GarethHarris.com

A Warehouse example: 

Have you ever noticed your computer slowing down? 
That is often because pieces of your files get scattered all over the diskand 
the computer makes trips all over the disk to fetch all the parts. 
Some computers use a defragmentation program to alleviate this problem. 

Warehouses suffer from the same problems. 
Orders come in which vary by season, demand and quantity. 
If a warehouse is allowed to fragment, expensive and unnecessary tripsto the back of the warehouse or to the top shelf of storage happen more often. 
This system solves the problem by optimizing the location of items by volume and activity. 

---

Although I can't show you some of the proprietary and confidential info of my clients, you can see some of the principles below. If you want to see more, contact me at garethharris@mac.com 

---

Here is a display of a product - SKU [stock keeping unit] activity in a warehouse over time. 
Notice the amounts are displayed in both number of pieces and cubic feet. 
Shipping is in red, 
receiving is in green and 
the amount onhand is a dotted blue line. 
The time is by week number of year. 

---

Optimization of location in the warehouse to fit the demands of the orders to be filled can 
save significant costs, sometimes as much as 20-30%. 
The optimization accounts for type of product, season, and the sensing of increased velocity of shipments. 

With some logistics colleagues of mine, 
I recently installed a planning database server which nips this problem in the bud for a large web order fulfillment company. 

The solution was to intercept the shipping notices of incoming trucks and 
plan the placement of their contents into the warehouse 
before the truck got to the incoming dock by interacting with the WMS [warehouse management system] of the client. 
As boxes come off the truck, 
they are routed by a conveyor to the planned location. 
Then the contents are in an optimum location to pick orders with minimum cost in time [and hence money $$.] 

The diagram below shows this operation. 
First the planning server gets Advanced Shipping Notices [ASNs] from the WMS - Logpro in this case - when it receives them from the client. 
After analyzing the incoming information, 
the server makes a plan and provides this info to the conveyor controllerwhich can look up individual products [SKUs] as they come off the truck. 

---

In addition to automatic connections, displays and printable plans, 
the warehouse staff have displays like this one which is updated every minute. 
Here is an example snapshot: 

---