Warehousing 2018: from cost centre to growth centre

Warehousing operations and IT professionals need to respond positively to the significant changes and challenges that will be influencing the industry over the next five years – or face disaster. 

At its most basic, warehousing is a simple concept. It’s about storing materials or goods and filling orders from one end of the supply chain to the other. But in the real world of today, tomorrow and especially five years from now, growing complexity means warehousing is evolving to become anything but simple. Today’s warehousing professionals are feeling significant pressures from multiple internal and external sources.

The global recession affected the industry in many ways. In an effort to free up capital, there were major cuts in held inventory, adding capacity was deprioritised and expansion of existing or construction of new warehouses and distribution centres was scaled back or halted altogether. Now, as the economy has begun to grow, warehouse operations are growing again. But as they grow, they are also being transformed by a number of issues that go well beyond simple increases in volume and throughput.

New warehousing realities

Today’s warehouse professionals face a series of significant changes in the ways warehouses, distribution centres and the entire supply chain operate. More facilities and larger spaces demand high-speed mobile communications virtually everywhere on or off the floor. A virtual acrossthe- board customer demand for personalisation is driving an increase in the number of SKUs, leading to increased inventory visibility, accuracy and efficiency needs. New regulations call for more accurate product tracking and tracing. Fuel cost volatility impacts logistics and much more. The growth of omnichannel transactions creates the need for increased inventory control, flexibility and faster, more accurate fulfillment. All these factors contribute to the need to convert warehouses and distribution centres into assets for competitive differentiation.

Top alignment opportunities

Today, the reality in many, if not most, warehouse operations is the existence of separate islands of information. The vision for the future is the linkage, integration and consolidation of the Warehouse Management System (WMS) with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), the Yard Management System (YMS) and Transportation Management System (TMS). These linkages help remove inefficient information silos, promoting collaboration and increasing the recognition that changes in one process can and will affect others downstream and upstream. For example, changes in packing and staging can affect load plans, trailer drops, route selection, rates and more. Anticipation of – and response to – these effects is crucial to not only improve warehouse efficiency and productivity, but also to create a more synchronised and agile supply chain.

Ensuring IT and Operations alignment

However, before a company can start planning for the future, the organisation must first identify its current status, honestly answering the question, “where are we now?” Then management must clarify its vision of where the company wants to be in two, three, four and five years, and make the critical decisions of where to invest, and what types of investments should be considered.


To maximise warehouse and DC productivity, operations and IT leaders must be on the same page in terms of technology systems and business processes. Although partial alignment usually exists between IT and operations today, in many instances there is still a basic technology divide. It starts with differences in overall assessment of current capabilities and risk perspectives for the future. Survey results demonstrate that today IT often perceives higher levels of WMS integration with other systems than does operations; in addition, IT projects higher incremental integration rates by 2018 than their operations counterparts. Today’s IT departments also tend to be more aggressive in setting new standards and deploying new tools to reduce technical risk – and to be more accepting of business risk – than operations, which is usually more risk-averse and focused on running the day-to-day operations of the warehouse with minimal technical disruption. Bringing the two departments together to share a common vision is one of the most crucial goals moving ahead in the next five years.

An evolution from cost centre to growth area
What steps should an organisation be considering in response to the major changes that will impact warehousing operations today and in the next five years? The time to start is now, and the best way to begin is by carefully analysing the issues and evaluating the steps to be taken to help warehouses increase productivity while decreasing costs.
As customer satisfaction and supply chain efficiency become more important drivers of warehousing operations, the industry is re-examining its perceptions of the business. Fewer organisations continue to view warehouses and DCs simply as commoditised links between endpoints of the supply chain. Senior business executives across all market segments can no longer afford to simplistically look at warehouses as necessary evils that are fundamentally cost centres.
Increasingly, industry professionals are viewing warehouses and distribution facilities as historically underleveraged centres that can drive competitive differentiation and, by doing so, increase profitable growth. This reshaped vision of warehouse operations as a fundamental driver of top-line and bottomline business value, points the way to achieving the ultimate objective of flawless fulfillment.


Extract Taken From goo.gl/2m5rfq
Zebra technologies
www.logisticsnews.co.za

Productivity and morale in the WH

It’s a well-known fact that happy and motivated workers produce better results. A recent study found that happier workers were 12% more productive than their counterparts. It underlines staff morale and wellbeing is not just an HR goal: it’s fundamental to business performance levels.

