In this month’s edition of Distribution Center Management, Geoff Sisko of Gross and Associates penned an article titled: “From the Golden Zone: Finding the balance between throughput and capacity is the key to good facility design.”

The key to good facility design is balancing the frequently incompatible requirements of throughput and capacity. Increasing dock space, for example, will allow for more goods to flow through the facility, but it does so at a cost of storage space, which adversely impacts capacity. You must strike a compromise between these factors to optimize design in many areas of the operation, including dock space, building clear height, aisle width, number of cross-aisles, rack opening sizes, storage depth, and processing space. Productivity generally benefits if the majority of activity can take place at the floor level, while the use of a building’s height will generally increase the storage capacity. How do you find that balance? Some areas to consider are: Building Clear Height, Aisle Width, Cross-Aisles, Rack Openings, and Depth of Storage.

The article details the trade-offs required in these areas, as well as some practical solutions to meeting your throughput and capacity needs.  Read the full article by clicking on this link (caution: PDF) or access DCM’s featured articles at this link.

In Part 2 of the Logistics Management series on distribution network modeling, Gross and Associates senior engineer Maida Napolitano details specifics about the location selection process, from the development of candidate sites to the final selection of a building. Maida interviews several logistics and real estate professionals, including Gross & Associates senior VP Geoff Sisko, for insight into the building selection process once the network modeling process described in Part 1 has been completed. Also included in the article is a location criteria checklist that will help to ensure the best available site is selected.

“Keep in mind that you’re making a 10 or 15 year decision,” says Sisko. “Let’s say you move into a 100,000 square foot building with an annual lease of $14 per square foot. Your site selection decision just translated into a 14 million dollar decision over that 10 year period. That’s huge,” adds Sisko. “You have to make sure you’ve picked the right site.”

Click here to read the full article. You can read the first part of the article here. For more information on how Gross & Associates can help you select a distribution location and site, click here to obtain free PDFs via email.

In February’s Logistics Management, senior Gross & Associates engineer Maida Napolitano wrote a featured article on distribution network modeling, the first in a two-part series titled “Locating Your Distribution Centers: Re-Engineering Your Distribution Network.” In this article, Maida describes the use of network modeling software to optimize a distribution network by reducing transportation and warehousing costs or improving service levels, or both.

This article features interviews with two Gross & Associates staff members who specialize in network modeling, Jack Kuchta and Bill Elenbark, along with two clients who worked with them on an engineering effort to optimize their own networks.

The most common driver for distribution center (DC) network re-engineering, says Kuchta, has been the realization that freight costs have a significant dollar impact on the bottom line. “With today’s rising energy costs, reducing transportation costs across the network has certainly become more pervasive and cannot be ignored,” he says. A network study may simply stem from operational growth resulting in a need for an additional warehouse in a different geographic area.

“Opening more stores in the West Coast, for example, may trigger a need to add a West Coast distribution center (DC),” adds Elenbark. Other reasons for studying your network may include mergers or acquisitions resulting in overlapping or excess warehouse space, new company policies and buying incentives forcing a shift in freight modes, or a need to reduce warehouse costs by investigating other areas with more affordable labor pools.

John Goione, who oversees the distribution of service parts and accessories to BMW’s retail group of car dealers and showrooms, found that transportation costs were just part of his bigger concern. “In 1999, we had two distribution centers, one in the East Coast and another in the West Coast,” recalls Goione. “But continued growth volumes, a hypercompetitive premium luxury automotive market, and rising transportation costs all compelled us to revisit our network.”

Click here to read the entire article. Click here to learn more about distribution network modeling.

In the January issue of Logistics Management, Gross & Associates senior engineer Maida Napolitano published an article about three companies’ efforts to automate their warehouses by using material handling technology to improve productivity. The companies profiled were JTM Food Group, Victorinox Swiss Army, and Corporate Express Canada. These companies found that investments in new technology resulted in productivity gains and labor cost savings that translated into more than satisfactory returns on their investments.

Most logistics managers seem to be satisfied with just “getting by” with what they have or profess not having the deep pockets that they associate with high-tech innovations. However, software has become cheaper and more standardized. Hardware has become more generic and maintenance-free. DC technological upgrades have not only become more powerful, but also more affordable. With increased customer demand and cost control efforts coming down from the C-suite, just “getting by” no longer makes sense.

Read the entire article here.

In the November issue of Logistics Management, Gross & Associates senior engineer Maida Napolitano published an article concerning Value Added Services in warehousing operations. Don Derewecki, president of Gross & Associates, is featured in the article, which includes the results of the 2nd annual Warehouse Operations Survey. An excerpt appears below.

