The order cycle time or lead time from order receipt to dispatch is continually shortening and there is increased pressure on the warehouse manager to coordinate all activities to ensure that product is dispatched on time and complete. Many operations these days take orders late in the evening and dispatch the same night for next day delivery.
Managers work backwards from the latest dispatch time orders to complete the processes to meet the deadlines, making labor and equipment available at the right time. This process has to be managed precisely and be aligned with other activities within the warehouse.
In many operations receiving is carried out in the morning while picking and dispatch occur during the afternoon and evening as order cut off times continue to be stretched later into the day.
Depending on the method of picking, sufficient space should be made available at the loading bays to stage the loads and allow for checking method (whichever is applied) be it full-carton checks or random checks. If coordinated correctly, the picked orders should arrive at the loading bay in the sequence in which they will be delivered. That is, the last delivery on the vehicle will be the first order to be loaded.
Collecting vehicles should be assigned a bay closest to where the orders have been accumulated. Where vehicles are delivering multiple orders, a system needs to be in place to segregate these orders and make them easily identifiable to the loading team. This can be a simple handwritten pallet label or a barcode label. Companies with sufficient yard space and available trailers can load product directly into them and park them up, awaiting collection.
Where full pallet loads are dispatched it may be that pallets are pulled directly from the bulk or racked area and immediately loaded onto the vehicle. This minimizes the amount of double handling and requires precise coordination. Once the dispatch team is ready, vehicles can be called forward onto the dispatch bay. This can either be the driver of the load or a shunt driver who is loading trailers in readiness for collection by drivers returning from earlier deliveries.
As with the receiving process, the driver’s paperwork needs to be checked to ensure that he is collecting the correct load. The trailer should also be checked to ensure that it is fit for purpose, ie clean and watertight, doesn’t have any odours which could contaminate the product, is at the correct temperature if loading refrigerated product, and finally that the floor is damage free.
Where products are loose loaded onto a container or trailer, the use of telescopic boom conveyors will assist the loading process significantly eg. In a tyre company. Its advantages are safer working conditions, cleaner working area with better visibility, separation of forklifts and operators, improved ergonomics, no more rolling of the tyres etc.
