Cost-effective and well-organized management of warehouse inventory is an essential component of managing a profitable business. Industries with high capacity inventory storage have had to come up with innovative methods to improve warehouse management in order to best optimize inventory space and operations. One way of improving and enhancing warehouse inventory management is using Pallet Racks.
What Are Warehouse Racking Pallets?
Pallet racking is a storage system that optimizes warehouse space by allowing for a more efficient way of storing products and items. This system uses multiple levels of storage to optimize space. The pallets themselves are flat units that can be lifted and moved with great ease and functionality. A company that is in need of a better system of inventory management will find that there are number of benefits to using the pallet racking systems.
Pallet Racking Increases Warehouse Efficiency
Pallet systems increase warehouse space and reduce downtime. By optimizing space, more inventory items can be stored which will reduce overhead costs. For example, converting 2-tier stacking pallets to 3-tier stacking pallets greatly increases space allowing for more items to be stored. Pallet systems can be 4 to 5 tiers high and can hold thousands of items in a variety of shapes, weights, and sizes. They can extend right up to the top of warehouse ceilings and are loaded using pallet loading forklifts.
Pallet Racking Reduces Product Damage
The use of pallet racks helps protect the stored items from being damaged which reduces costs associated with repair and replacement. The pallets are made of strong and durable material, and the units are stacked in a manner that maximizes safety and protection of the items.
Different Types Of Pallet Racks
Pallet systems are available in a variety of different types allowing any type of warehouse to benefit from improving warehouse efficiency. For instance, Block Pallets make use of parallel and perpendicular stringers to allow for easy transporting and handling. A pallet-pack is used to lift the pallet from all directions. A Stringer Pallet uses a frame of three parallel pieces of wood known as ‘stringers.’ A Perimeter Base Pallet has an omni-directional base that permits the pallet-jack to lift the pallet from all directions. Other types of pallets include ‘Push-Back’ pallet racks, ‘Slide’ pallets systems, and ‘Stacking’ pallet racking systems. There are also pallet racks that are composed of material that will withstand harsh environmental elements when placed outdoors.
Pallet Racking Provides Easy Access To Warehouse Items
Pallet racking systems are easy to access. The warehouse technician just has to use a forklift to retrieve or place the pallet on the shelf. Operational efficiency is improved because it is quicker to load and unload pallets. As well, the more popular items can be stored in a way that makes them easy and quick to locate. Production downtime is reduced because flexible and easy to manage pallet racking ensures that lines are stacked all the time. As well, it is much easier to store awkward, large, and heavy items.
Using pallet racking systems is a cost efficient method of making the most out of warehouse space as they allow more space to be used in the warehouse. As well, they reduce warehouse down time and improve efficiency with the end result being a more productive, professional, and efficient warehouse. When researching pallet racks it is essential that a business understands how they function so they choose a system that best meets their needs.
Friday, August 27, 2010
ORDER PICKING WITH VOICE IN WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT
Order picking with voice is undergoing yet another transformation. Since its pioneering days in the 1990s, voice picking consisted of predominantly proprietary hardware and software solutions, such as those by Vocollect, using mobile computers embedded with speaker-dependent speech engines. Then in the early 2000s, vendors such as Voxware started moving away from proprietary hardware and shifted to more open architecture solutions that they embedded in commercial, off-the-shelf mobile computing devices such as those marketed by Motorola and LXE. This open hardware era saw an increase in speaker independent technologies and the rise in multimodal functionality allowing devices to capture data multiple ways, whether via voice, scanning, or RFID. Both “proprietary solutions” and “open hardware” approaches physically require a mobile computer when picking. But over the past three years, the proliferation of high-performance wireless networks and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone systems has ushered in what could be a new era in voice. Coca-Cola Enterprises, partnering with Cisco (a leading provider of wireless networks) and Datria (a Lockheed Martin spin-off specializing in packaged voice-enabled enterprise mobility applications) helped to innovate this network-based approach. With this approach, there’s significant savings in hardware costs, because a company doesn’t have to buy expensive wearable computers for each of its users. Instead, pickers can use a less expensive wireless phone to call a phone number to connect to warehouse management systems (WMS) and other enterprise systems
Friday, August 13, 2010
Why Study Ethics?
Even granting that business ethics is important, many seem to believe that there is no point in studying the subject. Ethics is something you feel, not something you think. Finance,marketing, operations, and even
business law lend themselves to intellectual treatment, but ethics does not.The idea that ethics has no
intellectual content is odd indeed, considering that some of the most famous intellectuals in world history have given it a central place in their thought (Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, etc.).
