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June 6, 2006 Loading Techniques Can Bring Balance to Your Warehouse Manually floor loading parcels, fully automated loading systems, parcel loading vs. palletized loading…it is all enough to give a warehouse manager one heck of a migraine. Making everyday operational decisions are never as easy as they seem and anyone who works in the food distribution industry has experienced this first hand. Additionally, choosing the right way to load your trucks, tractor trailers, or vans is no exception. With many food distributors expanding their product lines to include a greater variety of products (for example: everything from asparagus to spiral ham), it would not be a stretch that a single distribution center may need to provide accommodation for everything from truckload carriers (TL), less-than-truckload carriers (LTL), rail cars, parcel carriers, and local delivery vans and trucks. Product loads come in all shapes and sizes from palletized loads, non-palletized unitized loads, crates, drums, carts, bundles, and bulk materials. Specialized product handling equipment needed often range from slip sheet devices and carton clamps to roll clamps and drum-handling devices, just to name a few. All of these reasons reinforce how the loading decisions made must seek to balance productivity, transportation costs, employee safety, equipment costs, and the protection of your products.
Palletized loads are fact of life for many food distributors and when it comes to loading palletized products onto the delivery vehicle of your choice (whether it is a tractor trailer or something as simple as a local delivery van), there are many aspects that affect the loading technique of choice. If the loads of your products are heavy, it’s possible that the capacity of trailer or container will reduce your loading options. With lighter loads, cube utilization becomes a key factor. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just determining the method that best utilizes the cube of the trailer. Many times when employing methods that increase cube utilization, you often increase the labor necessary to load/unload the shipment as well. This is where you must balance productivity with transportation costs. It would make sense to put more effort into making the most of cube with load’s that will be going further distances than those traveling shorter distances. You may find that it makes sense to straight-load pallets for local and regional shipments, turn the loads or use pin wheeling for more distant shipments, and if your business experiences overseas shipments floor load containers might be best. The following are popular pallet loading techniques:
· Straight Loading – involves using two-way pallets and loading them straight into the trailer or container. If you are using standard pallets measuring around 40x48”, then this should allow two pallets to be loaded side by side with plenty of extra space between the pallets and the walls. Although, this is the quickest method of loading pallets it does not fully utilize the trailer cube and may not sufficiently prevent loads from shifting during transport. · Loading Pallets Turned (or sideways) – requires the use of four-way pallets. In this method, the lift truck will pick up the pallet from the side and place them in the trailer. Once again in using standard 40x48” pallets, this should allow two pallets to be loaded side by side in most dry trailers. Turning pallets to the side gives the best space utilization for palletized loads and also provides better protection from product shifting than straight loading. · Pin Wheeling – refers to a method where you alter the direction of every other pallet. This style is more like a combination of loading pallets straight and turned. Pin Wheeling creates added stability by the interlocking of pallets with different load orientations. If you ship tall palletized loads make up of layers of stacked cartons, you will find that the lateral forces put on the loads during shipping can make seemingly stable loads lean or fall over in the trailer. This is especially a problem when handling tall loads that are barely stable when standing still. A perfect example of one such industry is the grocery industry, as it is constantly challenged to deal with tall unstable loads made up of a mix of dissimilar items in weight, shape, and size day after day. Since every load is different, its often left up to the skill level of the order picker to somehow assemble a stable load out of a little bit of everything. Many different issues come into play when figuring out which style of loading techniques will increase your warehouse productivity. Training your workers in the most efficient techniques will help them load trucks faster therefore getting your orders shipped out sooner rather then later. Often times a combination of the techniques listed above proves to be the best way to go. How will you know when you’ve implemented the right loading techniques? When you’re able to achieve balance in productivity, transportation costs, employee safety, equipment costs, and the protection of your products, that’s when you will uncover the most efficient and cost effective way. DIG A LITTLE DEEPER TO ACHIEVE THE BALANCE YOUR WAREHOUSE IS SEARCHING FOR! To Unsubscribe
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