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By Art Van Bodegraven
It seems irrelevant to talk about growth and expansion when cable news assures us daily that the end of the economy as we know it is fast approaching.  Truth is, some – maybe many – companies and industries are doing just fine, thank you, in this difficult period.  So, they’ve got to face up to planning for growth – big growth, fast growth.
The, there’s the phenomenon of what CSCMP’s Rick Blasgen calls the “post-recession rally.”  His point is that, when the overall economy rebounds, it’s likely to be both fast and comprehensive – and that distribution operations are going to have to gear up to handle pent-up demand, not missing a beat in the customer service equation. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr.

Detailed design of conveyor systems involves analyses that reach far beyond simply the selection of the most appropriate system concept. This paper discusses issues and trade-offs in systems for batch picking and sortation of full cases. more...

By Catherine L. Cooper and Stephen Mulaik

A comprehensive profile on your warehouse reveals characteristics that allow you to make decisions on storage and handling alternatives, slotting options, pick line requirements, system requirements, pick methods, and order releasing strategies. With more detailed analysis you can even predict how your warehouse will operate, providing you the invaluable opportunity of being able to prepare for the future. more...

By Drew Hale and Art Van Bodegraven

Planning warehouse and distribution centers able to keep up with rapidly changing supply chain strategies has become more difficult than ever. Adaptability is becoming as important as operating efficiency as a criterion for measuring success in facility planning. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

Every once in a while I get a question from my partner, Steve Mulaik, that sets me back a little. I think, “How could I have not thought about that before?”
This time it was, “How do we decide how many zones we should have in a serial zone picking system?” more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

In the D.C., patience is a virtue.
It seems to be a common practice in many operations to flood the floor, or conveyor system with orders as soon as they are available. The prevailing feeling is that if we put the orders out there, then we will be able to see what needs to get done.  The inevitable result is clogging of conveyors, constant recirculation that reduces capacity and lengthens order cycle time and large buffers of incomplete work that are difficult to manage. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

It’s that time of year again, when we start to worry about how we will make it through the peak season without disappointing customers, or killing ourselves.
Of course, it’s normal to hire additional part-time staff to cover peak periods of activity. How many people we will need depends heavily on how well trained they are and whether, or not they stick it out through the toughest times.  If we wait until the demand hits to bring them in, we actually lose capacity until they are fully trained. Although the training investment seems costly, the better trained they are, the fewer we will need at crunch time. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

“End-to end” costs, “end-to-end” savings. With all of the emphasis on supply chain thinking, it seems to be the rage these days. For years, we’ve tried to get our arms around the cost of moving products through the processes and facilities that get them from our suppliers all the way to our customer’s customer. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

Several years ago I was driving home from North Carolina late one night. Tiring, I stopped at a rest area for a quick nap. Upon awakening, the battery was too weak to start the car. A helpful soul stopped, but neither one of us had any jumper cables. He said that it wouldn’t be a problem. He pulled his car up to mine until the bumpers touched and then proceeded to use the jack handle to span between the positive battery terminals. Holding the handle down tightly he instructed me to start the car. I was skeptical, but by gosh, it worked! more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

I was sitting in the dentist’s chair earlier this week. It leaves one with a lot of time to think – because it’s really hard to talk with all of that stuff in your mouth. Although my appointment was for an hour and a half, I was getting attention from my dentist only a fraction of that time. It occurred to me that I was not the only person with an 8:30 appointment that morning. And yet, I felt comfortable that he was taking good care of me. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

One of the most frustrating situations for a consultant to encounter is as follows: A client calls and asks for help in improving operations. The consultant makes a site visit and gets an overview of how things work in the facility. If things work so well, consultant wonders why he was called. Then, a tour of the operation reveals that almost everything he sees is an exception to how things “normally” work. Observations include people performing almost impossible tasks, or at least difficult tasks with a low level of process and systems support. A sure sign that this is happening is that key people are working exceptionally long hours, with, or without compensation just to get product out the door. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

Last week-end I stood in the tiny shower at my Mother’s lake house. As I banged my elbows on the walls, I thought about how little additional space it would have taken to make something that you have to do every day a pleasant activity, instead of a struggle. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

To reduce transportation costs for products arriving from overseas, cartons are normally hand-stacked in the shipping containers. This works quite well for reducing shipping costs, but if we’re not careful, we may give away the savings in storage and handling, once we open the container door. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

You may recall the admonition to the materials handling system suppliers that the human workplace should be designed before the mechanical system serving it. Well, like mechanical systems, the interface between the computer system and the operator needs to be thoroughly analyzed before committing it to code. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

The trip through our materials handling processes can be pretty rough without something to help cushion the ride.
Whether we realize it, or not, we continually insert small buffers into the process to smooth out the flow and improve the productivity of the operations before and after the buffer. However, these buffers are often too small to do the job, or so big as to be clumsy and expensive. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

Every time that I move dirt, one wheelbarrow load after another, from my truck to the garden, I never cease to be amazed at the power of that one small wheel. Of course, wheels are not a new thing in the workplace. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.

That wonderful curve created by ranking products in descending activity, and then plotting their cumulative values, has been a mainstay in designing processes and systems.
We find great comfort in knowing that we can address 80% of the problem by focusing on 20% of the products.
We can more easily imagine the flow characteristics of product groups at different points along the curve. more...