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matters By John Darker, AMBIM
Mechanical handling in distribution --a consultant's approach
PROFESSIONAL transport managers have become increasingly aware of the significance of mechanical handling facilities in warehouses and distribution depots. It is hard to think of examples of quick turn-round of vehicles where mechanical aids are not provided in terminals or, indeed, on the vehicles themselves. The few examples of imaginative depot design merely highlight the lack of sensible loading and off-loading aids at the great majority of operating points. Campaigns to turn round lorries faster make little impact because practical difficulties deter all but the most go-ahead managements from undertaking a comprehensive study of the root causes.
C. G. Chantrill and Partners Ltd are specialists M materials handling, mechanization and automation and much of their work in the last 25 years has concerned the design of warehouses and terminals employing modern logistical methods. Mr Guy Chantrill, who founded the firm in 1946, was trained as an engineer by Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd. He was responsible at the War Office for directing the training aspects of REME and RAOC during the war--a good background for bold peace-time innovations.
The Chantrill firm's approach is thorough-going, realizing that it is not in the interests of client firms to "tinker" with a terminal or depot that suffers from occasional bottlenecks. They deplore the fact that distribution has not received a fraction of the attention given to production efficiency. Only when it has become crystal clear that a firm's marketing plans are being prejudiced by failure to look at the total distribution problem is there a readiness to seek expert advice. Forethought can save vast sums of money: "That is why we look at the total strategy of a client firm before we think about hardware". said Guy Chantrill. The possibility of large money savings when distribution strategies are looked at globally does not obscure the need for detailed study of particular facets. Management effort is not always devoted to cost reduction in the most rewarding sectors.
Wrong things, wrong time Materials handling activities, stores inventory and materials of manufacture may absorb up to 60 per cent of costs in relation to sales income, yet they are often
controlled by a department which accounts for a mere 10 per cent of the cost of total control effort. Transport and distribution managers, particularly, should understand that a given investment will not show the maximum return if it is spent on the wrong things at the wrong time.
Detailed surveys of a manufacturing company's distribution logistics may lead to recommendations by consultants for considerable investment. Chantrill and Partners have worked out a comprehensive procedure which is designed to give the client complete control over the approval, co-ordination and implementation of all recommendations made by the consultants or other participants in the replanning exercise. It ensures that there is no risk of any work being undertaken or of expenditure being incurred without the prior agreement of the client firm. The procedure ensures the fullest participation of the client firm's management who are thus equipped to extend and develop the planned facilities.
This point is important for a company embarking on a development programme involving reorganization, new premises and layouts, improved equipment and modified procedures, requires to know that the knowledge and experience of all interested members of the management can be deployed to the desired end. Frequently, a number of organizations will be jointly involved in such an exercise. When consultants are employed their specialized knowledge must be integrated with that of the responsible executives.
Chantrill and Partners press for the drafting, at an early stage, of a programme of work which specifies each project and its attendant problems. It is rare for any problem in distribution to concern only one departmental interest. The co-operation of other affected executives must be secured for profitable results. Developments need to be reviewed frequently to ensure that proper progress is maintained and that all the original objectives are being achieved.
In sum, all the interests concerned (operational, technical and financial) must be duly consulted and authorities must be established to control the various stages of the work.
The operational interests are concerned with the functioning of the part of the organization under review. The technical executives brought into the planning must safeguard the acceptability and feasibility of
the proposals. The financial people must look to the economic justification of the project and they must control expenditure.
In Chantrill and Partners' experience best results are achieved if two "authorities" are established, one to approve proposals at their various stage and an "advisory" authority responsible for furnishing the approving authority with competent proposals.
In practice, a development committee is usually set up to serve as the advisory authority and its members will represent the various interests affected, not least the transport and distribution element in a project impinging on those functions. Working to defined terms of reference the proceedings of the development committee are minuted and original data is up-dated or modified when necessary.
Recommendations and submissions to the committee should take the form of written papers circulated to members in advance. This allows members to check data submitted with their own departmental records. It ensures productive meetings and avoids the need for extensive report writing. The whole exercise is designed to avoid the danger of proceeding against the interests of any particular section of the organization concerned. Naturally, the presence of the appropriate interest or executive often enables barriers to progress to be removed.
Chantrill and Partners work though five divisions. The major projects division undertakes feasibility studies involving warehousing, distribution and transport, through-freight handling systems (road, rail, sea and air), transport terminal design, location studies for premises.
There is a long-range planning division which designs premises, terminals, etc, and lays down their specification, and gives advice on communication, documentation and control problems.
Vehicle routeing The materials handling team handles design and layout problems in distribution and transit depots, installs vehicle routeing and control systems and advises on internal and external transport systems, network analysis, etc. The industrial engineering specialists are involved with things like product planning, value analysis, work study, incentive schemes, stock control, planned maintenance, and the like. Those who think that product planning has no relation to transport should reflect on the distribution economies made possible when the unit volume of a product is designed—to give a simple example—exactly to fit a standard pallet or container when dispatched in economical lot sizes.
The engineering division undertakes the design of mechanical handling and automation equipment, control engineering, special-purpose equipment and set-ups. etc. The firm also has a management division which makes the adjustment to a company's organization structure and management procedures following a feplanning of physical resources.
Chantrill and Partners form part of a consortium known as International Transport Consultants. Set up because of developments such as containerization, ITC brings together specialists in cargo handling, operational research, investment planning, economic research and air transport.
High warehouses With much experience of transport depot and warehouse design Chantrill and Partners have undertaken the construction of seven different steel stockholding warehouses each with entirely different service requirements and each with building construction and equipment different from the rest for this reason. Mr David Stern, a Chantrill consultant with much experience in the transport and containerization field, favours 1004 high warehouses on economic grounds but regrets that in most areas planning authorities tend to look askance at this.
David Stern points to the immense variety of vehicle body sizes and their various axle loadings and overhangs which contribute to difficulties in planning rapid loading and off-loading. Given more standardization of vehicle platform areas mechanical handling engineers could more readily design the right equipment for rapid turn-round. Chantrill and Partners find that client firms are often helped greatly by perspective drawings, and scale models, to understand the significance of design concepts. Another practical aid was the preparation of loading efficiency tables comparing the stowability of ISO containers with packages of various heights using no pallets, or with single, double or treble pallet stacking.
A recent assignment of Guy Chantrill in South Africa high-lighted the need for adequate vehicle marshalling areas to be provided at a container consolidating depot. With a designed through-put of 15 containers a day and assuming that each container is packed with 80 x 5cwt packages, it was evident that a great number of vehicles would be bringing in "smalls" consignments daily and that the client's original ideas of vehicle marshalling areas was quite inadequate.
Over 000,000 was saved by one client needing a 200,000 sq ft warehouse by providing the same services on an area of 70,000 sq ft. A new footwear warehouse for which initial estimates indicated a total cost of 025,000—against a justifiable budget of £250,004 was finally built for under £170,000.