New year resolution; More usable slots

Karma Logistics wishes all our friends, colleagues in the Distribution sector a great 2013.

Every day, in your/our warehouses, we are looking for MORE usable slots (faces). Just ask your inventory staff.

Look for products that are no longer selling.

we take 1 or 2 months of actual order pick data. Look for those SKU's that have stopped moving.

see graph below.

of these slow or NO movers, we concentrate on those '0 Hits", meaning we have sold ZERO cases in the last 2 months.  If you have a seasonality pattern, please ignore this discussion. In the graph above, we have highlighted sku's that sell 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 cases.  Look at the left most part of the graph.  We have approximately 30 sku's with '0 hits"

These '0 hit' sku's occupy slots, they increase travel time.

If we ask you to drastically change the layout, you will not agree.

How about buying some extra cross beams?

In the example above, we have illustrated 3 picking levels below and reserve levels above.

We recommend , installing additional cross beams at the first Reserve level.

Say this reserve slot is 50" high.  The cross beam is about 4" high.

50" - 4" = 46";  Divide into 2 halves; we get 2 slots with 23" height.

We recommend moving those '0 hits' items from their normal pick slots to these new slots in the first reserve slot. Since these slots are shorter, select only those sku's that have 3 or 4 cases on hand.

You gain -

• More usable slots in the Pick levels
• Move '0 hit' item to a less desirable slot
• positive impact on picking travel time

And you should make this a monthly once activity..

of course, there are other ways to manage these '0 hits' also.

By sending them to appropriate charities and taking a tax write-off

Or selling them in non-competing retail channels.

Or when your accountant is on vacation, dumping them in the nearest dumpster. (keep this as a secret)

Watch for more recommendations in the coming new year 2013.

We provide 3D modeling, Profiling, Slotting, Built-in simulations.

and a weekly reslotting service that keeps your DC in the best shape. Every week

Happy holidays..

Ram.krishnan@yahoo.com

Minnesota

a new service from Karma Logistics

Benefit from these 10 features in our slotting service

Did you know that we employ 10 key features to improve your warehouse slotting productivity?


1.0   3D model with inventory information.

2.0   Built-in Order Picking simulation.

3.0   BEST-FIT heuristics to determine the BEST bulk storage and rack storage solutions for your inventory.

4.0  Layered slotting with high productivity without congestion.

5.0  Our order picking simulation calculates step-by-step travel segments. You can build Engineered labor standards for picking using these accurate travel distances.

6.0  Slotting, Simulation and 3D model functions are inter-related.

7.0  Software is metric-enabled and hence applicable world-wide.

8.0  Built-in layout design and slot-numbering modules.

9.0  Low-cost weekly re-slotting service keeps your DC finely tuned.

10.0  We offer a simple 'data-bridge' to connect to your facilities WMS, Home-grown or SAP .

You can also view the You Tube video below

Double productivity increase - with Best-fit cube and Layered slotting

Most of us that work in the warehousing sector are constantly looking for ways to make it more efficient. 

Do you know why? There are many reasons. But one key reason is that in a Warehouse, we do not increase the VALUE of the product. Both Warehousing and transportation add COSTS to the product.

As SKU’s keep increasing, we keep expanding the sq.feet size of the facility. As we increase the size of the warehouse, it is natural for the order picking costs to increase also. But we know many simple techniques to reduce these costs.

A key culprit – Travel Time

The graphic below shows that about 60% of the total picking time OR inbound put-away time, consists of travel time. This 60% ratio is typical for warehouses in the 100,000 to 150,000 sq.feet range.

If your DC is in the range of 200,000 to 450,000 sq.feet, you can easily assume that 75% of the picking time in your DC is just travel time. As the DC increases in size, we must take a serious look at the cube utilization.

Are we using the correct slot sizes?

Pallet Rack storage (and Bins)

In the graphic below,

** The left most rack design is the most flexible size and is also the most inefficient cube design.

** The right most rack design, gives the best cube design, but is also the most in-flexible.

** Hence, is the rack design shown in the middle provides both flexibility and cube efficiency – to an extent. 

At Karma Logistics, we take your entire inventory of SKU’s, with their Carton dimensions and pallet HI and TI, and heuristically search for the BEST-FIT rack slot sizes.

Bulk storage

If your warehouse is supporting a manufacturing facility, with products palletized and stored directly on the floor (Bulk storage), we take into account the stackabilty of the pallet, pallet dimensions, and aisle dimensions and find the BEST-Case for the storage depth. We search from 3 deep to 24 deep storage configurations to reduce the space loss due to ‘honey-combing”.

Karma Logistics uses these BEST-FIT heuristics to find the BEST options for your DC, based on your inventory and customer orders.  We will not design a layout for your DC based on what we did for another DC with completely different product profiles.

And our built-in order picking simulations makes our technique stand out in our industry. See short simulation video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWnHnI_AbTE

Here are the steps to achieve good slotting results.

