What Can an In-Stock Program Do For You?

Peace of Mind for Last-Minute Needs
“You’re in good hands” is a popular advertising slogan for a national insurance company. This company has used that catch-phrase for years, probably because their customers tell them it is reassuring.

Nobody likes surprises, especially manufacturing and warehouse managers. We’ve found one way they combat this is by either getting in early or staying late. Sound familiar? During this time the important matters can be addressed. Once the rest of the company arrives usually only the urgent issues rule the day.

Whether your next warehouse storage rack project is planned or as a result of a last-minute crisis, Morrison Company stands ready to deliver peace of mind. You ask how this can occur.

The components for a warehouse storage rack project, the beams, uprights and wire decking, are all available on-hand or on a quick ship program. That’s right. Popular sizes of these critical components are ready for pick up, delivery or quick-ship depending on your locale and needs.

Accessing this valuable resource is simple. On the home page of the Morrison Company website is a link that will provide the sizes, capacities and weights you can use to determine what system is right for your needs. More simply, call 440-946-8505 and Jeff can discuss your project. He will be happy to build a bill of materials that will meet your needs.

Rack is not all the same. As the leading manufacturer of warehouse storage rack, Interlake continually strives to design the safest and strongest systems. Working with Interlake, Morrison Company’s engineers have untold years of practical experience laying out a warehouse.

How versatile is your pallet rack? Beginning soon, Morrison Company will be able to offer a new design for Interlake racking. The new Interlock bolted upright system features modular technology that provides users the flexibility to more cost effectively modify, reconfigure and repair their rack system, making it easier to incorporate a new picking system or accommodate odd-size SKUs or, even move the entire system to a new location.

Do your plans include the expansion, consolidation or a new distribution center? Ask for details of how Morrison Company's in-stock program can address those last-minute pallet rack needs.

You Do That?

ASRS Systems
Remember back a few years, after to the Enron debacle when the electric power industry was struggling to maintain capacity. About two years later came the massive power outage the hit the Northeast. In this industry, market share is extremely important. The slightest dip in share can mean many hundreds of millions in lost revenue. Morrison Company’s client is a manufacturer of blades & vanes used on turbines for electric power generation.

This leading manufacturer had two opposing issues. Their largest client, General Electric, had informed them that to maintain market share they would need a constant supply of blades. The client’s problems were two fold: an inefficient material handling system and limited space to store work-in-process inventories.

The client’s management assembled a manufacturing project team of internal and external industrial engineers to devise a storage and retrieval solution. The solution originally conceived was a series of overhead conveyor storage loops. This solution, however, was soon scrapped because it took too much room in an already confined space. Morrison Company was asked to analyze the problem and devised a solution that was automated, took up little space, was highly accurate and could be justified within a two-year ROI.

Working to assemble a team of component suppliers, Morrison Company devised a totally custom application of standard automation components. The genius surrounding this project was threefold: the unique design enabling an operator to enter the molds to be retrieved into a touch-screen control panel, the engineering behind the stacker crane, and the communication protocol devised allowing the controls to interpret commands and direct the retrieval of the molds.

The critical component of the ROI justification was the savings in payroll costs. Prior to this project, in order to maintain work-in-process inventories a three-shift, seven day a week operation was needed. By creating a more efficient model, this operation was reduced to a five day a week, three-shift process. Additionally the more efficient storage and retrieval process made die handling easier resulting in decreased scrap.

A copy of the complete case study can be obtained at retrieval system success.

Test Your Knowledge

How to Get Your Project Approved
Oh to have reasons like this as the driving force behind a project: replacing obsolete equipment, adding capacity responding to new customers and keeping ahead of competition. All the rest of the projects that cross our desks have less dramatic reasons, but nonetheless, can still have solid returns.

How do you get projects approved without a solid ROI? Our research suggests that all projects are driven by ROI. Even more so, the higher you go in the organization, the more important it is. Most executives we talk to expect to see a return in 12 to 18 months.

Given that urgency, there are a few basic best practices that companies use to make sure that the project they implement delivers the promised ROI.

The first best practice is to select the right project. Which area in your operation can deliver the most “bang”? Start by benchmarking your facility and define key performance indicators. Examples of these metrics might be the time it takes to perform task, how many tasks can be completed in a given time period, or how many more tasks could be accomplished by a downstream operation if a particular task was made more efficient. Once you have benchmarked your facility and defined your benchmarks, you can prioritize between immediate, short-term and long-term improvements.

With measurable key performance indicators in place, the next step is to design a solution. Planning for a ROI involves recording what processes are to be enabled, what is the technology/equipment that will provide the right cost-benefit, and what is the optimum layout for the new process. If your project is to increase capacity in a shipping operation, some subordinate processes to be monitored might be: time it takes to load a truck, SKU capacity in the packing operation, and the number of lines picked per hour.

