50 things to do to free up warehouse space August 31, 2007
Posted by Lawrence Loucka in : Lean, Logistics, Supply Chain , add a comment
Business is growing and running out of space in the warehouse. What to do before moving to a new facility or pouring concrete? Fifty things to consider:
- Cross dock
- Narrow aisles
- Double deep racks
- Bridges over aisles, cross aisles, aisle ends, truck doors
- Re-slot forward pick locations
- Relocate slow movers and consolidate
- Change batteries rather than park and charge
- Pushback racks
- Pallet flow racks
- Carton flow racks
- Carousels horizontal or vertical
- Use uprights that only go to the top beam, close pack the top deck
- Shorter beams; 96" not 108"
- Triple wide beams
- Vary beam heights
- Double stack pallets
- Mobile shelving
- Purge excess, slow moving, obsolete
- Improve put away and pick cycle time and then cut safety stock
- Direct or Drop Ship
- Drop items from the catalog
- Put carton flow racks under pallet racks
- Put pick shelves and bins under pallet racks
- Slip sheets or low profile pallets
- Daily delivery of new pallets and packaging supplies
- Check out bound while picking or loading
- Check in bound while unloading or put away
- Store more than one item per shelf or pallet
- Consolidate partial pallets, cartons, bins
- Receive and ship on different shifts
- Redesign package
- Optimize pallet stacking pattern
- Select the right pallet
- Buy/Make to Order
- Buy in smaller lots
- Ship in smaller lots
- Receive and ship more often
- Make inbound receipt appointments
- Make delivery appointments
- Spot out bound trailers & load directly into trailer
- Eliminate inbound inspection
- Recalculate safety stock
- Recalculate order quantities
- Sell slow moving, return for credit, fire sale
- Donate, scrap, recycle obsolete
- Take assemblies apart and sell spare parts
- Combine parts in to kits
- Reduce the in and out queues
- Control SKU proliferation
- Pick directly into the shipping container
PowerPoint and other miscommunications August 5, 2007
Posted by Lawrence Loucka in : Consulting, Lean, Lean Sigma, Sigma , add a comment.gif)
Recently read Edward R. Tufte’s The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within and initially dismissed his thesis as troglodyte. Now sensitized, I’ve been watching for evidence of PowerPoint Abuse. Found an unfortunate example with two parallel teams during a strategic capital equipment review. Both teams were given the same mission and access to data: scrutinize the new capital equipment plans, challenge assumptions, collect new data and define cost reduction and risk mitigation plans. Both teams were staffed with bright industrial, process, manufacturing, quality engineers who pulled on other subject matter experts in their data gathering. Leadership effectively facilitated and guided both teams through the current state to future state diagnostic journey. Significant productivity, utilization, overall equipment effectiveness opportunities were identified and tested over the two week full-time exercise.
One team plastered their "war room" with all of their data, continuously rearranging their wall, retelling their story. The other team began typing their findings and abandoned their wall after a couple of days. Individual leaders would visit with the teams randomly throughout the study period but never "walked the wall", instead expected PowerPoint slides for the daily out briefs. Attempts were made to reconcile the two teams leading up to a joint presentation to senior management.
Bottom line - what’s the new equipment price tag to support the new 5 year strategic operating plan?
One team argued for showing both the prior and new estimates as side by side stacked bar charts, the other team just a table listing the $9.6 million delta.
Despite coaching challenges the delta display won out. Too bad because the Executive VP had remembered "the number" and misinterpreted the table. Had the first team taken the EVP on a tour of their wall the message would have been clearer.