Material Handling Systems Integrator, TriFactor Answers the Call for Lean Distribution Centers

LAKELAND, Fla., April 7 /PRNewswire/ -- When considering the steps to make your facility leaner, reflect on what aggressive business leader Peter Drucker once said, "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."  The elimination of waste has been the mantra for manufacturers implementing a lean program in their operations.  Ensuring the highest quality processes resulting in minimal defects or errors is the cornerstone of Six Sigma philosophy.  Books have been written, classes taught and certification programs administered tailored to the quest of streamlining production.   For those of us that live solely in a distribution environment, we must look to the principles of lean or Six Sigma and find areas where they can be applied so that the mission of accurate, on-time and cost competitive distribution of goods can be achieved.

Implementing an automated crossdocking process in the distribution center would be a low hanging fruit when evaluating potential continuing improvement processes.  By definition, crossdocking is the direct flow of goods from receiving to shipping thereby bypassing any of the storage, replenishment, picking or sorting activities while maintaining the value-added function of order consolidation.

In order to put an automated crossdocking system into operation, there are some critical requirements that must be met.  Vendors supplying products to your DC must provide advanced shipping notices (ASN) along with appropriate unit labeling, either bar code or RFID.  When shipments hit the receiving dock, they can be placed onto a conveyor, scanned, and the products will be validated against the ASN with appropriate routing instructions married to each unit.  As a result of having an ASN, the Warehouse Management System (WMS) already knows what to expect in the shipment and all of its contents and therefore will have already determined the destination of each unit as it is scanned and received into inventory.

To view the full white paper by John T. Phelan, Jr., P.E. of TriFactor, LLC (www.trifactor.com), please visit http://www.trifactor.com/Material-Handling-White-Papers/Lean-Automated-Crossdocking-Process

CONTACT: Stefanie Poe, Marketing Coordinator, TriFactor, LLC, +1-863-577-2233, [email protected]

SOURCE TriFactor

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