What is Activity Profiling?

Warehouse Activity Profiling

is the analysis of historical
sales transaction data for the
purposes of projecting
warehouse activity and
determining storage mode,
physical layout, work flow
processes, and labor and
equipment requirements.
2
Profiling Database Source
Data
INV.
MASTER
Inventory Snapshots
Average Inventory
Levels


ORDER
MASTER
Order Header
Order Detail




ITEM
MASTER
SKU Number
Description
Item Cube
Pieces Per Case
Cases Per Pallet
Division
Product Group
Item Weight
Item Ordered
Qty
Unit of Measure
3
Developing Profiling Reports & Graphs
STEP #1:
CONSOLI DATE
&
CALCULATE
Inventory
Master
Data
Item
Master
Data
Order
Data
STEP #2:
ANALYZE (Sort / Rank)
&
PRESENT
Rank Item
Number
Of Order
Lines
Total
Quantity
Ordered
% Of
Total
Volume
Cumulativ
e Volume
# Pick
Days
Daily Pick
Frequency
1 355 1895 8971 0.5742% 0.574% 57 33.25
2 138SA 1820 7238 0.4633% 1.038% 57 31.93
3 353 1734 6630 0.4244% 1.462% 57 30.42
4 SW95A 1669 5266 0.3371% 1.799% 57 29.28
How Do You Design a
Warehouse?
Two Ways To Design
a Warehouse
Storage Driven Approach
via Cube Analysis
Picking Driven Approach
via Order Analysis
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What is the Storage Driven
Approach to Design?
PART I:
PART II:

PART III:
Define Your Storage Zones
Design Your Forward
Pick Areas
Define How You Will Plan &
Pick Orders
Designing a Warehouse
Part I
Define Your
Storage
Zones

Categorize Items By Cubic Ft of Inventory
.125 1.5 40.0 320.0
Calculate the cubic feet of storage
that each item requires and then
assign it to an inventory
container of the appropriate size.
Cubic Feet of Storage Required For An Item
Multi-Pallet
Drive In
Rack
Pallet Rack
Bin Shelving
Drawers
Develop an Inventory Container Graph
Inventory Container Graph
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
0.125 1.5 8 40 320
Cubic Feet of Storage Needed
#

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Now you can begin to think about what storage modes might be
reasonable candidates for the merchandise you are storing
Drawers
Develop a Pick Size Classification Scheme
Next develop a classification scheme for picks based on the size of the pick.
Usually designers will use pallet, case, and piece pick sizes
Piece Pick Case Pick Pallet Pick
Assess the Activity In Each Inventory Container
Inventory Container Graph
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
0.125 1.5 8 40 320
Cubic Feet of Storage Needed
#

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Assess the activity in the larger
containers to see if there is the possibility
that some of the items should be moved
to a forward pick area. The decision will
be driven by the # of such picks in the
container and the overall size of the
larger container storage area.
Piece Picks Within the Pallet Inventory Area
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
5
1
5
2
5
3
5
4
5
5
5
6
5
7
5
8
5
9
5
Cummulative # of SKU's
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Piece Pick
Activity
Curve
Move these to
Case Storage
Designing a Warehouse
Part II
Define Your
Forward Pick
Areas

Forward Pick Areas
Reserve Areas
General Process for Forward Pick Design
Questions that Must Be Answered
About the Forward Pick Area(s):
How many forward pick areas do you
need?
Determine how many SKUs should go on
the pick line
Removing unusual SKUs from the pick line
Sequence the SKUs on each pick line
% Items
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% Orders
Complete
Full Case Orders
Broken Case Orders
Overall
Order Completion Analysis By Size of Pick
% Items
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% Orders
Complete
Full Case Orders
Broken Case Orders
Overall
Order Completion Analysis By Size of Pick
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% Orders
Complete
Full Case Orders
Broken Case Orders
Overall
Full Case Orders
Broken Case Orders
Overall
Order Completion Analysis By Size of Pick
You will likely have multiple forward pick areas
For each Pick Size you need to decide if there are a lot of picks
associated with a relatively small subset of the items. If so, you will
likely want to set up a forward pick area for that Pick Size.
80% of Picks
from
20% of Items
These Items should go into
a forward pick area.
Determining How Many Items in Forward Pick
Number of
SKUs
% Case
Picks
Filled
% Days
Picked
20 33 99
30 46 97
40 52 95
50 67 93
60 73 92
70 79 90
80 81 83
90 84 79
100 88 68
110 92 63
120 92 52
130 95 44
140 98 33
150 98 25
160 100 22
Number of SKUs
Trade Off:
Space Utilization and Efficiency
0
20
40
60
80
100%
2
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4
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6
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2
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4
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1
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0

