BSOM034 Warehouse Optimisation Sample
1 Introduction
Warehouse management is about the organization, control and management of the warehouse to see when the new stocks arrived and to make sure about the package, shipping and picking facilities and also to keep check on the warehouse performance. In this essay, the optimisation of the warehouse is to be seen and the way the supply chain functions throughout with the help of optimisation is highly necessary to look for.
2 Warehouse Optimization
Warehouse optimization is the way the warehouse is used for space, time and resources in order through the use of careful planning, improving customer satisfaction and experience. Moreover, warehouse optimization is the process which helps in determining the orders and the way the orders have to be executed well. Therefore, through the use of warehouse optimization the activities regarding goods and services such as receiving, storing, put-away, picking and shipping goods are done according to the demands of the customers (Burinskiene et al., 2018).
Receiving
The receiving process of the warehouse is the most crucial process where the warehouse has to make sure about the products the warehouse has received and also if the products are at all in a good condition. Moreover, the warehouse makes sure that the goods which are being received are in the right condition, at the right time and also see to it that the goods which are kept in the warehouse are maintained properly.
Therefore, the staging of the goods by unloading from the trucks, and then checking and accepting the goods is the first function of warehouse optimization (Dissanayake and Rupasinghe, 2021).
Storing
The storing of the warehouse goods is to make sure that the goods are placed in an appropriate place which too increases the efficiency of labour according to the storage space. Moreover, through the process of optimization the goods have to be tracked properly depending on the place where the goods have been kept with the help of maximization of the storage facilities. Furthermore, the storing facilities of the warehouse depend on the efficiency of the warehouse in terms of operation and the response time and also to make sure about the products and the benefits for the customers (Ghalehkhondabi and Masel, 2018).
Put-away
The put-away process of the warehouse is the way the movement of goods and services that the warehouse places on the goods and also helps to improve the productivity of the warehouse with the help of efficient operation. However, in order to put-away the goods quite properly, work of the cargo has to be faster, time taken has to be minimised, ensures safety for the goods and employees, maximization of the space of the warehouse and track and retrieve of the goods have to be faster and efficient. Therefore, the put-away helps in allocating storage facilities with the help of operating costs management which helps in the impact of the efficiency of the operations (Gómez et al., 2020).
Picking
The picking process of the warehouse depends on the collection of the products and helps in fulfilling the needs of the customers on time by supplying the products well. Moreover, with the help of the optimization process, the efficiency of the warehouse increases by reducing the costs of the goods. However, the introduction of efficient technologies made the process of the pick up more comfortable and even efficient for the warehouse management. Thus, the efficient use of methods for the picking up requires high use of human reflection with lesser time required for executing the work (Habazin et al., 2017).
Shipping goods
The package and storage of the goods involves a lot of thought although when it comes to shipping the goods the warehouse makes excellent use of the methods to send the goods to the customers. Furthermore, the goods sent or received by the customers have to be made sure by the warehouse that the goods received by the customers are of good quality and always on time. Thus, the shipping process involves the customers on the receiving end where with the help of an external warehouse the orders placed are fulfilled on time (Sert et al., 2020).
3 Three groups of optimisation activities
Technical structure
The technical structure of the warehouse involves the design of the warehouse, the distribution centre, the dimension and the conveyors with the help of warehouse equipment, the physical attributes of the neighbouring structure added with the other attributes of the technical structure. Moreover, the design is the most crucial point in the warehouse which makes a significant impact in the process of order picking and distances travelled in the warehouse. Therefore, in order to minimise the travel distance of the warehouse, initially the basic types of the warehouse are proposed for mitigating the problems faced in the warehouse. Furthermore, the travelling distance of the warehouse such as Flying-V, Fishbone design, Inverted-V design helps in making the layout well so that it helps in the utilization of space and helps in minimization of the costs (Karásek, 2013). Moreover, with the help of carousel rotation of the picker travelling process which helps in the quick rotation of the order by picking up a shortest path for picking of the order. Therefore, the use of various robotic devices as used by humans helps in making the environment sustainable with expensive refill of A-frames.