Knowing these are going to be the metrics used to define the ROI, the next step involves selecting best designed integrated equipment solution that will yield the greatest improvement. Focus on these metrics and the ROI will be credible in the eyes of all those involved in evaluating the project’s success.

Want to know more? A best practices checklist is available that will provide more tips that will remove more barriers to a successful project ROI. Selecting the contact us button and indicating ROI Checklist in the area of interest will get this forwarded to you.

Guidelines to Acquiring a WMS

The following article is submitted by Sedlak—providing independent, client-focused supply chain consulting services. Find out more at www.jasedlak.com.

As anyone who has been involved with purchasing a WMS knows, every vendor has an idea of what’s best, and that idea often conveniently matches the capabilities of the vendor’s package. Cutting through the promises, bells and whistles, and preconceived needs takes time and complete confidence that you understand your business better than anyone. Begin by composing a document with very specific definitions.

Definition…of business objectives to be met by the new software. This exercise accomplishes two things: (1) it provides an opportunity for you to unearth changes to your operation that might benefit your business and (2) it produces a black and white rulebook for your vendor to follow. Stating your requirements early in the process is the only way to identify whether a software package satisfies your unique business needs.

Definition…of your anticipated user and device base to help identify potential hardware issues and allow for resolution before implementation. By so doing, you will ultimately reduce overall costs and installation risks.

To avoid being sorry about your choice, follow these three suggestions:

1. Be wary of the WMS vendor who attempts to convince you to adjust your operations to fit its software solution. Remember, a software solution is only valuable if it addresses your business needs.

2. Don’t select software that will require major modifications, as changes tend to be costly, risky, and time consuming. Look for a package WMS with 85% of your needed features and which will require 10 or fewer modifications.

3. Make no assumptions about software functionality. Make sure your interpretation of required functionality matches the vendor’s interpretation.

Catalog and Retail Giant Increases Capacity

Morrison Used to Expand DC Operations
Even prior to Sears purchasing this company, their reputation in the catalog industry was one of high efficiency. Since the purchase, Sears uses the expertise of this company to improve its distribution strategies. Two or their four locations needed expansion to meet the increased demand. These two projects were undertaken while the distribution centers were in full-time operation.

The scope of first project was to design and install a decked rack storage system for a 200,000 square foot addition to an existing facility. This storage and retrieval system was to be used to store corrugated cartons of reserve product.

The second project was to design and install staging flow rack for a 50,000 square foot building addition to their campus of distribution centers. Included in the second project was the dismantling of and moving the existing rack to the new location.

Both projects tested the expertise of the engineering and project management services of Morrison Company. Since the justification for the projects included expansion of existing facilities, it was imperative the work be accomplished at the same time ongoing storage and retrieval operations were in place.

Working with the client’s on-site management team, Morrison Company engineers devised a plan to dismantle existing racking without endangering the workers or their picking throughput. This was accomplished by simultaneously erecting the new storage locations and shifting merchandise. Maintaining a tight communication process enabled the client’s warehouse management picking software to be updated.

Installation crews were scheduled around peak picking times to allow for a safe job site, and efficient assembly of the racking components. This process repeated itself over a six week cycle culminating in an on time project completion.

For more information on this project or examples of other case studies, refer to the Morrison Company website.

Workforce Management Systems

Employees are Assets
If organizations view employees as assets, then it follows that those assets should be allocated effectively. Two software solutions can transform the responsibility of asset allocation and management from being a diversion to a bottom-line reporting item at management meetings.

In general, “work-force-management” software involves staffing, developing, tracking and rewarding employees. In practical terms, such software schedules employees based on business volume and also tracks labor activities, projects being worked on, work orders, hours, and how workers should be paid.

Work-force-management software grew out of time and attendance monitoring systems and can now address many facets of the workforce, from making sure assembly lines are adequately staffed on the third shift to identifying the best sales people to tackle a new account and making sure they are rewarded properly.

Workforce-management software suppliers include ADP, Softscape, Workbrain, 360Commerce, and CyberShift. Implementing such a system can cost as little as $5,000 for a single module to millions for a global company.

For organizations large and small, training is an essential component of developing a workforce. ‘learning-management’ software essentially delivers training to the desktop (often in a web browser) and allows organizations to track and monitor which employees receive training, when they are trained, and how well they understand the training material.

Such systems are particularly relevant in industries that are bound by regulation and compliance issues or that require employee certification. Learning-management systems are based on foundational software that acts as a database or administrative hub, tracking employees, course content, and other components.

Learning-management software suppliers include GeoLearning, ThomasNetG, and VCampus. Start up costs can range from $10,000 to $100,000. Most systems also charge for access on a per-user basis.

Typing “workforce development” into your search engine will yield hundreds of potential solutions you can consider. Asset management is every manager’s responsibility. These systems make that, sometimes daunting, task less challenging and more rewarding.