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/

Non-Contact Power Supply Transport System Technology

In 1993, Daifuku developed the world's first monorail system that utilized a non-contact power supply*, which has garnered attention as the next-generation transport system to create a clean environment. The system supplies electric power to moving objects without coming into contact with them. The first system was delivered to the Iwate Plant of Kanto Auto Works, Ltd. in 1993 (photo). Since then, Daifuku's non-contact power supply transport systems have been expanding from the automobile industry to other industries, including semiconductors, food, and pharmaceuticals.

The noncontact power supply system was named HID, an acronym from High Efficiency Inductive Power Distribution Technology.

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  A Brief History of Development

  The elementary technology of HID was invented in 1990 by a group of researchers at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, led by Professor John Boys. Daifuku conducted research and development jointly with the university and successfully put HID technology into practical use. Our HID technology solved drawbacks of the conventional contact power supply technology using trolley lines and collectors, including collector wear, wear debris, and sparks generated by line separation. Daifuku signed a technical license agreement with the University of Auckland and has the exclusive rights to the use and sale of HID in the material handling market. At present, the HID technology is patented in many countries.

  Configuration and the Roles of Components of HID system

  The HID system consists of the following four components.

  HID Power Supply Panel

  The power supply panel converts the commercial power supply to a frequency suited to noncontact power supply and feeds electric power to the induction cable.

  Induction Cable

  The induction cable is a special electric line installed along the rail of a moving object. A magnetic field is generated around the cable in order to efficiently transmit electric power to a moving object.

  Pickup Coil

  The pickup coil is installed on the side of the moving object opposite the induction cable and receives electric power from the magnetic field around the induction cable.

  Power Receiving Unit

  The power receiving stabilizes electric power that the pickup coil receives and feeds quality electric power to inverters and servo drivers.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Features and Patents of the HID System

  Features

  The features of the HID system are that the induction cable and the pickup coil are non-contact and that the induction cable is covered by insulating material. It has the following benefits.

  (1) High reliability and durability

  Collectors for non-contact power supply require a refined 3D mechanism in order to achieve stable contact. The HID has a simple structure and its noncontact configuration allows stable electric power supply for an extended period of time.

  (2) Maintenance-free

  Conventional collectors may be increasingly worn out depending on the surrounding environment. Since the HID is non-contact, its collectors and trolley lines never become worn, and thus significantly reducing maintenance costs.

  (3) Applicable to clean environments

  The system never generates dust that contact collectors often produce. It is therefore indispensable for environments where no dust is allowed, such as clean rooms.

  (4) Applicable to environments where oil mist and/or water vapor occurs

  Contact power supply may not always be used in places where dust, oil mist, and/or water vapor occur. HID systems can be used in such places without problems.

  (5) Safe power supply system

  The power supply cable is entirely insulated and has no exposed parts, so there is no risk of electric shock. Electric power is supplied to the moving object by electromagnetic coupling and electric sparks will not be generated, making this is a very safe power supply system.

  Patents

  The idea for non-contact power supply can be found in a USA patent granted some 100 years ago. This technology is based on the accumulated knowledge of forerunners, including the law of electromagnetic induction. On the other hand, the development of simulation technology, the invention of elements which can be used in high frequency ranges, and advanced circuit technology were necessary to refine a non-contact power supply system to a practical level.
  Since the tie-up with the University of Auckland, Daifuku has applied for tens of patents in major countries. The following are the core patents.

  (1) Patent relating to the form of pickup coils and the configuration around induction cables

  With the assumption that moving objects will travel in three dimensions, simulation was performed to determine the support of induction cables and the optimum form of pickup coils. As a result, the present E-shape core has been employed (Figure). This patent relates to the configuration that provides a good balance between power receiving efficiency and facility costs and is most suited to moving objects.

  (2) Patent relating to power receiving units

  The power receiving unit must supply stable power to control devices, such as inverters and sequencers, when the number of moving objects is changed or when electric power is changed at the moment of motor startup or the occurrence of regeneration. This patent relates to how efficiently and simply several kilowatt electric power can be controlled.

  Conclusion

  The HID system is widely used not only in the automobile, semiconductor, and flat panel display industries, but also in the optical fiber, food, and food container industries. In short, what many users want from their facilities is high availability. Specifically, this means that maintenance is unnecessary or minimal, only a short time is needed to change the facility's layout, errors and breakdowns do not occur, and recovery from problems is very quick. In addition, the mitigation of effects on the global environment and the provision of comfortable environments to human workers are significant concerns. We believe that our HID system will be broadly used in many industries as an important support technology to meet these requirements.
  
