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Warehouse design for a wholesale company in the packaging industry

Veldman, F.H.J. (2009) Warehouse design for a wholesale company in the packaging industry.

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Abstract:Cause of investigation Straatsma is situated at the Cargadoorweg in Nijmegen. Besides office space, the building offers a warehousing space of approximately 1100 pallet locations. The total capacity that Straatsma needs in order to be able to serve its customers far exceeds 1100. In order to solve this storage shortage, Straatsma makes use of De Klok, a third party logistics provider which is situated near the Cargadoorweg. Because the renting contract of the building at the Cargadoorweg will expire by the end of 2009, it was necessary for Straatsma to think about alternative means of storage. By the end of 2008, Straatsma decided to move its entire operation to Binderskampweg 40. It is not clear however, how this warehouse can best be designed. Research goal The goal of this research is to design the warehouse in such a way that it corresponds to the design objectives that are relevant to Straatsma. Working method In order to design the warehouse in such a way that it corresponds to the design objectives that are relevant to Straatsma, three consecutive phases have been executed: - Before starting with the design of the warehouse, it had to be clear what matters to Straatsma. Both the current situation and the new warehouse have been analyzed in order to determine the extent to which certain design objectives are relevant. - Once there was clarity with regard to the warehouse objectives, it was necessary to find a model to structure the warehouse design process. - The last phase of this investigation was to design the new warehouse based on both the model for warehouse design and the design objectives that are relevant to Straatsma. Conclusions Based on the slow moving nature of the SKUs that Straatsma wholesales, the insufficient storage capacity of the new warehouse and the fact that the usage period of the new building is only three to five years, it became clear that cost minimization and space utilization are the two main design objectives. After selecting an appropriate warehouse design model, the new warehouse of Straatsma could actually be designed. It must be noted that almost the entire warehouse design process was executed. Topics ranging from the required level of automation to a detailed interior layout of the new warehouse have all received attention. The fact that the decision to move into the new warehouse was made without extensive calculations with regard to the storage capacity, severely complicated the design process. Although space utilization played an important role throughout the warehouse design process, there are two initiatives that were executed in order to cope with the insufficient storage capacity that need to be mentioned specifically: - In regular warehouse designs, it is customary to place one single SKU on a location. This was however not an option for Straatsma. A new method was developed to incorporate the fact that two SKUs can be stored on a single location into the warehouse design process. - It was analyzed when Straatsma can make use of the storage capacity of its main suppliers in order to reduce the inventory levels of certain SKUs. iv Recommendations Despite the emphasis on space utilization and the initiatives described above, the storage capacity of the new warehouse is not large enough to store all the SKUs. In order to reduce the storage requirements that Straatsma will have by the end of 2009, when it will no longer be able to use both the old warehouse and the new warehouse, Straatsma will have to refuse keeping SKUs on stock that have a very high sojourn time. These products take up space while they do not generate much money. There are also measures that are not linked to the storage capacity, that need to be taken into consideration in order to successfully exploit the new warehouse: - Deliveries from suppliers will have to be scheduled properly, such that the size of the expedition area will not pose a problem. - When moving products towards the new building a sound preparation can create enormous benefits with regard to material handling.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Clients:
Straatsma Verpakkingen
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Industrial Engineering and Management MSc (60029)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/60745
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