60 ft3.
Half Pallet For half height pallet locations: 48”x40”x24” = 46080 in3 = 26.67 ft3.
Tall Pallet For taller pallet locations: 48”x40”x74” = 142080 in3 = 82.22 ft3.
Chicken Box For cardboard “chicken box” locations: 22”x15”x12” = 3960 in3 = 2.29 ft3.
Basket For 3 large plywood bins for storing baskets: 68”x60”x88” = 359040 in3 = 207 ft3.
Oddsize3A There is some space along the wall for putting miscellaneous items: 125”x18”x60” = 135000 in3 = 78.125 ft3.
Table 2. Box Sizes
Chicken Box 22x15x10 in3.
Half-Chicken Box A half-height chicken box (22x15x6), used for heavier items where filling up a full chicken box would be too heavy.
Skid Items are placed directly on a wooded skid.
Gaylord Items are placed in a pallet-sized cardboard box.
Producer Box Items are stored in boxes provided by the producer.
2. Scope Assumptions and Design Criteria
• Direct-to-customer business for this organization includes wholesale shipments, festival (event sales), and conventional e-commerce shipments.
• The project is to be located in the existing facility within the confines of the area allotted for direct-to-customer (see provided drawings).
• In the current configuration, direct-to-customer items are occasionally intermingled with the retail and consignment items. Although these items may remain in the non-DTC areas, no additional rack storage space can be utilized in the non-DTC areas. Thus, all changes are limited to the areas allotted for DTC (see provided drawings).
• The distribution center must have capacity to handle volumes for the next two years for wholesale, festival and e-commerce growth.
• Historical data from the existing DC will be utilized for the project and factored accordingly to reflect demand for the following year volumes. Growth factors should reflect a 25% increase for order volume next year and a 35% increase compounded for the following year across all channels.
• The current Warehouse Management System (WMS) is assumed to be sufficient for use in the new designs or processes because it can be programmed to add functionality. In the systems phase, clearly identify any needed functionality in the new design so the software engineer would be able to make the changes.
• All systems hardware, software, integration and programming are the scope of Fair Trader IT department and not the scope of the design team. The design team, however, must clearly and fully define the functionality required to support the final design of operations.
• Shipping carton erection for direct-to-customer is a concern.
• The WMS will not hold a pick location for an item once the location is empty.
• Fair Trader uses temporary labor during peak periods. It is desirable to minimize the need for temporary labor as these resources are not as effective or as accurate as regular associates and require training to be prepared for the four week peak period. Training typically requires 20 hours.
• It is desirable, although not absolutely required, to avoid single points of failure. A single point of failure example would be a single automated case packer without redundancy or a section of conveyor that if it fails an operation must be shut down.
• Audits of orders filled for e-commerce must be conducted after fulfillment is complete.
3. Data Provided
The information provided includes the following:
• 2 AutoCAD drawing files and information files (view the information .pdf files before the drawings)
o Main Level
o Mezzanine Level
• 1 PowerPoint file that provides a summary of the inbound and outbound data files.
o Fair Trader Facility Data Review.pptx
• 4 Spreadsheet files
o All of the spreadsheet files include an Information Sheet that provides descriptions of the data.
Bins.xls provides information on the storage bins available at the facility including:
BinCode a unique bin identifier
ZoneCode the zone designation
BinTypeCode the bin type: “PICK” for a pick bin and “PUT AWAY” for an overstock bin
BinSize a description of the bin size (pallet, chicken box, etc.)
BinVol the volume of the bin in ft3
LastDateCounted the date the bin was last counted.
BinContent.xls provides information on the contents of the bins over the time horizon including:
Date the date of the snapshot
BinCode the bin identifier
BinSize the description of the bin size (pallet, chicken box, etc.)
BinVol the volume of the bin in ft3
ItemNo the item number in the bin. If blank, the bin is empty. A given bin may have multiple items (and therefore multiple records in this file).
Quantity the quantity of the item in the bin
ItemBoxType the standard way this item is stored in the warehouse
MerchVol the volume (in ft3) that the merchandise takes up
PercentFull the ratio of MerchVol to BinVol.
The organization has some data issues with BinContent.xls as described on the information sheet in the file.
Receipts.xls provides the following information for items received in the facility over the horizon.
Date the date the item was received
SourceType “Purchase Order” if it was received against a PO or “Supplier Order” if it was a return.
SourceNo the PO Number if the source type was “Purchase Order”, the return order number if the source type was “Supplier Order”
ItemNo the item received
Quantity the quantity of the item received
MerchVol the volume (in ft3) that the merchandise that was received
CustGroup the business unit associated with the order (WHOLESALE, FESTIVAL, or ECOMMERCE)
Outbound.xls provides information on the items shipped from the facility over the horizon including:
Date the date the item was shipped
SourceType always “Sales Order”
CustNo the customer number for the items shipped
CustGroup the business unit the customer is associated with (WHOLESALE, FESTIVAL, or ECOMMERCE)
SourceNo the sales order number
ItemNo the item number
Quantity the quantity shipped
MerchVol the volume (in ft3) of the merchandise that was shipped
Last Completed Projects
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