Operational and organisational framework
The organizational structure of the warehouse depends on different aspects such as business management, inventory management, organizational management and so on which helps in the strategic framework of the warehouse. Moreover, the warehouse has to make sure that the storing process follows a lot of strategies in case of location management which may help in understanding the whereabouts of the goods in the warehouse well.
Furthermore, the most common routing methods which the warehouses may use such as S-shape, Return policy, Mid-point strategy, Largest gap strategy, Composite heuristic and Optimal routing in order to develop from the single block warehouses to multiple block warehouses (Karásek, 2013). Additionally, the zoning of goods is highly important as it helps in managing the warehouse quite well with the help of various technologies which may be able to be used in the management of the warehouse.
However, the zoning may be quite helpful as it impacts the significant increase in the performance of the workers in the warehouse from the initial stage to the final stage. Therefore, the division of the zones helps in making the order picking process quite smooth and efficient by selecting the goods belonging to the product group which may make the process also well.
Coordinating and controlling systems for warehouse operations
The warehouse has to make sure that the operations are controlled and also it may help in keeping the coordination of the warehouse operations quite well which may help in running the warehouse efficiently. Moreover, the warehouse has to keep good coordination among the various operations in the warehouse with the help of the processes such as receiving, storing, put-away, picking, consolidation, packing, shipping and cross-docking (Karásek, 2013).
Furthermore, in order to make the work in the warehouse quite efficient it may be helped with the coordinating and the control of the systems in the operations of the warehouse which too might help in the well working of the warehouse systems. Additionally, from receiving the goods to putting away the goods require good coordination with the employees which ultimately helps in picking the goods quite well.
Therefore, with the help of various kinds of optimization such as Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) may help in picking the good optimization and routing the goods timely to the customers. Thus, with the help of optimization, the packing and the shipping of the goods have to be quite well and also may help in sending and receiving the goods systematically.
4 Selected Literature
| Concept 1 Receiving | Concept 2 Storing | Concept 3 Put-away | Concept 4 Packing | Concept 5 Picking | |
| Author 1 Galipoglu et al., (2018). | X | – | X | X | X |
| Author 2 Larke et al., (2018) | X | – | X | X | X |
| Author 3 Marchet et al., (2018). | X | – | X | X | X |
| Author 4 Kusrini et al., (2018). | X | X | X | X | X |
| Author 5 Prasetyawanet al., (2020). | X | X | – | X | X |
| Author 6 Freitas et al., (2019). | X | X | – | X | X |
| Author 7 Goswami, (2019). | X | X | X | – | X |
Table 1: Selected Literature
(Source: Self-created)
5 Critical Discussion
The warehouse optimization helps in working and also in making the services of the warehouse quite efficient which helps in making the warehouse to work well. Moreover, with the help of Karásek (2013), the warehouse optimization and the various processes used by the warehouse management helps in understanding about the working in the warehouse.
Therefore, according to Galipoglu et al., (2018), the warehouse has to maintain the supply chain and also make the logistics services of the retailing well which may help in the services of the warehouse. Therefore, it may be stated that the warehouse has to make sure that the goods while receiving has to be checked thoroughly which helps in keeping the quality of the goods intact. Moreover, the management, portfolio, facilities and infrastructure of the warehouse have to be maintained strategically giving utmost importance to the systems management (Larke et al., 2018).
Furthermore, according to both the articles receiving, put-away, packing and picking helps in making the warehouse quite efficient with the use of better management and also with the use of better technologies. Therefore, aside from storing the goods, management has to be taken utmost care so that it reaches the customers on time and also in good condition.
The receiving, putting away, packing and picking of the goods by the warehouse depends highly on the strategy which the warehouse management may follow in order to make the work in the warehouse quite smooth. Moreover, more than storing of the goods it is highly necessary to develop a framework in order to utilize management strategies so that it helps in fulfilling the strategies and management of the warehouse (Marchet et al., 2018).
Therefore, most of the time the work of the warehouse is not entirely to store the goods although most of the time the warehouse helps in the process of the goods and helps in implementing efficient services for the customers. Although, the management of the warehouse does not only include the receiving, putting away, packaging and picking of the goods even though it does include the storing which too is highly important for the warehouse.
Therefore, according to Kusrini et al., (2018), the five steps that are receiving, put-away, packaging, storing and picking, helps in improving the performance of the warehouse quite well.
