Warehouse Manager's Handbook: 2013

Finding high-tech savings in traditionally low-tech places.

October 21, 2013

In today’s economy where costs are at or near all-time highs and profits are fighting to rebound, warehouse managers are forced to look at the bottom line on just about everything in order to find areas for new efficiencies and cost savings. In the days of bloated budgets, new capital expenditures were routine, but now companies are looking in every corner of the warehouse to find somewhere to shave costs without incurring big upfront costs in return.
Innovations in doors, racks, seals and shelters and other long forgotten items in the warehouse often offer greater value these days than ever before, with more and more companies choosing to update these and other areas of the warehouses for an improved bottom line at the end of the year.
Here’s a quick run-down on some of the easy to implement and affordable “low-tech” items that warehous managers are eyeing these days--items that offer an immediate impact on operations and faster returns on investment than robotics, automation and other more expensive high-tech products.

Impactable doors catching on

In food and beverage settings it’s important to maintain a “seal” on the facility to prevent contamination and spoilage, so whenever an overhead door is damaged it can compromise the facility in many ways. That is why more warehouses are focusing on the doors on the warehouse for cost savings, upgrading to impactable doors that eliminate damage and doors that utilize advances in speed to keep cold storage environments sealed and resealed quickly.
“In facilities where the temperature is zero or below, on the other side of the wall there can be a difference of 30 degrees or more,” said Kurt Angermeier of Rytec High Peformance Doors. “The door’s quick open/close operation helps contain and control temperatures and lowers refrigeration costs, so doors like our Turbo Seal Insulated door, one of the fastest cold storage doors ever built, is drawing a lot of interest for us.”
Door manufacturers are not only seeing more interest in impactable doors, but impactable tracks too. Since track damage is one of the leading causes of broken seals or gaps in doors, impactable tracks made from solid, ultra high-molecular weight plastic deflect forklifts and other material handling vehicles without damage or energy loss like traditional metal roller doors.
“Your dock door should be the last thing that comes between you and a productive, safe facility,” said Josh Brown, national sales manager at TKO Dock Doors. “More companies are finding out that investing in the right dock door is one of the easiest and best ways to keep facilities and products safe.”
Lastly, you can’t run all of the high speed doors without a digital system programmed with customized software. Angermeier also pointed out that systems designed to increase door functionality seem to go hand in hand with any warehouse door renovation these days. “These systems can be programmed to operate only during working hours, or inoperable on nights and weekends or whenever the facility is idle,” he said.

Seals and shelters

Advances in materials have allowed for inflatable seals and shelters along the dock to produce more energy efficiency, with longer life and less wear and tear than ones of the past. Today’s versions are more impactable and offer full-access around the entire vehicle, as well as systems designed to adjust and accommodate any size truck in the loading dock.
Both Kelly and Frommelt have come out with updated versions of the inflatable dock shelters for climate-controlled loading docks that don’t get standard traffic. Kelly’s new KI-450 and Frommelt’s ComboShelter are designed to stay sealed throughout the entire docking process, regardless of the size of the truck or how many forklifts go in and out of it.
Frommelt also offers an Under-leveler Seal that completes the fourth side of the environmental control seal by sealing the dock leveler pit.

High volume, low speed fans

More warehouse managers are taking advantage of high volume, low speed (HVLS) fans to ease the burden of the building’s heating and air conditioning systems and reduce energy costs for the facility. HVLS fans can cover areas up to 22,000 square feet and a 24-foot diameter model offers costs as little as a few cents per hour.
HVLS fans can be used in larger buildings with high ceilings, or floor mounted for unique spaces and facilities with overhead obstructions or limited access. Rite Hite offers a double-bladed HVLS fan called the Rouge that is billed as the “standard” in low-cost, energy-efficient climate control.
Companies like Big Ass Fans are making innovations in how HVLS fans and systems operate as well, launching an iPad app called BAFWorks, which allows users to control an unlimited number of fans from a single location in real time with the swipe of a finger.

Racks and keg storage

One of the more popular products being installed these days is the new TubeRack racking system from Hannibal Industries. The TubeRack system uses a dual-moment frame that allows flexibility both front-to-back and side-to-side, which gives it greater ability to withstand impacts and seismic events more safely.
Its horizontal-bolt-together modular design can handle more capacity with less steel in many instances, while reducing weight and stress on the slab. The modular design also allows for better future flexibility and lower freight costs over the life of the TubeRack.
Hannibal is also seeing competitors entering the market on keg and keg rack storage systems, similar to their Keg-Flo product that increases warehouse capacity by increasing the number of Sixth Keg SKUs stored in areas. The Keg-Flo will hold up to seven times more Sixth Barrel SKUs than current storage systems can handle, reducing travel times and lowering costs.