“Eighty percent of respondents are currently dealing with some form of value-added services (VAS) in their DCs,” observes Don Derewecki, president of Gross & Associates (G&A), a logistics consulting firm based in Woodbridge, N.J., and Logistics Management’s partner for the survey. VAS is a collection of specific requirements mandated by customers, involving additional processing of a product or an order, above and beyond the simple picking of the product for an order. The survey shows VAS is rapidly becoming the norm rather than exception. Case in point: Wal-Mart is requiring RFID tags on supplier pallets; Home Depot and Lowe’s are calling for special labels on their products; other mass merchandisers and groceries are demanding display-ready promotional packs. With the rise of VAS, small manufacturing cells are inevitably making their way into the layout of what were once pure storage and distribution operations. “To cope,” adds Derewecki, “warehouse managers have been forced to adopt ‘production tools’ specifically in areas of workstation design and labor planning/balancing.”

Click on this link to read the entire article.

Gross & Associates would like to welcome you to our newly revised and updated web site, featuring a new format, new content updates, and helpful information to assist visitors with their material handling needs. On the front page, we will have news, articles, case studies, and other information in a blog format that will be constantly updated. On the interior pages, you will find the many resources that GrossAssociates.com has long been known for, including the recently revised Online Rules of Thumb for warehousing costs.

Follow this link to request literature from our office, peruse our Knowledgebase for additional articles, and participate in the Project Management Forums. Feel free to subscribe to the website by placing your email address in the space to the right, so that you will receive updates to the site in a convenient email format.

Thank you for visiting and come back often.

Due to a merger between our client and a competitor consumer electronics company, Gross & Associates was tasked with determining the future distribution network for the combined entities. Our client was in the midst of constructing a new warehouse in the Southwest, while the merging company had two distribution centers, one in the Midwest, the other on the East Coast. Both facilities were relatively new and could handle increases in inventory and volume. The new Southwest warehouse was also being built to handle significant expansion, with the possibility of a merger contingent on the construction. Due to the time sensitivity of new product releases to company-owned stores, a majority of orders were sent via UPS or FedEx overnight or 2-day shipments. Each company had negotiated discounts rates with their respective shipping carrier.

Gross & Associates was retained to develop a network model based analysis to determine the least cost distribution network that could service each company’s store sales requirements, including the location of each facility, the size requirements, and the suitability and cost savings in using one or more of the existing warehouse locations.

Read the rest

A building materials manufacturer with nationwide manufacturing locations had to replace an aging fork lift truck fleet and upgrade its material handling methods.

The company manufactures materials which are shipped to customers within the service region of each of its sixteen plants. Finished goods are stored both indoors and outdoors. The putaway operation began at the end of the manufacturing line from a palletizing station and finished at an outdoor storage area, nearly ¼ of a mile away. Management knew that a better method was needed.

Gross & Associates, the leading material handling consultant in the industry, with over 40 years of experience designing operations for warehousing, distribution, and manufacturing facilities, was asked to develop recommendations to improve the putaway operation and model the new process using computer simulation to help management with the decision process. Management needed to be convinced that changes to the current methods and equipment would improve productivity and reduce staffing requirements.

After an extensive review of the operation, Gross & Associates recommended that finished goods pallets be transported on trains of carts towed by propane counterbalanced fork lift trucks and unloaded by the same trucks at the storage area.

The existing operations were measured and benchmarked against industry standards. The information and data were compiled to model the output of the manufacturing line and putaway process. A computer simulation model was used to test alternatives to determine the equipment and staffing limits of the system at different levels of production.

The results of the simulation model showed that two forklift trucks working at 67% of their maximum capacity could handle the production rate of two simultaneously running production lines.

As a result of the analysis and conclusions drawn from the simulation model, the company implemented the recommendations. They were able to re-use a total of 24 fork lift trucks from its aging fleet significantly reducing capital expenditures. Equally as important, staffing was reduced by 25% as a result of process improvement recommendations. In addition to these cost savings, tighter control over the operation, improved safety and greater throughput capacity were achieved.

In the September 2007 issue of Logistics Management, Maida Napolitano, Senior Engineering Consultant at Gross & Associates and contributing editor to the magazine, discusses the process steps involved in the design of a new distribution center, or Greenfield facility.

The following is an excerpt from the article:

“Over the past 10 years, my colleague, Bill Elenbark, and I have worked together on a number of greenfield projects with a wide variety of clients for Gross & Associates, a consulting firm based in Woodbridge, NJ. Together, we’ve christened many brand-new facilities, sited them in better locations with improved layouts, more efficient equipment and a whole lot more of space. We both agree that the key to success is planning and scheduling details - beware of the manager who can’t be bothered by them.

Now a senior engineering consultant for the company, Elenbark’s expertise lies in distribution network modeling and determining the location of a new warehouse, while I’ve been mostly involved with new facility design and implementation. In this article, which includes insight from two of our top greenfield clients, I’ll relate all of the process steps Bill and I go through when locating, designing, planning, and implementing a new DC. In turn, logistics professionals can get a better feel for what needs to be accomplished if a greenfield project is in the plans.”

To read the rest of the article in Logistics Management, please follow this link:

How to Go Greenfield

Don Derewecki, President of Gross & Associates, discussed the steps needed for “Designing the Perfect Warehouse” with Inbound Logistics for a feature story in the May 2007 edition of the magazine.

To read the article, please click on the following link:

Designing the Perfect Warehouse.