  
  
  
  
  

History of Automated Warehouses at Daifuku

Daifuku developed the first automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) in Japan in 1966. The objectives for developing this system included achieving workload reductions and cost savings through (1) the effective use of land, (2) improvements in storage efficiency, (3) personnel saving and labor saving in warehouse work, and (4) improvements in management levels. At the time, single-story warehouses were standard type for warehouses. Logistics capabilities were not as advanced as current levels because loading, unloading, and storage work mostly consisted of manual labor, and stored goods were managed through ledgers and slips. The automated warehouse that emerged under these circumstances was a revolutionary logistics technology innovation that overturned the traditional concept of warehousing.

About forty years since the birth of this technology, automated warehouses have now become more high-capacity and high-performance through the expansion of models, including stacker cranes and peripheral equipment, while its purposes and industries and businesses delivered to have rapidly grown. Here we will introduce our automated warehouse market and technology developments, as well as future trends.

1970s: Spread of Systems Boosted by Increasing Adoption of Computer Technologies

As suggested by its name, automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) are systems that allow warehouses to become three-dimensional and automated, and they had mostly been used for storing finished goods and raw-material by manufacturers until the beginning of the 1970s. Furthermore, because automated warehouses were not necessarily low-cost at the time and the breakeven level was high, customers mainly consisted of large companies.

In 1966, we delivered the Rackbuil System (rack-supported building with an AS/RS, hereinafter "RB"), which was operated onboard, to the Electric Motor Department of Matsushita Electric Industry (at that time) as the the first automated warehouse in Japan (photo 1). In addition, we commenced with unmanned operations of a stacker crane called Rack Master (RM) that enabled automated warehouse storage locations to be managed based on X, Y, and Z coordinates and could be operated easily with a computer. In 1969, we delivered the first fully automated RB using computer control in Japan to the Nobeoka Plant of Asahi Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.

As a result of the possibility of controlling automated warehouses by computer, the accuracy of inventory management was improved, as inventory management could be done simultaneously with the retrieval and storage of materials. As a result, a sudden expansion of the industries adopting these systems began. For example, some of the largest automated warehouses in the world were delivered to the Kasuga Plant of Toyota Motor Corporation and the Sagamihara Parts Center of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., which are both auto service parts centers that manage tens of thousands of items. In addition, automated warehouses were also adopted at pharmaceutical companies, mainly for the purpose of strengthening the accuracy of inventory management and storage and retrieval management.

From the mid 1970s, the effectiveness of automated warehouses began to become recognized in the market and demand grew for automated warehouses that were more economic and lower-priced than building-style systems. In response to these needs, we developed and commenced the sales of the technical standard-compliant unit load AS/RS and the superfast mini load AS/RS

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

Samina Khalid Journey From Glamour to Glory

The thirst for knowledge, the sheer confidence in her work, and the willpower to go against the traditional ways of the society and work have paved the way for a successful career in Ms. Samina Khalid’s life. Machine Maker is proud to showcase the story of this incredible woman who is doing her part in revolutionizing the manufacturing sector in a way which many believed, wouldn’t have been possible at all.

Samina studied BSc in Biotech from Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain College after which with her alma mater as the University of Pune did MBA in International Business. She started off her professional life as an intern in the marketing department of United Breweries group and later worked for Yash Raj Films for almost a year. However, away from the glitz of glamour world, she found her true calling in the manufacturing industry.
 
She started her career in the manufacturing industry with CNC Servicing and Solutions, a part of HAAS Automation, a global leader in machine manufacturing. To prepare for the interview she had nothing but only a landing page of the company. Nevertheless, her ambition and determination helped her bag the job. On the second day itself, she was introduced to the massive machines and was left baffled by the thought that she now had to market these.
 
The role called for starting everything from scratch and raising an entire marketing team. Something that seemed like a challenge for any fresher out there looked like an opportunity for Ms. Khalid. She used this opportunity to sharpen her skills and prepare the grounds for handling tasks that are even more challenging. Throughout this process, she was pleased to have extremely supportive colleagues and boss like Ashish Lala. According to Mr. Ashish Lala, “Samina is a very goal driven person. As modern career women, she is very much focused, whatever work was assigned to her she did it very well and gave it her best”.

For more information: http://www.themachinemaker.com/machinemaker/-Samina-Khalid-Journey-From-Glamour-to-Glory