While amplitude (growth or decline) will change, the period between highs and lows has proven repeatable. Occasionally, as was the case in the 96-97 period, the decline phase of the cycle was actually seen as only a moderation of growth - that is, the industry saw positive growth throughout the cycle. Indications based on history point to real growth at a greater than inflation rate into the beginning of the next century. It should be noted that different segments or equipment groups within the industry will lead or lag this overall industry chart - generally as a function of differing order to installation lead times.
Getting off to a fast start
The materials handling industry is mainly aimed at doing receiving and putaway operations which are starting line activities. Its here that businesses begin the race to beat competitors. Its the first few miles of a marathon to save time, to cut costs, to trim inventory, and to speed up service to customers. Along with these goals, there also are somewhat conflicting, yet concurrent demands to meet in receiving: Not to damage incoming raw materials or finished goods and not to sacrifice accuracy or performance. Receiving and putaway are where the physical flow of materials and the parallel flow of information on received items join and must be efficiently, swiftly routed downstream in synchronisation with one another. Whats changing in todays plants and warehouses, however, are a number of the old ways of doing business. Computers must take over for paper and pencil methods. Crossdocking should be tried as much as possible. Flow-thru and staging (rather than storing) need greater emphasis.
Manual receiving needs to become history, for example. Continuing to rely on manual receipt of goods with paper and pencil steps in the information flow such as reading a purchase order, checking quantity received, or assigning a stocking location is too slow. Paper shuffling on the receiving dock increasingly is a factor that marks a second- or third-rate competitor compared to top firms. Receiving must proceed with both the greater speed and higher degree of accuracy provided by the automatic data capture (ADC) and electronic information processing technologies. Employees in the plants and on the dock will need to be equipped with bar code scanners and radio frequency data communication (RFDC) terminals. RFDC units mounted on the lift trucks used in receiving and putaway will further expedite paperless processing. All the data collected electronically must be managed electronically as well for greater efficiency. A warehouse management system (WMS) can do so readily.
Within the receiving department, WMS software, fed data from bar code scanning and RFDC units, will perform such functions as identifying and recording receipts by stock-keeping unit (SKU), updating inventory, directing putaway, and assigning storage locations. Even with WMS capability internally, your facilitys receiving operations need to be linked externally by electronic means to upstream members of the supply chain. With electronic data interchange (EDI) links to inbound shippers and transportation companies, the receiving workstation or dock will know ahead of time whats due when, and in what quantities. With the type of EDI transaction known as an advanced shipping notice (ASN), moreover, dock managers can preplan how theyll handle the inbound materials flow for highest efficiency.
What technologies will be at the forefront of materials handling users at the end of the next century is anybodys guess. But we look forward to chronicling those innovations and developments as they unfold in the 21st century.
|
|
|
|
|
| Posted : 10/26/2005 |
|
|
|
|