Insulated walls, wash-down and industrial curtains

With production picking up across the food chain many companies are finding that they need to expand or create space in an existing warehouse, but without the large financial support needed to take on big construction and renovation projects, most of them are being forced to look somewhere else for solutions. That is where companies like Randall Manufacturing and Zoneworks are finding their niche, providing insulated walls, wash-down curtains and other industrial curtains for any size, situation or application.
“Construction costs and facility flexibility are two of the major topics facility managers and owners inquire about during facility planning,” said Todd Jessup of Randall Manufacturing. “Insulated walls can be installed at a fraction of the time and cost of conventional partitioning methods, and their versatility allows the customer to reconfigure or relocate their wall with little effort or cost incurred.”
As the FDA and USDA ramp up inspections with increased scrutiny on food safety, products like wash-down curtains allow small- and medium-sized facilities the ability to expand without the huge capital costs of redesigning the building.
“Wash-down curtains are very popular in the food and beverage industry because the containment of overspray during the cleaning process has become more important to companies in order to reduce the actual drying time and resume production much faster,” said Kyle Justice, product manager at Zoneworks. “In some cases if it’s applied correctly, adjacent production areas can maintain production while others are cleaned, so a company can continue to generate products and avoid shutdowns.”
Insulated walls and curtains are also easier to fit around existing machinery; are very effective for use in areas between temporary and permanent construction phases; and can be installed in the sliding variety to allow for a physical barrier when needed, but moved out of the way when it’s not.
“Our InsulWall is one of a few products available right now that allow a facility to meet the challenges of maintaining a consistent storage temperature, which is critical to the future success of an evolving, more modern supply chain,” said Jessup.

I Knew We Had to Have That

LDF Builds a state-of-the-art warehouse in Wichita.

Several years ago when LDF Sales and Distributing, Inc., a Wichita-based wholesale distributer of Coors, Miller, Red Bull and other beverages, decided to more than double the size of its flagship Wichita warehouse, LDF’s Vice President-Project Development Gary Fleming saw the expansion as an opportunity to upgrade the facility’s equipment with the latest, leading-edge products for everything from materials handling operations to refrigeration, energy and air quality control.
“With this expansion, we wanted to turn an old building into a modern, high-tech building,” said Fleming. “That meant lots of safety and green features, including security, pressure and temperature control upgrades.”
At the suggestion of facilities consultant Steve Baker of Acme Dock Specialists, Fleming got in touch with beverage industry specialist Ken Markham of Rite-Hite and took advantage of Rite-Hite’s “Fly-In” program to visit their Milwaukee headquarters to see the products in person.

Doors, HVLS fans and dock levelers

With an initial interest in vertical storing dock levelers on the trip to Rite-Hite, Fleming soon found himself intrigued by a number of other products, particularly the energy efficiency benefits of Frommelt’s dock shelters and Rite-Hite’s high speed doors and high volume, low speed (HVLS) fans.

“It gets pretty warm in Wichita, and we always had issues with dead air spaces in the old warehouse,” said Fleming. “Anything that could simply and efficiently move conditioned air around the facility was of great interest to us.”

The visit also included a demo of Rite-Hite’s FasTrax high-speed doors. Boasting the industry’s fastest cycle times, they are capable of operating at speeds of up to 100 inches per second to maximize productivity, safety and energy efficiency. The doors are also impactable, a feature that definitely caught Fleming’s eye.

“When I saw them drive a forklift right into the door and it reloaded back onto its tracks, I knew we had to have that,” said Fleming.

Of course, the trip also included a demo of the dock levelers for which Rite-Hite is named.

Fleming was particularly interested in Rite-Hite’s RHV Vertical Storing Dock Levelers. Vertical storing levelers provide maximum environmental control to a dock area, as their vertical design allows dock doors to close to the pit floor and helps keep dust, debris and rodents from entering a facility and eliminates the energy loss from a pit-style leveler when stored. It also improves security by minimizing the points of entry.

Ultimately, Fleming put Rite-Hite levelers on all 15 dock stations in the new section of the Wichita warehouse. One station was built for deliveries from odd-sized trailers and open flatbeds using Rite-Hite’s RHH Hydraulic Leveler. Since three of the docks were designed for smaller delivery trucks that would be loaded and unloaded with hand carts, they received Rite-Hite’s RHM mechanical levelers. The inclusion of the mechanical levelers also provided LDF with a back-up loading option in case of a power outage.