Ethics is in fact a highly developed field that demands close reasoning. The Western tradition in particular has given rise to sophisticated deontological, teleological and consequentialist theories of right and wrong. No one theory explains everything satisfactorily, but the same is true, after all, in the natural sciences. Even when they grant that ethics has intellectual content, people often say that studying the field will not change behavior. Character is formed in early childhood, not during a professor’s lecture. If the suggestion here is that college-level study does not change behavior, we should shut down the entire business school, not only the ethics course. Presumably the claim, then, is that studying finance and marketing can influence one’s conduct, but studying ethics cannot. This is again a curious view, since ethics is the one field that deals explicitly with conduct. Where is the evidence for this view?
The early origins of character do not prevent finance and marketing courses from influencing behavior.
Why cannot ethics courses also have an effect?
Ethics courses have a number of features that seem likely to influence behavior. They provide a language and conceptual framework with which one can talk and think about ethical issues. Their emphasis on case studies helps to make one aware of the potential consequences of one’s actions. They present ethical that theories help define what a valid ethical argument looks like. They teach one to make distinctions and avoid fallacies that are so common when people make decisions. They give one an opportunity to think through, at one’s leisure, complex ethical issues that are likely to arise later, when there is no time to think. They introduce one to such specialized areas as product liability, employment, intellectual property, environmental protection, and cross-cultural management. They give one practice at articulating an ethical position, which can help resist pressure to compromise. None of this convinces one to be good, but it is useful to those who want to be good. It may also improve business conduct in general. How many of the recent business scandals would have occurred if subordinates had possessed the skills, vocabulary and conceptual equipment to raise an ethical issue with their coworkers?
Ethics not only should be studied alongside management, but the two fields are closely related. Business management is all about making the right decisions. Ethics is all about making the right decisions. So what is the difference between the two? Management is concerned with how decisions affect the company, while ethics is concerned about how decisions affect everything. Management operates in the specialized context of the firm, while ethics operates in the general context of the world. Management is therefore part of ethics. A business manager cannot make the right decisions without understanding management in particular as well as ethics in general. Business ethics is management carried out in the real world. This is why business managers should study ethics.
business law lend themselves to intellectual treatment, but ethics does not.The idea that ethics has no
intellectual content is odd indeed, considering that some of the most famous intellectuals in world history have given it a central place in their thought (Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, etc.).
Ethics is in fact a highly developed field that demands close reasoning. The Western tradition in particular has given rise to sophisticated deontological, teleological and consequentialist theories of right and wrong. No one theory explains everything satisfactorily, but the same is true, after all, in the natural sciences. Even when they grant that ethics has intellectual content, people often say that studying the field will not change behavior. Character is formed in early childhood, not during a professor’s lecture. If the suggestion here is that college-level study does not change behavior, we should shut down the entire business school, not only the ethics course. Presumably the claim, then, is that studying finance and marketing can influence one’s conduct, but studying ethics cannot. This is again a curious view, since ethics is the one field that deals explicitly with conduct. Where is the evidence for this view?
The early origins of character do not prevent finance and marketing courses from influencing behavior.
Why cannot ethics courses also have an effect?
Ethics courses have a number of features that seem likely to influence behavior. They provide a language and conceptual framework with which one can talk and think about ethical issues. Their emphasis on case studies helps to make one aware of the potential consequences of one’s actions. They present ethical that theories help define what a valid ethical argument looks like. They teach one to make distinctions and avoid fallacies that are so common when people make decisions. They give one an opportunity to think through, at one’s leisure, complex ethical issues that are likely to arise later, when there is no time to think. They introduce one to such specialized areas as product liability, employment, intellectual property, environmental protection, and cross-cultural management. They give one practice at articulating an ethical position, which can help resist pressure to compromise. None of this convinces one to be good, but it is useful to those who want to be good. It may also improve business conduct in general. How many of the recent business scandals would have occurred if subordinates had possessed the skills, vocabulary and conceptual equipment to raise an ethical issue with their coworkers?
Ethics not only should be studied alongside management, but the two fields are closely related. Business management is all about making the right decisions. Ethics is all about making the right decisions. So what is the difference between the two? Management is concerned with how decisions affect the company, while ethics is concerned about how decisions affect everything. Management operates in the specialized context of the firm, while ethics operates in the general context of the world. Management is therefore part of ethics. A business manager cannot make the right decisions without understanding management in particular as well as ethics in general. Business ethics is management carried out in the real world. This is why business managers should study ethics.
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