The Daifuku Group has almost a century of experience in delivering systems for automotive production lines. Daifuku supplies automakers with automation and labor-saving systems that cover the entire production process from pressing, welding, painting, and assembly to part management, part supply, and engine testing. With cutting-edge distribution technologies and solutions that facilitate automotive production, Daifuku drives motorization across the globe by helping manufacturers produce vehicles for the global eco-car market and vehicles for specific domestic markets.

Solutions for Automotive Manufacturing

Pressing

For the pressing and plastic-molding processes, manufacturers can use Daifuku systems to transport steel, resin, and other materials, manage molded items in interim storage, and take other steps to achieve broader automation and make more effective use of labor resources. Daifuku, which boasts a solid reputation in systems for transporting and storing heavy loads, has the tools to create integrated systems that combine automatic guided vehicles, automated warehouses, and other material handling systems.

For more information,visit us: http://www.daifuku.com/in/solution/automotive/

5 Best Practices for Utilizing Your Warehouse to the Fullest

Indian manufacturing industry has witnessed the fast-paced advancement in past few decades and every manufacturer in the industry is participating and becoming a part of the journey. New tax policies i.e. GST has played a vital role in the manufacturing sector as well as in the development of the country by taking an initiative in the advancement of businesses.

Supply chain logistics has continuously changed and evolved, the warehousing sector has to advance at the same pace. The warehouse managers always faces the challenges of utilizing and optimizing the warehouse space. Warehousing plays a major role in any manufacturing industry and its costs are an account of cumulative costs of labour, inventory, finished goods, building, and land. Warehouses if not managed well are expensive to operate for the end companies.

To get the most out of the warehousing, a number of best practices can be opted to improve the productivity and overall process in the manufacturing facility. Although the best practices vary from industry to industry, there are some best practices from Daifuku-experts in material handling, warehousing and logistics management; which helps in utilizing the warehouse SPACE optimally and handle your products with care.

• S - Scope for Expansion and Ease
• P - Pace Up The Movement Of Units
• A - Avoid Manual dependency
• C - Carryout the Process in Flows
• E – Escalate the Process
• These elements will help you in utilizing and governing the process in the right direction. Each element is significant and complementary to each other. Implementing these practices can make an impact on your warehousing facility processes.
• Scope for Expansion and Ease
• With the faster pace of growth, there is also growth in land usage; this had lead to scarcity of land for horizontal expansion. This creates a desperate need of implementing the vertical warehousing, as the horizontal extension has huge investment associated with it. Vertical storage allows storing bulk items in a confined space and provides more space for store keeping units (SKU’s). To ensure the product stored in these vertical storages the automated systems are the simplest and advanced solution. The automated systems help you track down the items stored on regular basis and also favour the FIFO patterns. Maximizing space utilization can help with keeping inventory visible and easy to find.
• Pace-up the Movement of Units
• A plan should be such to allow free and fast movement of material in and out of the system without any loss or delays. The dispatch and receive movements should not contradict each other while in operations. Using the storage area with the optimal storing of items for the size (for example if a rack is designed for the units of 3*3 and is stored in the 2*2 unit, one has stored air in 1*1 area), if there is a fixed location for a specific bin one can free up space in the warehouse and company no longer pays for storing air around the items. Use specific containers like boxes, pallets, etc. for storing items which will help in utilizing the rack areas optimally.
• Avoid Manual dependency
• Once space is in optimal use, it is possible to elude manual dependency in the warehouses.  There are various irregularities in warehouses which are visible as well as hidden; the hidden irregularities cause more glitches than realized. One can avoid delays by ensuring the optimization of two elements equipment and personnel. Leveraging resources appropriately like utilizing time, labour, and manual functioning, as well as definite automated operations help to achieve the continual elimination of irregularities in the warehouse. The optimization of space utilization can prove helpful in ease of finding inventory, making it visible and avoiding unnecessary long travels times between the storage locations.
• Carryout the Process in Flows
• When a process is carried out in a warehouse there is a number of questions that should be asked; what are the volumes of units can be stored, what are the storing bin requirements for the units, what are the arrival and dispatch cycles of the units? One should carry out a proper analysis of the product before storing it. This will help in optimal usage of the stored area and the company can plan for storing other items in the warehouse for further usages and customer satisfaction. The analysis carried out should be based on the product flows in the warehouse, position of storage, the time duration of storage, tracking of the product storage. For carrying out such operations one can use automated storage and retrieving systems, tracking systems for the storage bins.
• Escalate the Process
• Following the four elements of SPACE, one can escalate their warehousing in a faster way which helps to achieve improved productivity for the companies. Automated systems help to minimize the errors in the systems caused in manual systems, helps to monitor the storing and retrieving levels to achieve significant growth in the efficiencies. Escalating the operations will lead in reusing the resources such as manpower in other operations as well the delays will be reduced and will bring customer satisfaction.
• A final word
• Optimized warehouse layout helps to achieve greater efficiencies, minimizes travel time, involves less manual dependency and helps to monitor the appropriate level of processes. Daifuku India helps to achieve the optimized space utilization of the warehouses in your manufacturing facility. Daifuku caters to a comprehensive range of products such as AS/RS-Unit Load AS/RS, Mini Load AS/RS, Racking Systems to its customers that meet their versatile needs in logistics and manufacturing. These systems increase productivity.
• About Daifuku
• Since 1937, Daifuku has been world-class Automated Materials Handling Company – conveying, storage, sorting, picking and controls. We have a global network of offices and subsidiaries that offer design, engineering, sales, installation and commissioning of an Automated Storage and Materials Handling System.
• For more information, visit http://www.daifuku.com/in/

Innovations in Warehousing

Transforming over time from godowns to warehouses, warehouses have grown to become the backbone of the manufacturing and the service industry. Traditionally warehouses meant humongous spaces managed by a huge manpower. There have been businesses that have been solely dependent on managing warehouses. Today, the very nature of handling such space is changing. 