Finally, in 11 of the dock stations, Fleming installed the products he had been eyeing all along: Rite-Hite’s RHV vertical storing hydraulic levelers, including two with extra-long 8-foot plates. LDF’s vertical leveler installations also incorporated Rite-Hite’s Drive-Thru Application, which lets trailer doors remain closed until the trailer is positioned at the loading dock. This allows for an uninterrupted cold chain and provides an additional level of security, with dock personnel having control over the trailer doors.

“Since we want to maintain positive pressure and control temperatures and energy use, it was the goal never to have an open dock door,” Fleming noted. “The new vertical leveler dock set-ups did precisely that.”

All the new dock stations were outfitted with energy-saving Frommelt soft-sided dock shelters, which are fully impactable and offer full-access sealing around the trailer, with two dock stations getting Frommelt’s ComboShelter, which is designed to handle a wide range of trailers, including trailers with lift gates and other rear extensions.

Energy efficiency was also addressed inside the warehouse. High-speed FasTrax doors were installed in four locations, including a high-lift model in the facility’s keg cooler area. The FasTrax cooler doors use a unique Thermal Air System and InsulMax curtain, which combines an R-4 curtain with a thermal air seal, providing the tightest seal on the market.

To maximize the effectiveness of the building’s HVAC system, Fleming installed six HVLS fans in air conditioned areas, as well as another in a non-air conditioned space. HVLS fans are less expensive to operate and more efficient than smaller, high-speed fans and a single fan can cover an area up to 22,000 square feet. They are also quite energy efficient; a 24-foot diameter model uses 1,500 watts per hour for cooling and as little as 100 watts hourly for destratification at operating costs of as little as a few cents per hour.

When used to supplement air conditioning, HVLS fans help lower a building’s perceived temperature – which means thermostat set-points can be raised. Since energy costs are reduced roughly 4 percent for every degree the set-point is raised, a 3-4 degree increase in set-point can reduce energy consumption by 12-16 percent.

The fans’ cooling effect was immediately noticeable to LDF employees. However, Fleming found they delivered a safety benefit, as well. The increased air movement provided by the fans decreased humidity and minimized ceiling-to-floor temperature differentials, thus increasing the surface evaporation rate and helping eliminate moisture build-up on doors and floors.

Once finished, the expanded Wichita warehouse provided LDF with the functionality, safety and energy efficiency Fleming had been looking for – but there was one surprise left in store.

“After a couple of months of operation, our accounting staff asked me if we’d had an electrical meter malfunction or missed a reading, because the utility costs were coming in at one-half of projections,” he laughed. “That’s the kind of surprise we don’t mind getting!”

Out With the Old, In With the New

Sales in the pallet market are expected to rise as recession-low supplies are restocked with new pallets.

Market research firm Freedonia Group released a report on the pallet industry back in August and while they expect the market as a whole to grow a modest 3.5 percent a year through 2017, the trend of switching to block pallets, new options in plastic pallets and a need for new wood pallets to replace old ones due to a shortage of reusable cores is expected to fuel the increase in pallet sales overall.

Almost two years ago when Costco announced an initiative to move entirely to a wooden block pallet, it was something Freedonia analyst Zoe Biller calls a symptom of the overall trend, but not a driving force in the movement away from stringer pallets and into block.

“Costco is part of a broader trend toward pallets that are easier to use, especially in an automated system or with pallet jacks,” said Biller in Modern Materials Handling magazine.

Sales of plastic pallets are also expected to grow, especially in the food and beverage industry where companies can keep tighter control over their pallet pools to take advantage of plastics’ longevity, and where sanitation concerns related to wood pallets and food safety regulations make plastic pallets a better option.

But wood is still the king in the pallet industry, still accounting for up to 90 percent of the pallet market as a total. Freedonia’s industry report estimates that 60 percent of the wood pallet pool are used pallets, with 40 percent being new, a trend that is set to change according to Biller. A lack of quality used pallets in the system, partly due to the recession when companies just didn’t spend money to replace old and broken pallets, is the main reason the 60-40 ratio of old-to-new might get closer to 50-50 in upcoming years.

Flow Storage System Accelerates Expansion

Food producer clears logistics bottlenecks with Steel King's solution

Expanding business in a tough economy isn’t easy, but before adding a 100,000 sq. ft. warehouse to its Stillmore, Ga., facility to accommodate new business Crider decided first it had to rethink its production and warehouse logistics.

