ABCO Systems realizes the increasing pressure our customers are facing in an effort to maximize efficiency, reduce costs and streamline processes. Our goal is to provide services, products, and solutions to help your business thrive and meet your customer’s needs. With the rise in e-commerce, increasing costs, and the need to be competitive with high service expectations, ABCO Systems has partnered with Storeganizer for a solution to optimize space and decrease costs of operations within your warehouse, and increase picking efficiencies.
Optimizing the cost per square foot and organizing order picking as efficiently as possible are ongoing challenges in warehouse management. Pallet racking works well for high-volume, fast-moving items, but may lead to a big waste of space when it comes to smaller, slower moving inventory items. This is where Storeganizer comes in. This innovative, high-density storage system provides a slim fit storage solution that is ideal for small, slow moving items.
Based on a concept of vertically stacked, multi-row high quality pockets, Storeganizer limits the costs per square foot. Storeganizer is a solution designed to fit your inventory and workflow. With a wide range of sizes and options, items can be stored in various pocket dimensions. Pockets are barcoded and/or colored to minimize picking errors. Although lightweight themselves, these columns can support up to 250 pounds as standard, with a 10-year warranty.
Populating one bay in a rack, a Storeganizer is designed to accommodate small items in columns of suspended, easy-to-access vertical pockets. Storeganizer helps to optimize space; requires minimal investment as it uses existing racking; and enables quicker picking with less bending or lifting. The use of Storeganizer will not just improve the use of storage space; it will also optimize the order picking process. By streamlining this time-consuming and labor-intensive process you will earn back your modest investment in no time.
Safety is critical to the continuing function of your daily operations. Accidents can happen anywhere to anyone – a trainee, a worker who takes a wrong turn, or even an experienced operator having an off-day. Efforts to protect your racking systems not only helps to reduce damaged merchandise but it also helps ensure the safety of your valued employees.
Forklift accidents can result in pallet rack damage, costly repairs, downtime, damaged inventory, and injury to workers. Rack protection is essential to maintaining your inventory and key assets because they keep the structure safe at various impact points.
No matter the size of your storage facility, pallet rack protection will increase your productivity and eliminate damages due to narrow aisle for trucks, lifts, and individuals encountering sensitive rack uprights. These factors are important particularly when you consider the damage a forklift can cause. ABCO provides the most suitable protector or guard for your pallet rack to ensure safety and no damages.
ABCO welcomes the opportunity to visit you and assess any at-risk products. There are several ways to protect your racking. The rack aisle protector, rack post protectors, wire mesh rack guards, and floor angle guide. These all offer protection to the most vulnerable parts of your warehouse and business. They can be formatted into the size and shape to fit your protection needs. ABCO helps to protect your inventory, investment, and your valued employees.
Contact us here for all of your rack protection needs.
Supply Chain works to keep shelves stocked and packages moving to arrive at your door. What it takes to make this happen, is not something the average person usually thinks about.Even people that have worked in this industry for years probably never realized the full scope of our dependency on them.
Over the past few weeks, we have all heard about how essential our supply chain is to food, medicine, toiletries and all the other items we use in our daily lives.This is a topic that much of the world never took into consideration until now.The Supply Chain affects everyone, and yet very few are familiar with the term and how it relates to their daily lives. The convenience of going to the store or clicking a mouse to receive whatever you desire, is the result of a vast network of people and machinery working seamlessly together.
Products from around the world travel to factory floors, warehouses and distribution centers. Some products are then manufactured while others move quickly, like food, from a farm to a network of warehouses and then to your local grocer. Items like produce, meat and fish are moved by trucks, boats and even planes to warehouses and distribution centers where forklifts race to receive and breakdown orders in just the right quantities for your local store. Buyers use software to track usage, predict sales, and stock the shelves. The reason shelves go empty in times of crisis is because the normal buying patterns spike and the supply chain needs time to react. In the short term, the supply is disrupted. During a snowstorm or tropical storm, the disruption is as little as a day. This pandemic is taking a herculean effort to not only meet the needs of our daily lives, but to also support our health care system. Companies like Wakefern, headquartered in Keasby, NJ are working hard to meet the increased demands while aiding the Governor’s office to move hospital equipment.Some companies have pledged to produce new equipment in their factories, fly planes to move products quicker and share technology to produce equipment faster.
Other items like clothing and consumer goods have longer lead times. Orders for clothing, TVs and seasonal items are predicted and created months in advance.As these items arrive at the warehousing and distribution facilities, they need to have space to store them until we return to normal levels of use.These facilities cannot leave the items on their docks clogging up their ability to ship the items that are needed to help fight the Covid-19 pandemic.Many consumers have moved to ordering personal care, pharmacy, and food on-line. This shift has created tremendous demand within these warehouses.