Step 1.  We start with the outer-most rectangle in the graphic above. Let that represent our current layout.

Step 2.  Using our BEST-FIT heuristic, we find the BEST-FIT slots for our layout. This will also shrink the overall effective region of the layout.

Step 3.  Now, we do the slotting based on HITS (and other criteria like, Family, Case height etc)

Step 4.  To avoid congestion in FAST aisles, we suggest a staggered slotting of ‘A” items across 

different aisles, closer to the dock

Step 5. Not shown in the graphic. As we slot the ‘A” items, we need to maintain enough stock in the pick slot to support 1 or 2 shift pick volume. Otherwise, we will run out of products during the middle of a picking shift. This will demand stock replenishment and also cause partial picks.

Customer testimonial

O & M has been more than satisfied with the results of the software. The big push to finish the project in 18 months has paid off for O & M. Since implementation in all facilities, productivity has improved by 35 percent. “Not all of the improvement can be attributed to the software. However, we recognize that DCO software played a pivotal role in the large productivity gains we have enjoyed.”

Read the full article at this link below:

https://sites.google.com/site/customertestimonialone/

Slotting made easy – with 3D modeling

YouTube Video - 3D Modeling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBsM1I8cFm0

We can help you look at your DC, like no one else can.

Karma Logistics uses these BEST-FIT heuristics to find the BEST options for your DC, based on your inventory and customer orders.  We will not design a layout for your DC based on what we did for another DC with completely different product profiles. And our built-in order picking simulations makes our technique stand out in our industry.

Our advanced slotting techniques provides these 3 results;

      1.0  Slot the SKU, based on its attributes and velocity, in the right place in the layout.

      2.0  Slot the SKU in the Right size slot

      3.0  Slot enough pick units to support picking demand in 1 or more shifts.

And we do this with our field-tested software.

Contact:  

Ram.krishnan@Karma-Logistics-inc.com

www.Karma-logistics-inc.com

651-631-8622 Minnesota

A video on 3D modeling your DC

Karma Logistics Inc, is adding a new dimension to improving DC productivity.

Yes, we are. Going from 2D to 3D.

Adding that extra dimension makes your DC graphic come 'live'. The same functionality that we used to on a 2D drawing - slotting, simulation, Cube analysis etc are shown beautifully in a 3D model.

This YouTube inserted here shows the Functions and benefits of our 3D model.

What DATA do we need to create a LIVE model of your DC?

Data Requirements

https://sites.google.com/site/karmalogisticsintro/data-required

WE connect our Application to connect to your server and download the necessary data, as frequently as we need. We process this data. Then send the results back to the 3D model application using a wired or WiFi environment.

Contact:

Karma Logistics Inc

Minnesota USA and Bangalore India

ram.krishnan@karma-logistics-inc.com

More about Karma Logistics at

WarehouseIQ - a resource for distribution professionals

 http://warehouseiq.com/

WarehouseIQ - an internet based information source.  You may have heard about this great service to our industry. Think of this site, as a one-stop starting point for information.

We at Karma Logistics, have been partnering with WarehouseIQ.  In a recent website cover page, they have described our newest warehouse tool - 3D model of your warehouse on a IPad.

3D model - showing current onhand inventory

3D image inside an IPad

Thank you for visiting the WarehouseIQ site.


Karma Logistics Inc
www.Karma-Logistics-Inc.com
Ram.Krishnan@Karma-Logistics-Inc.com

Do you have any of these 8 common symptoms in your DC?

How do we know that you (your DC that is) may be suffering from some of the above symptoms.
Note, that we said "symptoms". Hence, the root cause is somewhere else.

As our economy (the US) is trying to come out of the 'ditch', we have new issues to worry about.

1.  The distribution channel mix is not what it used to be.

2.  Facebook is now used for individual product promotion.

3.  Product proliferation (and hence SKU growth) is at full speed to grab the attention of the shopper.

4.  Major distributors -like Wal Mart, Target are taking away sales from the traditional Grocery distributors.

5.  Best Buy ( and before that Circuit city ) stores are being used as Show rooms and people eventually buy from Amazon and other on-line distributors.

6.  A major Food distributor like Supervalu, after years of buying up many competing chains, announces that it is 'FOR SALE".

7.  Some of the Wal-Mart shoppers are switching to Dollar Stores.

What is a Warehouse Operator to do?

If you examined your layout, operations just last month, it is time to do it again.

We help DC's by Profiling the Inventory and Customer orders, every week.
And we keep making incremental slotting changes based on that.

Optimum vs Flexible designs

An optimum design sounds good. That it will yield the lowest cost of operations. But 
such an optimum design is based on 'today's conditions' and 'our best guess on what tomorrow will bring. If those assumptions do not materialize, then the 'optimum' design will start costing more. And after sometime, it will begin to have major operational problems also.

A flexible design on the other hand, may cost few dollars more, but will continue to weather many unknowns in our marketplace.

Here is a graphic that explains the difference between optimum and flexible designs.

Thank you for reading this BLOG.