“We’ve experienced tremendous growth over the past decade, resulting in our warehousing and logistics becoming a bottleneck,” says Mark Howell, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Crider, the market leader of canned chicken in the U.S., which offers canned meats and frozen, fully cooked chicken to a variety of customers. “We’d outgrown our old warehouse and offsite storage, and had finished product stored in virtually every square foot of available space. We had to streamline logistics to meet demand and continue growth.”

The company’s capacity was limited by empty pallets cluttering up production and by inefficient floor stacking of palletized product, which created inventory management, forklift access, and truck loading challenges.

“We had to move product to get to other product, which made first-in, first-out (FIFO) product rotation difficult,” explains Phillip Rehberg, Vice President of Operations at Crider. “Over-handling and over-stacking the pallets caused costly, unnecessary finished product damage. Forklift operators spent too much time searching for product to ship, which made staging and loading delivery trucks inefficient.”

To unclutter the production area and free up about 2,000 sq. ft. of space for more equipment, an Over-Dock Pallet Storage Rack by Steel King was implemented. Like a kitchen cupboard for the kitchen, this keeps empty pallets safely out of the way until needed in a specially designed, over the loading dock storage rack that accommodates empty pallets, skids or returnable shipping containers.

“To continue growth and clear the logistics bottleneck with maximum pallet rack space in a minimal footprint, a needs analysis showed that a warehouse dynamic flow storage system was the best choice for Crider,” explains Buddy Chadwell, Craft Equipment’s Vice President of Sales, who oversaw thewarehouse project using the SK3400 pallet flow system by Steel King.

In a flow storage system, dynamic flow rails are inclined in a static rack structure, allowing loads placed on one end to move by gravity on rollers to the unloading end, with speed controllers acting as gentle brakes. As a load is removed, the loads behind it move forward automatically.

Since the flow system depth, height and width were limited only by the size of the facility and capabilities of the material handling equipment, it was a good fit for Crider’s high volume, space efficient needs. Once loaded, FIFO product rotation is automatic and the rack eliminates labor and fork truck operation to arrange loads. Forklifts are required only for the initial and final unloading. Since only two aisles are necessary, aisle space can be reduced by 75 percent and up to 100 percent more product can be stored than with traditional selective pallet racking.

Because of the success of the flow system in the existing warehouse, an initial system of 864 pallet positions was soon expanded to a system with 1440 pallet positions, according to Chadwell. More recently, a new 100,000 sq. ft. warehouse was completed, which houses a total of 10,240 pallet positions of flow rack, including the previous flow rack, which was moved there and reconfigured to optimize storage at the new facility.

“Instead of inefficiently floor stacking product two to three pallets high, now we can securely store product four pallets high and twelve deep with the flow storage system, which maximizes storage density,” says Rehberg. “Once a forklift operator places a pallet, it automatically flows by gravity into storage. The pallets have designated entry and exit lanes and storage locations. This optimizes inventory management, minimizes overhandling and product damage, and expedites truck loading and staging for delivery. Before the flow system and new warehouse, we might ship 16 truckloads on a good day. Now we can routinely ship 25 truckloads in less time with less labor.”

“To protect the efficient logistics of our new warehouse and flow storage system, we wanted rack that would withstand inevitable forklift impact over the years with minimal maintenance and production downtime,” adds Rehberg.

Crider chose SK3000 pallet rack, a rugged bolted rack with structural channel columns, by Steel King with a number of rack features helped Crider meet its strength, durability, and maintenance goals. Compared to typical racking, the pallet rack constructed of hot-rolled structural channel column with full horizontal-diagonal bracing offers greater frame strength, durability and cross-sectional area. All grade-5 hardware provides greater shear strength, and a heavy 7-gauge wrap-around connector plate ensures a square and plumb installation with a tighter connection and greater moment resistance.

For added protection against fork truck impact Crider added Steel Guards, a pre-fabricated modular protective railing installed to protect rack at warehouse intersecting aisles, a high damage area where forklifts frequently make turns. Crider also installed Guard Dawgs, a low profile guardrail, to protect rack down aisles.

“Our warehouse logistics, which was once a bottleneck, is now a competitive advantage that enables us to efficiently grow our business while meeting customers’ needs,” concludes Howell, who is quick to show Crider’s new warehouse and flow storage system to customers and sales prospects. “Once someone sees our investment, they have confidence in our ability to deliver.”