Warehouse fine tuning and expansion
  
LITE-LICHT GmbH in Herzebrock belongs to the most experienced and highly competent manufacturers of technical and decorative lights. Through a close-knit network of distributors and representatives, with outlets in France, England, Hungary, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Croatia, LITE products are represented through the whole of Europe. Lite-Licht runs a central warehouse in Herzebrock. Customers, amongst others, are do-it-yourself stores, the furniture industry, chain stores and dealers. 12,000 pallet spaces have been installed in an area of 11,000qm using very narrow aisle technology. 300 orders per day, consisting of 1,500 articles, are processed every day by 25 full time employees.

Core problems

 

• Long distances from working areas to the warehouse
• Labour intensive final packing
• Order picking with one man, one order per sheet
• Insolvency of warehouse management system provider
• Various functions missing from the warehouse management system

The task requirements

viaLog was assigned to examine the following questions:

• Which kinds of material flow, order picking and packing can be recommended as being more efficient and labour saving?
• Is the warehouse sufficiently large enough to cope with the foreseen company growth?
• What level of operating efficiency should be targeted and how would the implementation plans look?

The assessment of the actual data took place on the premises. This consisted of an ABC-analysis and a projection of the data for the following year. An analysis of the results and an evaluation of the alternatives led to an implementation proposal on the part of viaLog. The planning was underpinned by the calculation of the required investment with the foreseen operating efficiency.

The solution

The proposal called for a considerable reduction of stock and material flow. Furthermore it entailed a structured scheduling of work up to the point of the maximum expansion (the doubling of the warehouse surface area).

 

viaLog recommended a  substantial reduction of the order picking depot, the introduction of flow-through channels with a racking system for boxes, the separation of supply and order picking, the continuous support and management of the process with a new warehouse management system. Other highlights:

 

• Separate handling of fast moving products in a satellite storage unit
• Order picking trucks with radio data transmission support, up to three order picking assignments per trip
• Modular set-up of ergonomic packing spaces
• Order picking of particular articles directly in the packing space

 

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