Implementing the best practices of load building
For years, warehouse management systems (WMS) have optimized inventory levels and operations on the warehouse floor, like receiving, putaway and picking. Likewise, transportation management systems (TMS) have automated and streamlined transportation planning and load tendering.
Once gains are realized from those systems, it’s time to look for the next level of optimization and cost savings. Enter load building: not just the way one construct a pallet, but also how one load the truck and build transportation routes. Load building is especially important for manufacturers and distributors doing business with retailers requiring pallets built to certain specifications to make their DC and store operations more efficient. Between automated materials handling equipment, warehouse management and transportation management systems, a variety of ways exist today to meet those requirements and reduce costs.
Automate the process: Whether one’re building rainbow pallets that is loads with multiple products stacked on a pallet in layers or orienting cartons so that labels can be easily read, automated materials handling systems can streamline the process, particularly in high-volume operations. One solution is to install an inline print-and-apply operation right before palletizing. That way, labels can be applied to the carton in the proper spot right before they’re palletized. That, however, isn’t always possible. There are some manufacturing processes where there might be a unique identifier with product attributes that one want to labeled at the time of manufacturing. In those situations, a robotic palletizer can be used to take cartons, or a layer of cartons, from multiple lines to build pallet loads. In other situations, bump turners can be installed in the conveyor line to turn and orient cases prior to reaching the palletizer. This does affect the utilization of the palletizer but it can be more efficient than manual palletizing.
Optimize Cartons: Efficient load building actually begins with the cartonization process, when one think about load building one start with the basics of downloading an order, putting the pieces of that order into cartons, loading the cartons onto a pallet and ultimately loading the pallets into a trailer in sequence. A cartonization application looks at all the pieces of an order and figures out the most efficient way to pack those items in the fewest cartons. A cartonization solution also looks for usable cavities that can nest together, like packing lampshades or garbage cans.
Build Store-Ready Pallets: In Europe, where stores are small and backroom storage is almost non-existent, retailers are increasingly looking for pallets and roll carts loaded with product designated for a specific department or even an aisle location in a store. While that may increase the cost of filling an order in the warehouse, those costs are off-set by reduced stocking costs in the retail store, they are asking to have pallets and roll cages stocked and loaded onto the truck based on how the store is laid out. By integrating a store’s planogram into a WMS, the solution can direct pick according to a store location. The next level is to integrate picking operations with voice and imaging tools. The system can tell the operator what item to pick, meanwhile, the operator can see a 3D image on his RF device of the load he’s building so he knows exactly where to put the product.
Optimize the Trailer: If filling totes and containers and loading them onto pallets is the first step to efficient load building, the next step is building efficient trailer loads. Today’s WMS can optimize loading based on a variety of constraints including the cube of the trailer, whether or not the pallets are stackable, and how the load is distributed over the truck axles. For distributors with route deliveries, WMS can be used to load a delivery truck according to the preferences of the driver. Drivers who are selling off their trucks want quick access to their inventory ,the WMS can maintain the profiles of individual drivers, and then utilize rules sets to make sure that the right product is loaded in the right location inside the trailer.
Build a Load Plan: With fuel prices increasing and the number of drivers decreasing, getting the most bang for oner transportation buck is an imperative. TMS solutions consider constraints like inventory on hand, ship dates, delivery deadlines, carrier rates and equipment availability.