With supply chain getting advanced and evolved over time, warehousing is on a continuous improvement process. The volume of material handling these days, demands use of automation instead of a large workforce. This is to meet the expectations of accuracy and on time delivery. In today’s world speed is everything, it can be your competitive edge.

Specially in the manufacturing industry, with lean manufacturing and lean inventory becoming the aim, having sophisticated material handling systems has become the need of the hour. Similarly, growing consumerism especially with modern retail and ecommerce in particular has led to ever increasing amount of logistics handling in the service sector, for which proper warehousing stands crucial for survival.

Warehousing in India

India- The changing scenario

Demand for modern and sophisticated warehouses has witnessed a tremendous increase in India in last few years because of influx of multinational companies as well as export-oriented companies who are ready to invest in the warehousing infrastructure.

Need for large scale warehousing or dedicated logistics parks is fast catching up in India. The industry is mostly fragmented and unorganized; dominated by many small players. Also, the role of warehouses has increased due to wider product range, emphasis on shorter lead times and constant changes in customer demand with changing dynamics of the country.

In a recent study done by World Bank, India has jumped 19 positions in the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) which means India is on the growth path as far as the Logistics handling capacity is considered. Also, in 2017, India made the highest ever jump to come within the top 100 countries in the “Ease of Doing Business’ index of the World Bank. This indicates that, India is becoming a preferred destination for global companies. 

 Although India is on the path of technological advancement, more needs to be done. Out of the many fields, warehousing and logistics management is one such important field that needs attention. The warehousing industry in India is growing at a rate of 10 percent every year. Considering the current scenario, the growth in Indian warehouse industry is led by various factors, prominent amongst them are:-

➢     growth in manufacturing, engineering and service industry;

➢     growth in e-commerce, modern retail, digitization, government thrust on cashless economy;

➢     growth in domestic consumption;

➢     fast growing exports and international trade;

➢     growth in private and foreign investments with government’s Make in India Campaign;

➢     introduction of GST integrating India into a unified market;

➢     increase in trade through foreign investments in the SEZs(Special Economic Zones)

➢     growth in openness of the Indian economy and market integration; According to studies, Indian logistics market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.17% by 2020 driven by the growth in the manufacturing, retail, FMCG and e-commerce sectors.

Why innovating in warehousing is crucial?

In today’s globalized world the cost of manufacturing a well specified product is pretty much the same anywhere in the world. Then there is the market price which is determined by the consumer base. So with the input and output prices being controlled by external influences, one of the few areas where companies can leverage competitive advantage is their supply chain of which warehousing is a part. So innovation in the warehouse become not only crucial but necessary for survival. Some other issues specific to industry and India are as follows:

Labour Problems- Labour in India though available in large number as well as cheaply, its not easy to manage them and they are highly unskilled. Compared to other countries, labour in India don’t receive proper training and thus lack industry knowledge. Hence, there are issues of labour union, regulation issues and differences between labour unions and company’s management.

Bulky Material- Industries like textile, iron and steel industry etc. handle huge quantity of bulky material everyday. A large workforce is required to handle such huge quantity and managing such a large workforce requires more management and safety is always a concern.

Environment issues- With mass productivity being the prime moto today, industries face problems of space availability, land issues etc. Sometimes challenging environment to work in like in cold storages, high work temperature areas also hinder the productivity of workers. In such cases replacing man with machines can be a boon .

Solution to problems of Warehousing

Automation and optimization are key to Innovations in warehousing.

Harnessing the power of technology and maximizing a facility's potential can be a competitive edge. This demands companies improve their warehousing facilities and advance their logistics handling with efficient supply chain management environment. One such expert in material handling solutions and logistics management is Daifuku.

Daifuku, provides its expertize in utilizing the warehouse space optimally with its custom-made solutions. Daifuku’s AS/RS helps pace up the movement and use the right amount of space with the least human dependency in a safe way.

A final word

Innovations in warehousing will most certainly help achieve improved operating efficiency, cut cycle time, prevent material handling loss and provide controlled access. Daifuku’s products such as AS/RS, Unit Load AS/RS, Mini Load AS/RS, Racking Systems help deliver speed and effciency for today’s supply chain management (SCM) environment. Daifuku caters to all types of customer needs and designs and builds ensuring high quality and long-term reliability.

About Daifuku

Since 1937, Daifuku has been world-class Automated Materials Handling Company – conveying, storage, sorting, picking and controls. We have a global network of offices and subsidiaries that offer design, engineering, sales, installation and commissioning of an Automated Storage and Materials Handling System.

For more information, visit http://www.daifuku.com/in/