November 1996 € Volume 6 € Number 11
November 1996 € Volume 6 € Number 11
As sales increased at Goldwell of Ohio, a distributor of haircare and beauty products, it became apparent that some profound changes needed to occur within the operation. The warehouse facility had become too small to accommodate the upsurge in business, and the company's archaic material handling and storage systems made it impossible for Goldwell to keep up with demand. In 1993, the distributor moved to a larger, more efficient facility with a warehouse floor capable of stocking and processing orders for Goldwell's 750 product lines. Goldwell then called upon Diamond Phoenix Systems (Lewiston, Maine), a manufacturer of advanced carousel systems, to replace its outdated storage and retrieval system.
The Diamond Phoenix system integrates quality-crafted carousels; ergonomic, operator friendly workstations; and software that accurately and quickly ushers the product through every stage of distribution.
According to Steve Kisch, warehouse manager at Goldwell, the key to the system's success is its efficiency. With the Diamond system, Kisch's three-member warehouse team is able to process several orders at once, keeping a steady, even production flow in which orders are picked, packed and checked in assembly line fashion. "There is no down time," says Kisch. "The system enables us to pick up to 12 orders at once. We now push out more orders, with almost 100 percent accuracy, in half the time." Goldwell processes approximately 5,000 to 6,000 line items per day.
The Diamond installation at Goldwell consists of a two-carousel workstation, or "pod." The carousels, 20 feet long and eight feet high, house a large selection of products, yet keeps all items within reach. Each carousel is comprised of 20 shelving bins which rotate around a durable closed track, offering optimal space usage and increased throughput.
An integral part of the system is the vertical light tree. Featuring a 12-character alpha-numeric display, a two-part task complete button and an emergency stop button, the light tree indicates to the picker the exact quantity and location of each product on the carousel.
Goldwell's software package was custom-designed by Diamond engineers. This software provides control of all warehouse operations including operator workstations, conveyors and order management and flow. It automatically prioritizes orders according to the operating team's specifications. The system then processes the order and groups it to allow the picker to move rapidly without making errors.
From the software, the orders are sent to the LED panel of the light tree. The panel indicates to the picker the exact quantity corresponding to a bin on the carousel. The software alternates the picks between the two carousels, so that as one is in use, the other is rotating to the next pick spot. Further down the line, a checker cross-references a picked order with a computer print-out of the order as taken from the field and received by the Diamond system. If the order is accurate, it is placed in a box, affixed with a mailing label, and placed on a skid to be conveyed to the shipping dock. The software then sends any inventory adjustments to the Goldwell computer system so that the carousels may be restocked properly.
The most conspicuous benefit Goldwell has reaped from choosing the Diamond Phoenix carousel system is the ability to do more business, cost-efficiently, in less time, and with fewer mistakes. Goldwell is currently filling 125 to 175 orders per day in half the time it would take to complete as many orders with a conventional flow-rack system. In addition, errors in order picking have decreased by 50 percent.
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Nutricia, a multinational company specializing in the production of dairy products, nutritional foods and baby meals, built a highly advanced automated dairy and clinical products plant to handle a variety of five to 10 product groups resulting in a total of 35 distinctly packaged end products. However, due to market developments, Nutricia faced an explosion of product demand forcing it to increase its range of products. This required the new plant to handle some 350 end products. Now the plant is producing more than 700 different articles from an increased variety of product families -- a twenty-fold increase.
As soon as the managers realized the logistic ramifications of diversifying the product range, they contacted Fygir logistic information systems to assist with the production planning. Fygir noted a technologically advanced plant with an intricate production facility. They also observed that the scheduling of the plant was becoming more and more complex.
Fygir installed GRIP, its scheduling software. As the complexity of the plant has increased, Nutricia has been able to rely on GRIP to assist with the expected increase in production.
GRIP eased the planner's task and helped control the complex production schedule in a manageable and visual manner. Data relating to all the production processes and product formulas is first entered into the GRIP database. This data is then used to simulate the expected flow of production processes throughout the plant. The planner is able to construct schedules that can be easily manipulated.
The detailed schedule of the plant is now made with GRIP on a weekly basis, for the production of about 150 end products. This includes the determination of order and batch sizes, the scheduling of batches, the optimal allocation of batches on machines and storage facilities (such as tanks, silos, containers, etc.), the materials planning and the planning of personnel.
During modifications of the factory layout, GRIP was also used as a simulation tool. Several different plant configurations and future products were modeled within GRIP. Simulation studies were done for several Nutricia sites. From the detailed schedules generated, the required capacity of resources and storage facilities could be accurately determined.
A second dairy and clinical product plant was built at the same location, which also required the GRIP solution. This involved extending the database model of the factory to include the new facilities and product data to be represented and controlled by GRIP. Finally, the cereal production within the plant was also required to be scheduled, which again involved additions to the GRIP model. Within several months, all three production sites at Nutricia were fully operational and successfully being scheduled with GRIP.
GRIP has also identified planning problems that might have been interpreted as capacity shortages. Nutricia has avoided unnecessary investments in storage by fully using existing capacity. Increases in capacity utilization can lead to considerable savings.
The quality of the schedules has improved considerably at Nutricia. Schedules are checked on feasibility and are generated by taking into account all known constraints. And the time spent making the schedules has been reduced immeasurably. One resulting advantage is the faster generation of alternative schedules which leads to more optimal solutions. It is also possible to react quickly to problems as they occur whilst the production is in progress, such as machine breakdowns, and to adjust the schedule appropriately.
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