                                                                                      
The logistics sector employs millions of workers around the world and must actively manage morale to ensure it attracts and retains the best employees. The warehouse is a key focus here, and traditionally may not be seen as the happiest of working environments. But warehouse managers do now have the tools to keep workers motivated, in both what they are doing and how they are doing it, without even physically being there.

The concept of talking to a machine may not sound like a great motivator, but voice technology has been found to have positive effects on warehouse workers’ worklife balance and overall wellbeing. How? Through providing clear guidance and direction over the course of the shift, and enabling greater efficiency. Through voice-directed work, warehouse staff use small belt-worn portable devices and headsets, leaving them hands-free and eyes-free, focused on the task at hand.
Instructions from the warehouse management system are delivered through the headset, one simple command at a time. The picker confirms each instruction verbally and the system is updated in real time. As instructions are given on an as-needed basis, pickers can concentrate on single actions without distraction or delay, thereby reducing errors.

Compared to manual processes, which involve checking lists or screens while simultaneously trying to carry out high volumes of goods without making mistakes, a great deal of the stress associated with warehouse picking can also be removed.

The result? Businesses adopting voice have seen an average increase of 20% in worker productivity compared with previous systems. At the same time, accuracy rates have risen up to 99,98%, critical when considering that the cost of returning an incorrect item is up to five times as much as processing a new sale.

Incentivise: But how does being more efficient make workers happier? It’s the responsibility of the warehouse manager to ensure that a good job does not go unrewarded. But again, voice can help. With voice in place, it is possible to introduce competition and make elements of the working day a game, offering rewards for completing additional tasks or meeting all targets for a set period. With precise instructions given by the warehouse management system, there can be no suggestion of bias towards workers, levelling the playing field for all.

Health and safety: Health and safety should also be considered as important to overall worker morale. Warehouses can be inhospitable at times but the increasing use of technology is helping to produce safer working environments. For example in freezer picking, wearing a voice headset means no need for workers to remove gloves to type information into a mobile computer, a small yet incredibly strong benefit through the course of a working day. Working with both hands free also makes it easier to lift heavy items safely, and having both eyes free means better awareness of the surroundings, thereby reducing the risk of accidents.

Meeting peak demands: Having a more skilled and motivated workforce will truly pay dividends when seasonal peaks arise. By ensuring better accuracy, and putting people at the heart of the process, voice technology can help tackle these peaks without impacting negatively on workers. By being able to plan for peaks, voice customers have reported they don’t experience issues or see them as a major concern, citing the fact that they are able to upskill new workers quickly and effectively – and meet demands as normal.

Extract Taken From goo.gl/5MzMST
Honeywell Vocollect Solutions
www.logisticsnews.co.za

The role of mobile computers in the warehouse data web

Because lift trucks were not historically known for their brains, mobile computer terminals have been used to bring warehouse intelligence to the operator. Lately, as lift trucks become more connected and computerized, they are changing the patterns of how and where data moves through a facility, its devices and its equipment. There is massive potential for operational improvements from connecting telematics, warehouse execution, labor management and more. But, if you imagine each thread of communication as a string, many operations look more like spaghetti than a neatly woven braid.
“There seems to be a lot of technology all around in the warehouse, but not a lot of it is integrated,” says Mike Maris senior director of transportation and logistics at Zebra Technologies. “The key is to establish one central point of conversation or data transmission.”

It’s important to know if a given forklift is running hot, needs oil or has any leaks, but today that truck is trying to communicate through fixed or wireless connection to a central maintenance resource in the warehouse. The natural progression, Maris says, is to have the lift truck communicate with the mobile computer mounted on it, to work together as one point of communication between operator, manager and all related systems.

“People hear the term Internet of Things and either have a lot of preconceived notions about what that means or no clue whatsoever,” Maris says. “I see IoT coming together at the mobile computer, so the lift truck itself can communicate to broader systems, instead of a dedicated portal from the lift truck.”
Rugged, touchscreen computers are not just a way to receive instructions, it’s a window into virtually countless potential data streams. One screen can direct an operator for tasks like let-down, putaway, or picking, and also present telematics and maintenance information that’s relevant to the operator or to a technician. Push-to-talk or VoIP capabilities can support communication within or between facilities. Real-time maps might help an operator navigate more efficiently and could display stop signs or other traffic warnings. A central hub could prove most useful to a manager trying to make sense of all the information.

