How To Optimize Your Warehouse Put-away Process

By Author: Katalyst Technologies
Total Articles: 38
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When it comes to developing a warehouse plan for your business, you’ll want to spend time strategizing a plan for a put-away process. This system is responsible for moving goods from the dock to the most optimal storage location in a warehouse facility.

From product segregation to handling requirements, the put-away process can involve a number of capabilities depending on your organization’s needs. But, no matter what your plan entails, it’s only as great as its implementation. In the end, a well-executed put-away strategy can increase operator efficiency, inventory accuracy, and even housekeeping.

But how can one ensure that the newly implemented process will deliver on its promise of increasing warehouse productivity? Like other business initiatives, the process must be successfully administered and employed to all parties involved. Failure to train and enforce resources will lead to undesirable business results. In fact, as the VP of Supply Chain Management at Katalyst, I’ve seen firsthand how a poorly-designed put-away process can negatively impact operational efficiencies.

A few years ago, ...
... I was approached by a manager who had recently installed a Warehouse Management Software for Manufacturing System into a four-room, 800,000 square feet facility. With a pick list in hand, the client expressed concern for the system’s pick pathing process. Although the machines were designed for system-direct put-away, the picker associate was constantly directed to faraway rooms – adding nearly 15 minutes to the picking process.

At that moment, I knew a solid put-away strategy would help the client garner better results. We first started by reviewing the history of the pallet. Here, we noticed that the pallet had been wrongly assigned for manual put-away instead of the configured rules. When used correctly, the system would’ve directed the picker associate to the correct room.

As we examined further, we discovered that a driver was manually locating pallets near loading doors rather than leveraging the system’s capabilities for quicker performance. To prevent misuse of resources, leadership must incorporate employee training and regularly enforce exact machine usage for improved results.

On another similar occasion, I helped a partner strategize the framework behind a large, 500,000 square feet facility. In this case, the user was experiencing difficulties separating its influx of new product containers. As a result, pallets were incorrectly being sent down the same aisle.

Parallel to the first story, staff members were not properly utilizing the machines as directed. In this case, the engineer responsible positioned all of the product to be loaded at the front of the facility. Because of this, forklift tasks were stalled during the put-away process – leading to aisle backup and shipping order delay.

To solve the problem, we designed horizontal put-away zones across aisles and set up the system to allow for only one forklift per aisle at a time. This effectively eliminated the client’s put-away and picking concerns.

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Source Link - https://katalysttech.com/blog/how-to-optimize-your-warehouse-put-away-process/

Brian Burell has completed his education in Computer Science and then he has started working in Digital & eCommerce, Enterprise Application and SCM segment for Katalyst Technologies Inc. After getting more than 7 years of experience in software solution, he found best interaction model of success. He really enjoys his success in software industry for start-up business and also in extending current model with highly reflective ROI.