0
20
40
60
80
100%
% Case Picks Filled
% Days Picked
Generally to determine how many items you are going to put in the
forward pick area you look at the tradeoff between adding an item into
the forward pick area and the % of additional orders you are then able
to complete in that area.
Determining How Many Items in Forward Pick
Rank Item
Days
Shipped
% Of
Frequency
(By Day)
Case
Picks
% Of Total
Case Picks
(541,786)
Cummulative
Case Picks
(Out of 104)
1 S118R 104 100.0% 20045 3.6998% 3.6998%
2 S12DC 104 100.0% 10757 1.9855% 5.6853%
3 S23DC 104 100.0% 4732 0.8734% 6.5587%
4 522X 104 100.0% 3212 0.5929% 7.1515%
5 SP2I 104 100.0% 507 0.0936% 7.2451%
6 2091I 104 100.0% 14350 2.6486% 9.8938%
7 3232W 103 99.0% 16270 3.0030% 12.8968%
8 3232I 103 99.0% 16173 2.9851% 15.8819%
9 SPT8W 103 99.0% 8208 1.5150% 17.3969%
10 SP8I 103 99.0% 5385 0.9939% 18.3908%
11 SP8W 103 99.0% 5082 0.9380% 19.3288%
12 P8I 103 99.0% 3345 0.6174% 19.9463%
90
Designing a Warehouse
Part III
Define How
To Plan &
Pick Orders
Wave Planning & Picking Approaches
Daily Order Pool
Orders of this type get released to the floor
and picked in the following manner every X
hours
While designers make assumptions at the start of a design about how the
bulk of the orders will be released and picked, the details behind their
thinking are not usually flushed out until the end of the project. They often
also wait until the end to define the planning and picking approaches for the
exceptional orders.
Orders of this type get released to the floor
and picked in the following manner every Y
hours
Ways in which you can process orders differently
Order Selection Criteria & Groups
Rush vs Regular Orders
Geography (West Coast vs East Coast)
Orders Requiring Personalized
Merchandise
Single vs Multi-Line Orders
Types of Picks Needed to Complete
Order
Order Cube (Sm Pkg vs LTL vs TL)
Forced Upon
You By
The
Business
Efficiency
Opportunity
Assess the Significance of Single Unit Orders
Units/Order as a Percentage of Total Orders
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Units Per Order
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One of the greatest opportunities to improve warehouse efficiency is choosing
a different mechanism for picking single unit orders from multi-unit orders.
45% of all Orders are single unit orders.
Assess the significance of grouping by area
Reserve
(Pallet)
Area
Case
Forward Pick
Area
Piece
Forward Pick
Area
Broken
Case Only
Full Case
Only
Mixed
55%
60%
25%
30%
20%
10%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
% Pick Lines
% Orders
Broken
Case Only
Full Case
Only
Mixed
55%
60%
25%
30%
20%
10%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
% Pick Lines
% Orders
Mixed
55%
60%
25%
30%
20%
10%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
% Pick Lines
% Orders
Orders Completed By Area
Orders that require merchandise coming from different storage areas within
the warehouse may need to be picked differently.
Deciding on a Picking Approach
Single Order Picking Multi-Order Picking Batch Picking
After the different groups of orders have been identified, the designer has to
make a decision about how each group of orders will be picked.
Order #1
Order #2
Sorting Picks at End of Tour
How Will Orders in Forward Pick Be Picked?
75%
10%
5% 5%
3%
1%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
%

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0.5 1 2 8 32 64
Order Cube (Cu Ft)
Multi Line Order Cube
Good candidates for
Multi Order Picking
Multi-Order Picking Cart
Order #2
Order #3
Order #1
Deciding on a Picking Medium
Radio Frequency (RF)
Barcode Picking
Voice Picking
Label Picking
Pick To Light
For each picking approach
you need to decide on a
mechanism for how picks will
be communicated to pickers.
How Do You Plan & Pick Different Orders
Small Cube
Multi-Line Orders
Order Group Pick Method Pick Medium
Single Line Orders
Multi-Order Picking
Batch Picking
RF Terminals
Labels
Summary of Warehouse Design Process
PART I:
PART II:

PART III:
Define Your Storage Zones
Design Your Forward
Pick Areas
Define How You Will Plan &
Pick Orders
Observations
Every descriptive tool or technique seems to be
based on a specific need
Profiling/design is less about describing an as
is warehouse, than about saying how it should
have been
Its hard to integrate the different descriptive
tools and techniques
Can we build a comprehensive, computational
description from which all the different needs
can be met?
Model
Schema
Process
AMPL, AIMS, GAMS, and other
modeling languages incorporate
a reference model for the domain
of optimization models, and are
used to create instances of
optimization models.
Can reference models be
developed for the domain of
discrete event logistics systems,
or for subsets of the domain, e.g.,
warehouses, factories, and
supply chains?