On-line powerhouses like Walmart and Amazon have been shipping at record levels as the buying habits of many have shifted. The web of manufacturing facilities, shipping, distribution centers, and delivery vehicles have been relatively quick to react in the short term. There will be a review of our dependence on critical items that are manufactured outside the U.S. This pandemic will likely lead to a resurgence of American-made, and in many cases, NJ-made products that will shorten the supply chain and eliminate uncertainty. The Harvard Business review reports that the U.S. supply chain contains 37% of all jobs, employing 44 million people.These 44 million people are working harder than ever to keep New Jersey and our country moving forward.
With all this additional strain being placed on our supply chain it is imperative that companies that support them continue to do so.From the mechanic that keeps the trucks running, the planes flying and the trains moving to the maintenance person that troubleshoots and repairs a conveyor system in the middle of the night. It is this support structure that ensures these items are getting to where they need to be. Companies like ABCO Systems, located in Belleville, have teams of service technicians repairing conveyors and automation equipment, keeping essential businesses up and running.Their engineers have even sourced and designed temporary systems to meet the spike in demand.
When considering a new warehouse or distribution facility one of the first things that need to be addressed is your pallet storage system.In this multi-part blog we will look at the different types of storage available to meet your needs and discuss the pros and cons of each.
Selective Storage Systems
The most commonly used and the most basic of all pallet rack systems is Selective Pallet Racking.Selective Pallet Racking is typically designed with single and double rows of racking, spaced with aisles from 9’ or larger, depending on the lift equipment that will be used.
When we begin designing for a standard Selective Storage System, our first step is to evaluate the number of pallet SKUs and quantities of each that are stored at any given time. We then determine the type of rack and the optimal aisle spacing to match your facility.This is driven by many factors however one of the most important things is to look at the facilities column spacing.Many years ago, the easiest design would be a system with 40’ column spacing, utilizing sit-down lift equipment.In this scenario you would know that 2 single rows and one double row of Pallet Rack would fit perfectly throughout the facility.As warehouses have been built taller, the use of sit down lift equipment in the pallet storage area has given way to the more nimble, compact and higher reaching stand up reach trucks. These new lifts allow our design team to optimize space using narrow aisle and Very Narrow Aisle (VNA) configurations. This will be discussed in a future article.
Selective Pallet Rack is a good system when you are dealing with a multitude of different pallet SKUs.This system allows full access to each pallet without double handling.The reason this system is not the end all be all of pallet storage is the amount of space it requires to store your pallets.If you require multiple locations for the same SKU then this system may not be the best fit for you.
A selective system is a very good solution for almost any type of storage and is usually very inexpensive when greater density is not required.However, as you need more space and continue to grow you may want to begin to think of the other options available to you.
Call today for more information at (201) 507-0999.
Challenge: How will you deliver to your customers better, faster, cheaper than Amazon in 2020?
When Jeff Bezos entered the new world of E-commerce, he believed that he was entering unchartered territory. When he opened his first fulfillment center the world was waiting for 6-8 weeks for delivery and paid the mysterious “shipping and handling charges”. The fulfillment centers worked in response to catalog orders at late-night TV advertising. Much of the supply chain moved pallets and full cases through Distribution Centers (DC). 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of when Bezos sold his first book online, Douglas Hofstadter‘s Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies. Fulfillment centers would never be the same and distribution itself would be forever transformed.
Direct to Retail Outlets and Distributors
Distribution Centers spend their time receiving and shipping pallets and cases to retail locations for sale. The goal is to handle products as little as possible, especially when supplying the original distribution to the retail stores. As the product was sold within stores a replenishment order was required of the DC. These replenishments more closely resemble the work of a fulfillment center. This work is labor-intensive and the cost per unit increases quickly. Who operates DC’s in 2019? Common businesses that operate DC’s are supermarkets, wholesalers, and manufacturers but even this is changing.
No longer just an online bookstore, the rise of Amazon has changed the way the world shops for everything. The Amazon Fulfillment concept has set the standard. The “each pick” becomes the norm. The challenges that face thousands of retailers today are countless. Amazon’s “no regrets” approach has forced traditional retailers like Walmart, Nordstrom, and Macy’s to spend heavily to offer their products online. The consumer is equally likely to purchase on-line as they are to go to a store. Many of the great minds that streamlined the DC’s have had to rethink everything. The ideas of same-day shipping, free shipping, and subscription-based business models are here to stay. Not convinced? Walmart is on pace to grow their on-line business by over 30% for 2019.
Omni-Channel
The idea that you can do both within one facility is a challenge. The investment in “process”, software, skilled management team and staff is required. Forward-thinking has allowed traditional retailers to leverage their network of stores to act as fulfillment centers. Walmart and Target are offering more SKU’s for free same-day and next day shipping than any other competitors to Amazon.
The pressure to compete is tremendous. Rising labor costs and scarcity of labor within the US add to the challenges. Margins are impacted by the absorption of shipping costs. Deliver better, faster and cheaper will always be a challenge.
ABCO Systems provides both startups and established “brick and mortar” retail with insights into industry trends and provides solutions that reduce costs and improves shipping times. Contact us today to have an ABCO engineer work with you on the right solution for your business.
