From the Golden Zone
By Adeel Fudda on Apr 22, 2008 in Publish
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.
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