WAREHOUSE OPERATIONS IMPROVEMENT
Scope
Our Warehouse Operations Improvement service focuses on analyzing and improving operational workflows to enhance customer service levels while minimizing warehouse costs. Our warehouse improvement consultants take a comprehensive approach, evaluating all aspects of warehouse and distribution center to identify opportunities for increased warehouse efficiency and performance. The scope of our warehouse operations improvement service includes:
Comprehensive Operational Needs Assessment: Evaluation of business requirements, warehouse operational requirements, inventory profiles, throughput analysis, and future business growth projections. This includes a current state analysis of the warehouse processes, material flows, order fulfillment, labor utilization and warehouse layout.
Operational Process Optimization: Identification of warehouse inefficiencies and development of streamlined workflows to improve productivity and reduce warehouse-related operational costs.
Industry-Specific Warehouse Improvements: Optimize warehouse processes for various industries including apparel operations improvement, automative & parts operations improvement, building material operations improvement, consumer goods operations improvement, food operations improvement, industrial equipment operations improvement, medical equipment operations improvement, pharmaceutical operations improvement, and more.
Channel-Specific Warehouse Improvements: Design warehouse solutions for all channels, including e-commerce fulfillment operations, business-to-business (B2B) wholesale and retail fulfillment operations, omnichannel fulfillment operations, finished goods warehouse design, raw materials warehouse design, and more.
Warehouse Equipment and Automation Evaluation: Evaluation of material handling equipment, warehouse automation technologies such as ASRS, conveyor systems, AGVs (automated guided vehicles), AMRs (autonomous mobile robots), and other system support technologies to enhance warehouse productivity.
Facility Layout Recommendations: Optimization of warehouse and distribution center layouts to improve space utilization, picking efficiency, and overall throughput.
Evaluation of Value-Added Services: Evaluation of manufacturing, assembly, kitting, and other value-added services within the operation to drive overall performance and material flow improvements.
Warehouse Cost Reduction Strategies: Identification of opportunities to lower warehouse operating costs through better resource allocation, labor management, and inventory control.
Performance Benchmarking: Comparison of current operations against industry best practices and establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress.
Warehouse Implementation Planning: Development of a structured action plan to implement warehouse improvements, ensuring a smooth and successful transition with minimal disruption to the warehouse operation.
Warehouse Improvement Implementation Support: Project management and guidance of new process implementation, vendor selection, facility setup, and change management to ensure a smooth transition to the new operation.
Objectives
Our Warehouse operations improvement objectives typically include:
Streamline Warehouse Processes
Modernized Warehouse Practices
Maximize Warehouse Storage Capacity
Improve Warehouse Productivity
Improve Warehouse Throughput
Improve Customer Service Levels
Reduce Warehouse Operating Costs
Evaluate Warehouse Automation
Optimize Material Flows
Enable Safe Warehouse Practices
Deliverables
Our deliverables can be customized to meet your needs, but typical deliverables covered by our warehouse operations improvement service include:
1. Data Profiling and Process Mapping
Gathering, analyzing and profiling relevant quantitative warehouse data in relation to the different processes and flows. Documenting the material flows and structures for the bespoke design of the operational processes.
2. Warehouse Best Practices Assessment
An audit of current warehouses operations vs. Establish’s Logistics Best Practices.
History
Our Best Practices were developed with General Electric Co. (GE) to benchmark their 72 divisions and are updated continuously based on our supply chain experience and advances in technology.
Deliverable
We provide a detailed scorecard by practice (example to the left), in addition to a detailed audit by individual process, so you can see where your opportunities within logistics are.
3. Improved Processes
Process maps of your warehouse processes and operational flow charts of material flows and travel with details of improvement opportunities to optimize warehouse practices.
Improvement Areas
Process inefficiencies
Redundancies
Excessive travel time
Deadhead travel time
Excessive operator decision-making
Operations planning
Warehouse automation
System support
Picking strategy
Material handling equipment
Storage configuration
Material flow
4. Warehouse Fulfillment Solutions
Development and evaluation of different warehouse fulfillment concepts which can include and are not limited to picking strategies (wave picking, zone picking, batch picking, pick-to-light, voice picking), put away strategies (fixed location put away, dynamic put away, put-to-light), slotting strategies, inventory management strategies, storage strategies, and automation strategies where applicable.
5. Warehouse Layout Concepts
Development and evaluation of different conceptual warehouse layouts and solutions which can include and are not limited to standard pallet racking / selective pallet racking layouts, bulk storage layouts, specialty racking layouts, and warehouse automation where applicable.
6. Detailed Warehouse Layout
A detailed warehouse layout for the chosen conceptual design and fulfillment strategy including equipment specifications, racking specifications, and outlined processes.
7. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Determination of what KPIs to track, use, and how to calculate.
8. Practical Implementation Plan
A hands-on implementation plan of the operational transformations in Gantt chart format. Applying the crawl, walk, run approach, breaking down strategic goals and objectives into manageable steps for the warehouse improvements.
9. Warehouse Operating Guide & Business Case
Documentation of the optimized warehouse operation and how the processes and workflows function within the new design, including the business case for the improved processes.
Methodology
Project Kickoff: Learn warehouse requirements and scope of operational improvements.
Gather & Analyze Data: Collect and analyze all required data pertaining to the operation, both qualitative and quantitative. Compile findings into a quantitative report.
Analyze Warehouse Operation: Witness how throughput and processes are currently handled and what the bottlenecks are.
Warehouse Best Practices Audit: Benchmark the current warehouse operations against industry’s Best Practices and evaluate the system support.
Develop & Evaluate Operational Concepts: Evaluate different warehouse fulfillment, operational, and layout concepts that streamline the processes and improve efficiencies.
Develop the Detailed Design: Detail a conceptual solution into an implementation-quality document including a layout drawing, process documentation, and business case.
Time-Phased Implementation: Create a warehouse improvement implementation plan and manage the implementation process of the warehouse redesign and/or process updates.
Warehouse Operations Manual: Detail all supporting information into a final report including the process and procedure changes and how the operation should function to achieve the desired improvements.
Why Establish?
Experience
With over 50 years of experience, we have developed our own proprietary Logistics Best Practices assessment and supply chain analytics tools and have designed and improved over 1,000 operations in almost every industry. Our warehouse design consultants bring that expertise to every project to ensure the solution is optimized and meets your business requirements. Please visit our client page to view all our happy customers (https://www.establishinc.com/clients).
Independent and Unbiased
We sell no other products besides our services. This allows our warehouse design consultants to develop completely unbiased solutions that are independent of any specific supplier or vendor and are customized and specifically designed for your needs.
Detailed Approach
We are an engineering-based management consulting firm with full-time, highly experienced warehouse design consultants trained in Lean techniques. Our approach is methodical and is supported by both industry leading and proprietary tools, including AutoCAD, Establish’s Logistics Best Practices, and Assign, which is our own proprietary software for data cleansing and profiling, allowing us to capture critical logistics insights. Our state-of-the-art designs are accompanied and enhanced by our operating descriptions that will document our recommended procedures and demonstrate the various processes through easy-to-follow flow charts. We provide our clients with a detailed AutoCAD based layout, a comprehensive list of equipment and materials to be purchased – detailed to the level necessary for RFPs, and an operating manual outlining and diagramming the processes and procedures to ensure maximum efficiency of the new operation.
Full-Service Partner
Our warehouse consulting staff has a deep knowledge in all aspects, including analytics, process improvement, warehouse design, and project management, making them capable of supporting you throughout every step of the process, from discovery through implementation and beyond.
TOOLS & METHODS
Within warehousing, we are using state of the art tools and methods. Below you will find some of the more important tools.
Establish’s Logistics Best Practices™
Logistics and warehouse operations benchmarking tool
Assign™
Logistics data cleansing, profiling and network optimization software
AutoCAD
Computer-aided design software
Logivations
Warehouse simulation software
RELEX Solutions
Supply chain planning software
WHITE PAPERS & CASE STUDIES
Establish has a long track-record within warehouse design and improvements. The case studies below are just a few examples of achievements from Establish's supply chain consultants together with clients within warehouse design and improvements.
Optimizing the Layout and Processes of a Storeroom
A manufacturing company’s storeroom had lost significant space and became extremely inefficient at supporting production. Establish developed ways to improve storage capacity and efficiency so the storeroom could gain control back over their products and processes.
Warehouse Optimization for a Spare Parts Warehouse
Establish developed short and long-term solutions to improve efficiency, safety, visibility, and storage capacity at an aging warehouse facility.
Warehouse Redesign and Improvements for a Leading Building and Construction Material Distributor
Establish assisted a leading building and construction material distributor by redesigning their over-capacity warehouse, improving internal processes and quantifying the return on investment.
Improving Ergonomics And Picking Efficiency For A Vitamin And Supplements Manufacturer
Establish identified that optimizing the slotting strategy was the key to increasing efficiency and enabling a more ergonomically friendly warehouse operation.
Warehouse Automation in the Automotive Industry
Establish designed a new operation to improve efficiency and storage capacity for a recently acquired company with high growth expectations.
Warehouse Improvements for a Humanitarian Aid Organization
Establish identifies warehouse improvement solutions for a humanitarian aid company with a rapidly changing outbound shipment profile.