Warehouse logistics revisited: a critical analysis (original) (raw)

Theory and Practice in Global Warehouse Logistics Activity

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2023

Logistics is the management of materials, production processes and the physical distribution of products in the control of the entire operational cycle of the company expressed both in the form of physical flow and information flow, with the participation of both internal and external actors, who are part of a single supply chain. The goal is to control performance with quantitative and qualitative methods to ensure a high level of customer service, providing products quickly, at low cost and of high quality. The methods used by logistics have the characteristic of guaranteeing an adequate level of integration and flexibility of activities and processes; it is thanks to an efficient collaboration between all the management areas of the system that the company can achieve what it has set itself. In this brief introduction we have seen how logistics is a complex discipline, full of facets and with vast arguments; given the extent of the subject, it is impossible to consider every single aspect and every single part 10 that make it up, so it was decided to treat the aspect that is most physically controllable: the warehouse area. Storage activities, in fact, can be defined as the real beating heart of the whole organization. From the warehouse, the products are prepared and shipped, the main data are obtained which indicate the company's performance and establish the quantities to be produced and the materials to be ordered; in the warehouse the goods are temporarily deposited.

Simulation modeling of a warehouse logistics department of a medium-sized company

2021

The article gives a simulation model of a warehouse and logistics department of a medium-sized company. Based on the pre-specified workload, the following characteristics of the department are established, such as the load of the warehouses, the size of the queues for import / export of goods and the waiting time in them, the volume of the warehouse and the number of service personnel (warehouse workers). The model can be easily changed for various similar situations.

WAREHOUSE LOGISTICS AND INTERNAL DISTRIBUTION OPTIMIZATION BARBOSA EALMEIDAVIDRO–CASESTUDY

The industrial macroeconomic environment in which companies are developed today is characterized by being highly demanding and competitive. Success or failure depends not only on the ability to adapt to market requirements, but also on the efficiency level of the applied practices. In this sense, the increase in productivity in warehouse operations has a direct influence on the optimization of logistic processes in the company, thus giving a competitive advantage. After studying the stock behavior using different criteria for ABC analysis, this paper proposes and analyzes different layout alternatives for reducing times and distances in warehouse activities, while increasing the storage capacity of the warehouse compared to the current situation. The present work is implemented on a real case study with specific conditions in the finished product warehouse of a glass packaging factory. A set of indicators was developed in order to evaluate the performances of the suggested layouts. Other suggestions on systems and division in zones of warehouse layout are presented in an attempt to increase productivity in warehouse processes.

A simulation model to improve warehouse operations

2007 Winter Simulation Conference, 2007

Warehouse or distribution centre managers have to decide how to collect the products to fulfill customers requests but also where to locate the products (SKUs) and how much space to allocate to each of them. Moreover, they have to deploy replenishment strategies to guarantee the reliability of their own stocks. These are challenging decisions because of their level of complexity and their high impact on the centre performance in terms of both its throughput and the operation costs. In particular, the goal of this work is to evaluate whether specific strategies to share the storage space could lead to reduce the operation costs while keeping the service level as high as possible. To this end, this paper develops a discrete event simulation model of the logistic operations at a real high throughput warehouse which handles more than 12 millions of cases annually. Preliminary results show that potential economies may be achieved by reducing the number of stock-outs at the picking area where customer orders are collected.

Simulation Modelling of Warehouse Capacity Re-allocation to Improve Inbound Logistics Performance: A Study Case

Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Industrial Technology, 2019

The supply chain system in the fertilizer industry is quite complex because it involves many activities such as internal logistic, material transportation processes, a number of factories, and warehouse management. The process of raw materials handling that starting from the port to the warehouse is very influential on the company's ability to carry out operational activities in the production department. To improve the competitiveness of the company, the case company needs to take a number of strategic steps and to run a transformation program for becoming an efficient, integrated, and sustainable fertilizer producer. The problems that occur in the inbound logistics activities at the case company are the raw materials stored in warehouses often overcapacity, causing a material accumulation when there is new raw material arriving at the port. Therefore, warehouses need to periodically reorganize their storage in order to keep operating inefficient manner. This research aims to help overcome the problems that occur in the company by examining several alternative solutions in inbound logistics activities to reduce material transferred between port, production warehouses, and buffer warehouses by using model simulation method. The method that is going to be used to solve this problem is the Discrete Event Simulation (DES), in which the improvement system does not disrupt the existing system and doesn't cost too much time and money. This research proposed a scenario of warehouse capacity reallocation for raw materials by prioritizing the highest frequency of raw material arrival. By using the improved system, it reduces the total average volume of material transferred from the port to production warehouses by 13.29%, from port to buffer warehouses by 10.21% and from buffer warehouses to production warehouses by 17.43%.

Logistics Processes and Systems Design Using Computer Simulation

Communications - Scientific letters of the University of Zilina, 2016

The aim of the logistics processes and systems designing is to draft such a logistics system in the pre-implementation phase which could meet all the necessary technical (optimum use of resources, high level of provided services, system flexibility, high transparency, etc.) as well as economic (return of investments, logistics costs, productivity, etc.) parameters without additional adjustments and interventions into the real system in the phase of its implementation and operation [2 and 3]. The current pressure on fast innovations in the factory means higher demands on logistics systems designing from the point of view of the laboriousness reduction, time and costs consumption for implementation of the entire designing process and increase of quality, complexity and information ability of outputs generated from the process [4]. Due to the above mentioned reasons it is possible to summarize the basic designing process requirements: • Quick draft of new solutions. • Observance of the...

A Simulation Study for the Sustainability and Reduction of Waste in Warehouse Logistics

International Journal of Simulation Modelling

In this study, the authors have investigated warehouse processes to identify critical ones that are wasteful. The aim of this research study was to improve the efficiency of warehouse processes by reducing travel time and cost in replenishment and order picking. To achieve this objective, the authors have proposed a mathematical model and discrete event simulation study. For the simulation model, the Dijkstra algorithm has been selected to schedule forklifts driving and picking vehicles routes in internal transport. According to the extensive simulation analysis approximately 67 % of waste could be reduced in warehouses. Of course, this number depends significantly on a warehouse layout, operations and material handling equipment used in warehouses.

Decision making strategies for warehouse operations

Archives of Transport

The paper presents issues related to design and organization of the warehouse process. Draws attention to problems of modelling logistics facilities and processes occurring in them. Paper also points out the essence of correct operation of warehouses and associated with this risks for supply chain. Warehouse processes have been properly defined and divided into smaller components, like: phases of process, activities, sets of procedures, procedures or working movements. Paper presents various possible configurations of warehouse processes, which were named as warehouse strategies. Warehouse process strategy is a part of warehousing. It determines the sequence of warehouse operations. These operations are related to internal transport, cargo form transformation and cargo buffering. In paper it is noted that the warehouse strategy depends on the several technical and organizational factors and is associated with a certain probability. This probability can be estimated based on data ana...

Simulation-based Performance Improvement of a Defense Logistics Warehouse

2012

Warehouses play a critical role in supply chains. They serve as a vital link between manufacturers and customers. In this study, we investigate performance of the largest warehouse (Eastern Distribution Center EDC) of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) located in New Cumberland, PA and propose a near optimum design for the receiving area of the warehouse to improve its performance. First, we develop a simulation model of the system. Second, we interface an optimization model with the simulation in order to optimize the number of people working at the induction stations. In the optimization model, our goal is to minimize the average cycle time of a material type. Last, we re-design the existing system based on results from the optimization. The simulation and the optimization models are developed through the use of ARENA 13.9 and OptQuest.