Rethinking the Warehouse

It’s part of the daily buzz of the factory and warehouse facility at our boiler production facility at Worcester Bosch. Associates in the Spares Dispatch team walk thousands of steps picking and putting together spare parts orders from customers and engineers. But this year the team won’t wear out their boots quite as quickly as a new vertical storage system and management software has been implemented in the warehouse that has streamlined and optimised what was once a lengthy, manual process. We spoke to Dan Cotterill, Supply Chain Engineering Manager, Worcester Bosch, who supported the rollout of this system about its challenges and benefits.

Prior to the rollout of this new system, the team in the warehouse would pack orders by manually collecting individual parts from across 8,000 plastic bins and 4 storeys of mezzanines, working from a fixed ordering and processing system. The machines, known as the Effimat and Classicmat, hold 15,000 parts in drawers and are automated to bring these down to the operator based on the customer orders. The Classicmat brings down large trays of parts for the picker to take from, whilst the even faster Effimat can bring down up to five different parts at once. This highly efficient new approach enables the pickers to process multiple customer orders at once, where they could previously only pick one order at a time.

Overcoming challenges
The implementation of the system was a complex project and provided some challenges that the team worked collaboratively to overcome. “We had to dedicate time to testing and customising the software in order to tailor it to the needs of the team and catch any defects because we needed it to work perfectly from day 1,” explained Dan. To achieve this, the project leaders ran four simulation weekends with a team of 17 associates that would be using the software so that they could identify any bugs or problems before it went live. “Although it was a big learning curve to start with, due to these testing efforts and the very visual software, the team found it easy to use once it was rolled out”.

Workplace wellbeing
Not only does this new approach have a positive effect on cost benefits and efficiency, in many ways, implementing the machines was a wellbeing project in order to benefit the physical and mental well-being of the team in the warehouse. With the spare parts stored across such an expansive space, the pickers often found themselves walking around 30,000 steps a day whilst putting together orders. The new changes speeds up the picking process, cuts down the amount of manual work the team had to do as well as providing an opportunity for the jobs to be rotated more, giving team members more variety in their work. Dan said that he hoped these changes would make this a much more sustainable role for team members.

Looking to the future
The new system has also sparked inspiration for development, with Dan hoping that in the future the team will have the capacity to handle things like same-day delivery. For now though, the new system is already producing long-term impacts by reducing waste and lowering our carbon footprint. “Previously, customers and engineers might receive multiple boxes in a day, but the new system can bundle orders together to reduce the amount of cardboard and deliveries being used,” Dan explained.

The rollout of these new machines and system have already shown substantial benefits to the efficiency and wellbeing of the team and will be able to expand and grow alongside the business.