The warehouse process and methods are most important as it helps the employees and also makes sure that the whole process of the working and the services as conducted by the warehouse helps in making the working quite favourable. Furthermore, as per Prasetyawan et al., (2020) research, the warehouse activities such as receiving, put away, storing, and picking helps in solving problems of the warehouse with the help of improving the performance of the warehouse.
Therefore, the warehouse performance receives momentum when the performance improves with the help of coordination in the work of the organisations between all the operations of the warehouse. However, according to Freitas et al., (2019), putting away too is not much of importance in making and mitigating the strategies of the company which may help with the use of receiving, picking and storing.
Therefore, the process of the warehouse has to be in making the strategies for the goods which may help in processing the goods with the help of keeping the quality of the goods well until it is received by the customers. Therefore, Goswami, (2019) states that responsiveness and association of the warehouses becomes successful when the whole of the process is done and the customers receive the goods at the right time.
6 Conclusion
It may be concluded that the management of the warehouse and the optimization of the warehouse depends highly on the way the warehouse has been used in solving the problems for making the goods and services efficient. Moreover, with the help of warehouse management it may state that the goods and service supplies help the customers to receive the goods in better quality.
7 References
Burinskiene, A., Lorenc, A. and Lerher, T., 2018. A simulation study for the sustainability and reduction of waste in warehouse logistics. International Journal of Simulation Modelling, 17(3), pp.485-497.
Dissanayake, S. and Rupasinghe, T., 2021. Warehouse Optimization using Generalized Reduced Gradient (GRG) Method. In Proceedings of the 11th Annual International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management Singapore (pp. 1-12).
Freitas, A.M., Silva, F.J.G., Ferreira, L.P., Sá, J.C., Pereira, M.T. and Pereira, J., 2019. Improving efficiency in a hybrid warehouse: a case study. Procedia Manufacturing, 38, pp.1074-1084.
Galipoglu, E., Kotzab, H., Teller, C., Hüseyinoglu, I.Ö.Y. and Pöppelbuß, J., 2018. Omni-channel retailing research–state of the art and intellectual foundation. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management.
Ghalehkhondabi, I. and Masel, D.T., 2018. Storage allocation in a warehouse based on the forklifts fleet availability. Journal of Algorithms & Computational Technology, 12(2), pp.127-135.
Gómez-Montoya, R.A., Cano, J.A., Cortés, P. and Salazar, F., 2020. A discrete particle swarm optimization to solve the put-away routing problem in distribution centres. Computation, 8(4), p.99.
Goswami, M., 2019. Modeling M Warehouse N Manpower-Team Allocation Problem Using Dynamic Programming Approach. International Journal of Strategic Decision Sciences (IJSDS), 10(4), pp.100-112.
Habazin, J., Glasnović, A. and Bajor, I., 2017. Order picking process in warehouse: Case study of dairy industry in Croatia. Promet-Traffic&Transportation, 29(1), pp.57-65.
Karásek, J., 2013. An overview of warehouse optimization. International journal of advances in telecommunications, electrotechnics, signals and systems, 2(3), pp.111-117.
Kusrini, E., Novendri, F. and Helia, V.N., 2018. Determining key performance indicators for warehouse performance measurement–a case study in construction materials warehouse. In MATEC Web of Conferences (Vol. 154, p. 01058). EDP Sciences.
Larke, R., Kilgour, M. and O’Connor, H., 2018. Build touchpoints and they will come: transitioning to omnichannel retailing. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management.
Marchet, G., Melacini, M., Perotti, S., Rasini, M. and Tappia, E., 2018. Business logistics models in omni-channel: a classification framework and empirical analysis. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management.
Prasetyawan, Y., Simanjuntak, A.K., Rifqy, N. and Auliya, L., 2020, July. Implementation of Lean Warehousing to Improve Warehouse Performance of Plastic Packaging Company. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 852, No. 1, p. 012101). IOP Publishing.
Sert, E., Hedayatifar, L., Rigg, R.A., Akhavan, A., Buchel, O., Saadi, D.E., Kar, A.A., Morales, A.J. and Bar-Yam, Y., 2020. Freight Time and Cost Optimization in Complex Logistics Networks. Complexity, 2020.
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