“The question is how to take all these analytics—the telematics on the lift truck, the warehouse management system (WMS), the yard management system—and boil it all down to really understand in a small packet what you need to know and what you don’t,” Maris says. “Analytics engines will be a big part of what you see in a warehouse, across forklifts and even pallet jacks.” Maris notes ongoing efforts to work with software and WMS players to make use of mobile equipment integrated with the truck.

“If the WMS knows three or four forklifts are already in an aisle, it could reorder work priority,” Maris says. “It knows the aisle will get jammed if it adds two more forklifts, so it will send them to other tasks. That is where we will see that next 10% to 15% productivity improvement. Software folks realize that and are working hard to get to that point, and we’re trying to get them the hardware to do that.”


Extract taken from  goo.gl/Ag9AOA

Josh Bond

http://www.supplychain247.com

Supply chain rigidity could be costing you billions

Getting the right product to the right people at the right time – that’s at the heart of what demand and supply planning is all about. But as anyone who works in supply chain knows, it’s a lot easier said than done. Forecasts are wrong more often than they’re right, and shifting consumer priorities means your supply chain has to be able to react to change and shift directions in seconds.

The success of your business depends on it, because if you can’t adapt and adjust, your customers will find someone who can. Exemplary customer service matters to your bottom line. Whether you work in business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C) or any other space, the reality is, we all have customers to serve. Supply chains are built around that fact.

Can your company really afford to lose that many customers?

As Shep Hyken, Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations, says in a recent Forbes article, “Every statistic and fact out there indicates that service gives any company a competitive advantage, and the lack of it can be the demise of the business.”

If you work in a B2C environment, you may be less concerned about losing one or two customers. After all, you likely have thousands of them. But even a single customer can have an impact on your financial results – especially given a growing trend to share dissatisfaction on social media. More than one company has fallen victim to the power of social sharing, and not in a good way. One angry customer now has the ability to reach thousands, or even millions of other people, sharing negative views about your company. It’s the power of word of mouth marketing and it shouldn’t be ignored. NewVoiceMedia’s report shows 42% of dissatisfied customers are now likely to post an online review or complain via social media.

For those in B2B, losing one customer could represent a sizable portion of your business. Your pool of prospective customers tends to be more limited, and each sale tends to be higher value. You need to treat each of them like the high value partner they are.

Minimize your risk of unhappy customers

So how can you minimize the risk of losing customers? By ensuring you’re doing everything you can to promote a customer-centric end-to-end supply chain process across all nodes. That means breaking down silos and building visibility across the end-to-end value chain so you can respond to your customers’ changing requests faster and more accurately.


 There are five key things customers look for in their experiences with you:

1. An easy experience
2. Knowledgeable people
3. Friendly experience
4. Speedy service and a quick response
5. Consistency

Alexa Cheater
Extract taken from Supply Chain Blog
http://blog.kinaxis.com

Truckers prepare for era of driverless trucks

Truckers prepare for era of driverless trucks

Forget what the experts and technogeeks are predicting for the era of driverless vehicles and trucks. What are the oddsmakers saying?
Actually, Las Vegas is quite bullish on the prospect of driverless vehicles.
In fact, Jim Murphy, an oddsmaking consultant for sports and non-sport novelty bets focused on the entertainment business, politics, technology and financial markets, is predicting that 21 million autonomous cars will be sold within the next 15 years.
“Autonomous cars–better known as ‘self driving cars’–may seem the stuff of science fiction but they’re close to becoming reality,” says oddsmaker Murphy of sportsbettingexperts.com.
His over/under on deaths this year involving autonomous vehicles? Two and a-half. If you bet the over, you can make $150 for a $100 bet. Under two and a-half deaths in autonomous vehicles will cost you $170 to earn $100.
“Despite plenty of Luddite media scare stories autonomous cars are safer than traditional vehicles,” Murphy says.
But actually there is a lot of work being done behind the scenes involving some of the biggest names in and out of transportation. Mercedes has its “Future Truck 2025” already on the highways. Apple and Microsoft are involved. There is another combine, Waymo/Google/Alphabet, working out kinks in technology.  Lyft and General Motors are combining efforts. And of course Tesla and its innovative CEO Elon Musk, the peripatetic Canadian-American business magnate, investor, engineer and inventor is bullish.
So what’s happening in trucking? Last October, a unit of Uber called Otto successfully produced a self-driving truck that hauled a load of Budweiser beer without incident on a 120-mile trek through Colorado.
Otto’s co-founder, Anthony Levandowski, a former self-driving car engineer for Google, has said he believes the most important thing computers will do over the next ten years is drive cars and trucks for people.
That will have huge human resources ramifications for trucking, which currently has a shortage of 20,000 drivers that could grow to more than 100,000 within a decade because of demographics, increased drug and alcohol testing and tougher security screenings.
Driverless trucks would change that dynamic in a hurry. “We are going to see a wave and an acceleration in automation, and it will affect job markets,” Jerry Kaplan, a Stanford lecturer and the author of “Humans Need Not Apply” and “Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know,” recently told the L.A. Times. “Long-haul truck driving is a great example, where there isn’t much judgment involved and it’s a fairly controlled environment.”
Preparing for such a day, the trucking industry is rapidly coming to grips with how driverless trucks may be regulated.
The Trucking Alliance Board of Directors, which represents eight large trucking companies that operate 68,000 trucks, 175,000 semitrailers and containers, and employ more than 52,000 people, unanimously passed a resolution that “supports the development of advanced vehicle technologies that enable commercial drivers to utilize highly automated driving systems, enhancing their safety and security.”
The Trucking Alliance also supports the use of these technologies to achieve safety performance levels that rival commercial airlines and support other initiatives that focus on drivers and their safety, such as the following:

• Supports advanced driver assisted technologies in commercial vehicles, rather than commercial vehicles that rely solely on full automation;
• Believes that commercial drivers are an indispensable asset to the safe operation of commercial vehicles;
• Maintains the principle that commercial drivers are necessary to improve the safety and security of the general public; and
• Believes that commercial drivers are integral to supply chain accountability. This would include managing unforeseen weather events, emergencies, detours, vehicle conditions, computer software programs, cybersecurity disruptions, cargo security, and in providing efficient customer services”

Meanwhile, an autonomous truck with a big “brain” has been launched by Embark, a San Mateo, Calif.-based company whose employees include alumni from SpaceX, Audi’s self-driving team and StanfordAl (artificial intelligence).

“Automated technology has the potential to help eliminate human error and reduce crashes and fatalities,” Chao said. “So there’s a lot at stake in getting this technology right.”



Extract taken from goo.gl/Uo6sMW

Written by John D. Schulz

www.logisticsmgmt.com

Tips on Improving Warehouse Productivity

Managing inventory effectively and maximizing warehouse productivity rank on top of the priority list of almost all warehouse managers,

We offers some tips on how to improve warehouse management.

Apply Cross-Docking to Maximize Space

The objective of cross-docking is to reduce the shelf storage time of stocks in the warehouse. It helps in transporting warehouse delivered goods quickly to the outbound carriers that can take the stocks to distribution centers. Make sure that the warehouse layout supports cross-docking.

Implement Strict Standards for Safety

Don’t make the warehouse an unsafe place for employees. If the staff isn’t trained properly, the result will be numerous accidents and high injury rates. Ensure that only the well-trained and experienced employees operate heavy duty equipment such as forklifts. Mark the safety protocols in the warehouse, such as indicating a safe distance from danger zones.

Incorporate Efficient Weighing Systems

Make efficient weight scales, such as truck scales, an integral part of your warehouse as it helps in optimizing all the weighing processes. By improving the accuracy of the billing and shipping tremendously, revenues can be increased. The overall workflow productivity is also enhanced.

Use Technology to Enhance Inventory Management

New robotics technology has become the most sought after technology in many companies. Automated vehicles come a close second. By incorporating self-driving technology in the warehouses, human labor can be assigned to more critical jobs and enhance safety and efficiency.

3-D printing technology allows on-demand production of various components for manufacturing at the location itself. It can effectively eliminate the need for any transportation, thus reducing the cost and lead times significantly.

Innovation of newer, lighter and stronger materials like nanotubes and graphene  will improve warehouse productivity as less energy is needed to transport lighter materials and equipment.

Extract taken from goo.gl/USrdb3

Written by MH&L Staff

Diesel prices drop for fourth straight week, reports EIA

The Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported this week that the average price per gallon of diesel gasoline dropped for the fourth straight week, with a 0.4 cent decline to $2.558 per gallon.

This follows declines of 0.7 cents, 1.6 cents, and 1.2 cents, respectively, over the previous three weeks.

The last four weeks of declines were preceded by gains over the previous six weeks, with the average price per gallon increasing a cumulative 17.7 cents from the week of November 28 to the week of January 9.

