Page 261 - DMGT523_LOGISTICS_AND_SUPPLY_CHAIN_MANAGEMENT

Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Notes drawings; an operational description; outline warehouse management system
requirements; key building requirements; their interfaces and an outline of the
replenishment operations at other sites - to and from the Liege centre.

Project Management
With the solution design agreed, Total Logistics acted as the project 'Engineer', a role with
officially defined responsibilities for managing the tender process. In this instance, Total
Logistics was responsible for the procurement of all internal equipment required for the
warehouse: detailed specifications went out to 26 companies for tender, managed through
a number of short-listing stages before final selection took place. Simultaneously, Premier
Farnell reviewed its WMS strategy with Total Logistics. Total Logistics were retained to
provide full support during implementation, with a high level of responsibility for solution
testing and delivery, including managing all supplier contracts.

As the extent of the global economic downturn in 2001 became apparent, the full
implementation of the project was postponed for one year. However, the costs of fulfilling
European orders from Leeds were still high. In response, Total Logistics designed a smaller
manual intermediate solution that could rapidly deliver important parts of the overall
cost reduction with minimal capital investment.
Total Logistics knew that to derive maximum benefit from the interim solution, work
content had to be optimised. The maximum number of orders was profiled with the
minimum number of lines. This identified the SKUs that could be positioned in Liege to
give the lowest start-up and operational costs plus the greatest savings on shipping.

Planning Contingencies
The data was re-modelled but the original solution had been designed with sufficient
flexibility to accommodate the majority of range and volume changes. The interim solution
could therefore be a scalable subset of the final design.
The interim Liege solution went live in September 2002 and is delivering the planned cost
reductions. It features a 19,000 sq m greenfield warehouse in two sections (initially
15,000 sqm followed by an additional 4,000 sq m) with a clear height of 10m and a usable
height of 8.5m to accommodate sprinklers. There are 24 conveyorised picking zones
covering around 20,000 shelf locations. Products are stored in four tote sizes, in
manufacturers' containers or as free stock (for larger items) on shelving.
All picking and stock movements are confirmed with wrist mounted RDTs feeding into
the network of Dell PCs; scanning of barcodes is done via finger-mounted scanners and
label printing via belt-mounted printers. Improved batching and picking techniques have
generated substantial improvements in picking productivity, saving time and money.
The conveyor servicing the picking zones is self-routing and able to handle more than
1,000 orders per hour. The design incorporates routing flexibility and fault tolerance,
allowing continued operation in the event of breakdown.
The picking process includes an inspection area, a consolidation area and picking spurs.
The consolidation area is automatically routed if there is more than one tote and the
picking spurs have semi-automatic case-sealers.
The interim design has three zones of bulk storage with 3,000 pallet locations, 6,000 shelf
locations and a reserve of 1,600 pallet locations. All pallet racking is adjustable and
fireprotected. About 40% of the storage area is static protected with conductive storage
bins and totes and special earth conductive flooring.
Contd...

256 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY