Managing Warehouse Operations

As described in [83], the Sears Shoe Distribution Center in Edison, NJ, a 408,000 square foot central distribution facility for footwear, opened in March 1996. The warehouse was planned to support 750 Sears stores nationwide. The warehouse received inbound shipments from over 100 suppliers. The estimated monthly shipment volume was 2.5 million pairs of shoes a month to seven regional DCs. Stores were permitted the flexibility to order inventory one pair at a time. Taking into account seasonal variations, the facility was planned to carry an inventory level of 9,000 active SKUs, but it was flexible enough to accommodate an additional 7,000 SKUs. 

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Companies which handle hazardous chemicals operate in a complex regulatory environment, often subject to many regulations, standards, rules, and procedures from government, standards organizations, and insurers. These requirements can be confusing, redundant or even mutually inconsistent. Moreover, even complete regulatory compliance will not assure a safe warehouse operation. The unique operation of every company therefore requires that management should look beyond the letter of the law to the specific needs of that operation to establish an effective safety policy that is based on the nature of the hazards involved. 

Chemical warehouse operators should identify a spill response team who take immediate action in the event of a spill. The team should be headed by a lead employee, usually a foreman or plant manager, who will supervise the response. 

A similar qualification, selection, and review process should be instituted for other components of the supply chain, such as distributors, warehouses, terminals, toll processors, transloading locations, and container cleaning facihties. Inherent in this process is the need to ensure these third-party handlers are provided the necessary irtformation about the chemicals they transport, handle, and/or store, and reqirirements to manage their operations safely and securely. 

There are many more enablers for paperless operation that may be considered. Systems for maintenance, caiibration management, warehouses, transportation, test equipment and Computer-Aided Design (CAD) are just a few of the other systems of relevance within the scope of paperless operation. Some of these enabiers can be through custom developments and hence be difficult to integrate for the same reasons as described earlier. 

Nelson, R. A., Computerizing Warehouse Operations. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1985. Tompkins, J. A., and Smith, J. D., Eds., The Warehouse Management Handbook, 2nd Ed., Tompkins... 

This chapter presents the main concepts of warehouse management. First, there is a functional description of a typical warehouse operation, with emphasis on order picking because that is where most of the labor costs in a warehouse are incurred. This is followed by a discussion of strategic and tactical factors for warehouse operation, and then a discussion of database considerations for WMS. The last part of the chapter describes how users interact with a WMS and what functions they should expect it to perform. The purpose here is not to describe how the WMS is structured, since that varies with the software vendors, but rather to present a user s viewpoint of the major aspects of the system. 

Management had received a request for this all-employee workshop from a team of hourly workers who previously attended my two-day professional development conference sponsored by the Mt. St. Helena Section of fhe American Society of Safety Engineers. Rick Moreno, a Hercules warehouse operator and hazardous materials unloader for more than 20 years, wrote the following reaction to my workshop. He read it to his coworkers at the start of the Hercules workshop. It set the stage for a mosf constructive and gratifying two days of education and training. If you approach fhe information in this Handbook with some of the enthusiasm and optimism reflected in Rick s words, you cannot help but make a difference in someone s safefy and health. 

The nature of a warehouse is to receive, store, and distribute product. Warehousing is a fast-paced industry that relies on the movement of selected goods to maintain its position in free conunerce. Though not as dangerous as a factory, a warehouse operation holds many risks and hazards that must be controlled by management to protect the worker. 

Process engineers Operations management Maintenance management Chemistry and other laboratory personnel Warehouse personnel Procurement personnel... 

Keeney RL, Raiffa H (1976) Decisions with Multiple Objectives Preferences and Value Tradeoffs. John Wiley Sons, New York et al. Kelly DL, Marucheck AS (1984) Planning Horizon Results For the Dynamic Warehouse Location Problem. Journal of Operations Management 4 279-294... 

The hardware and software IQ processes may be reasonably straightforward if the physical system is intended to be located on the same site and only used by that site. However, the introduction of centrally managed systems, shared service operations, and data warehouses as a means of lowering costs and providing a more streamlined infrastructure within an organization may make the overall validation activity for the site more complex. 

Content management via a data warehouse is based on an online analytical processing (OLAP) data structure, as opposed to the operationally tuned OLTP data structure. In terms of data access characteristics, OLAP operations... 

Documented procedures and parameters for the safe operation of the warehouse are important tools in managing change. Even minor changes in maintenance procedures such as the temperature in the warehouse may have serious consequences. 

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