Hear from the Expert: Your Supply Chain Questions Answered

MH Equipment partners with MH Engineered Solutions to provide our customers warehouse distribution, order fulfillment, warehouse software solutions, and more. They represent our supply chain division and work closely with our Material Handling Specialists to make sure our customers get the right solution for their operation. Scott Hennie, MH Engineered Solutions President, sat down with us to answer your supply chain questions:

1. What role does warehouse layout play in the supply chain process?

“Layout is an important fundamental of warehouse design. A strong layout with properly placed and sized travel and access aisles will increase operating efficiency and shorten the time from dock-to-stock-to-shipping.”

2. What is the biggest risk of having a poorly designed warehouse?

“Safety! A poorly designed warehouse can create work hazards such as truck/human intersections, reaching hazards, climbing hazards. A well-organized facility will eliminate or minimize the safety risks to associates.”

3. What proper equipment needs to be in place at a warehouse for packing and shipping inventory?

“For an efficient packing and shipping operation, organization is the most important tool. This can be accomplished or enhanced with equipment for staging orders, well designed and planned workstations and work aids to move finished orders from the packing area to the shipping docks – such as sortation conveyors, AGV’s or mobile robots.”

4. What can a business do to prevent bottlenecks?

“Optimize the movement of information, product, and people. Understand workflows, product velocity, order demands, and throughput capabilities and design processes and systems to support the movement of the operation. A well planned and implemented Warehouse Control System Software (WCS) will help a business monitor and optimize the flow of inventory, data, and people. A good WCS can also monitor the “health” of the equipment utilized in the facility.”

5. How can a business increase worker speed?

“Increasing worker speed is not as important as increasing worker efficiency. Providing proper automation and mechanical equipment will help reduce the #1 enemy of a warehouse worker – TRAVEL. A worker spends 80-90% of their time traveling. By eliminating travel, you can increase productivity work time. Goods-To-Person, Conveyor, AGV’s, Mobile Robots are all ways to eliminate or reduce worker travel time.”

6. What types of businesses can benefit from an automated storage and retrieval system?

“Businesses with harsh operating environments, such as freezers. Businesses with high-volume pallet or unit load movements. Businesses that need to store a large volume of products and have a small footprint to store them.”

7. What could businesses do today, in the next 24 hours, to improve their operation?

“Organize their product to make sure the fastest moving items are close to the shipping docks and at an accessible level.”

Looking for more answers? Visit the MH Engineered Solutions website or talk to an MH Equipment Material Handling Specialist for answers to your unique supply chain questions.