When our main goal is to improve efficiency we often need to introduce technology in warehouse processes. Processes that must respond to the change in the demandÂ’s pattern, with a big tendency to increase the number of orders and reduce its size. This implies major challenges for the warehouse design, because the standard designs can fail massively due to the variety of our orders and it can convert automation process in a limitation.
These designs may work on paper, since the methods are often used to size them (statistical analysis in Excel mainly) simplify the problem. That loss of variables can be fatal and make the theoretical good design work below expectations in the reality. Because we are speaking of actual orders whose dynamic behavior in the warehouse causes bottlenecks in manual and automatic points. This is magnified because of seasonal variations and the level of booming demand that every company has in its logistics chain.
There is an element that is rarely sufficiently valued in tendersÂ’ warehouse with automation: SGA software, which should coordinate everything and be responsible for automatic movements WCS.
The ability of the software manufacturer to provide imaginative solutions in varying scenarios, can be a real lifesaver. In addition, it can be much less expensive than raising changes in automatic installations.
In Tecsidel as a supplier with a long history of SGAs integrated with automatic support, we are convinced that simulation can provide much more security on the operation of our warehouse design. Simulation is the tool that will allow us to recreate in a virtual way the physical and logical environment that we build, with the aim of evaluating the installation performance in various scenarios of actual and projected orders.
Finally, the simulator must represent all hardware subsystems with sufficient precision. Once a realistic simulator is built, it is time to inject all kinds of scenarios in order to study the productivities and times that can be achieved in each one.
During the simulation it is always interesting to see the progression of the KPIs, to identify both locate bottlenecks and idle resources, which can occur in automatic or manual parts. A flexible tool for analyzing detailed information is Excel. Once problems are detected, it is time to readjust buffers, productivity, number of operators or tweak layout, and reprocess the simulation to reach a satisfactory result.
In Tecsidel we have SEGA SIM platform on which we build this kind of simulators for customers or their consultants to certify personally designs and adjust them carefully before investing. The same concept is extended to other logistics processes in the warehouse.