The average price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate Crude is at $52.27 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

A recent Reuters report said that oil prices were steady as news of lower production by OPEC and other key exporters was balanced by reports of more drilling and higher output in the United States. And it added that U.S. oil production has risen by more than 6 percent since mid-2016, though it remains 7 percent below the 2015 peak. It is back to levels reached in late 2014, when strong U.S. crude output contributed to a crash in oil prices.

In its most recent Short-Term Energy Outlook, the EIA is calling for diesel prices to average out at $2.73 in 2017 and $2.84 in 2018, with WTI crude oil pegged at $52.50 per barrel in 2017 and $55.18 in 2018.




Extract taken from   goo.gl/KHhpdo

LM staff

http://.logisticsmgmt.com/

Electric Truck Sales to Surpass a Third of a Million by 2026

According to a new report from Navigant Research, global annual electrified powertrain medium- and heavy-duty truck sales are expected to grow from about 31,000 vehicles in 2016 to nearly 332,000 by 2026.

The report forecasts sales of medium- and heavy-duty trucks for each major world region — segmented by electrified powertrain type, including hybrid, plug-in hybrid, battery electric, and hydrogen fuel cell — through 2026.

As local and national governments impose stricter emissions targets for commercial vehicles, they are also looking for ways to incentivize fleets to invest in medium- and heavy-duty fuel efficiency technologies as well as cleaner-burning fuels.

Though conventional diesel-powered vehicles are becoming cleaner and more efficient, the added initial and operating costs associated with these changes are helping to reduce the incremental cost of moving to electric-assisted and all-electric powertrains.

“New and established suppliers are starting to offer alternative powertrains as well as complete electric vehicles for niche applications,” says David Alexander, senior research analyst with Navigant Research. “Limited daily range and a drive cycle featuring a lot of stopping and starting are applications that benefit most from electric drive capabilities, and delivery and refuse collection vehicles are expected to be the primary targets in the short term.”
Technology advances and production experience in the bus market can be transferred readily to trucks, and the growing demand for electric cars has stimulated investment in battery manufacture that has resulted in falling battery pack costs, according to the report. However, even with these positive factors, electric drive trucks are still expected to remain a niche market, at around 5 percent of sales in 2026.


The report — Electric Drive Trucks — breaks the forecasts for the global truck market into medium-duty trucks and heavy-duty trucks for each major world region. Both of these vehicle categories are assessed for potential sales of electrified powertrain types: hybrid (gasoline and diesel), plug-in hybrid (gasoline and diesel), battery electric, and hydrogen fuel cell.
Global market forecasts for annual sales, segmented by region and powertrain type, extend through 2026. An executive summary of the report is available for free download on the Navigant Research website.

Extract taken from   https://goo.gl/9EUas5

Trucking news staff

http://mhlnews.com/

Tech StartUps that will Transform Warehousing

Beyond robotics software startups tech-enabled approaches are branching into warehousing, according to research by CB Insights.

CB Insights points to examples of  Flexe, which they call “AirBnB for warehouse space” and the proliferation of  several augmented reality smart glasses for warehouse workers such as GetVu as startups that will change the warehousing landscape. 

The research highlights a few companies, their funding, and how they will impact the sector. 

Warehouse & inventory management software - These companies offer software-as-a-service platforms, generally cloud-based, for warehouse management and inventory tracking functions. Temando leads with $50 million in funding, and works with Asos, Trademe, Krispy Kreme, and more. UK-based Peoplevox ($6 mmillion in funding) pairs its SaaS platform with warehouse-optimization consultants.

Warehouse robots - Automated and remotely controlled robots for order picking and inventory management. Seegrid, with $63 million in funding, makes automated vision-guided vehicles for companies like BMW, Volvo, Walgreens, 3M, Honeywell, and the USPS.

Worker wearables - GetVU, Atheer, and XOEye produce augmented reality smart glasses to aid warehouse workers, and Kinetic makes wearables that attach to workers’ belts to analyze movements and help prevent injuries.

Indoor asset tracking - These companies offer software, bar code readers, and RFID tags, focusing on improving the tracking of goods and equipment in warehouses.

On-demand warehouse space - Flexe ($20.6 million in funding) offers an online marketplace connecting retailers that need warehouse space with warehouses that have extra capacity.

Extract taken from   https://goo.gl/UxtgS0

By MH&L staff

http://mhlnews.com/