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Sheet 06 · racking and rotation

Sheet 06 · racking and rotation

Beam runs, pick faces and the rule that decides which pallet moves

Racking exists so that a case can be found without being searched for. Four things make that true: a location written against every case code, a pick face at floor level, an aisle wide enough for the truck that has to work it, and a rotation rule applied by the record rather than by whoever is nearest.

One bay of racking in elevation: two reserve levels above a floor-level pick face Two upright frames carry three beam levels. The top two levels hold reserve pallets. The floor level is the pick face and holds one pallet, one deep, with its front open to the aisle. Each level carries a beam label reading run, bay and level. Reserve Reserve Pick face one deep Beam label: run, bay, level
One case code to one run wherever possible, so the whole of a code is visible from one standing position and a part pallet cannot hide behind a full one.

Goods in putting away

Put-away is the last step of receiving and the first step of storage. The location written on the booking-in record is the location the pallet actually went to, checked by reading the label on the beam rather than by remembering the plan.

Goods out picking from

Picking only ever happens at a floor-level face. Nothing is picked out of a reserve location overhead, because a picker on a ladder is a picker who has stopped counting.

Every location carries a label on the beam: run, bay, level. The label is the authority. Where a label and the record disagree, the pallet is treated as unlocated and goes back through the bench rather than being written down from the floor.

07

Runs, beams and the pick face

Reserve pallets sit in the beam levels above the floor; the face below them is the only place a picker ever touches stock. Four things hold a face, and a face that has lost any one of them is reported rather than worked around.

  • The face 01

    Floor levellevel

    One face per case code, and nothing picked above it.

  • The face 02

    One palletdepth

    One deep, so the oldest pallet cannot be walled in behind a newer one.

  • The face 03

    Its own jobreplenishment

    With its own entry, and never done in the middle of a pick.

  • The face 04

    Swept and squaredhousekeeping

    At the end of each shift, so the face can be counted at a glance.

An empty face is marked short on the list and reported, not quietly skipped. What then happens to the pallet is on the despatch sheet.

08

Aisles and the truck that works them

Plan of the racking runs with the truck route and the walking route marked separately Four racking runs stand in a row with three aisles between them. A dashed route runs along the aisles for trucks; a separate solid route runs down the edge of the floor for people on foot. A line crosses from the receiving bench on the left to a pick face, and a second line leaves a face for the marshalling lane on the right. BENCH MARSHALLING RUN 1 RUN 2 RUN 3 RUN 4 TRUCK AISLE WALKING ROUTE LOADED TURN
  • Racking runs
  • Truck aisles
  • Walking route

An aisle is sized for the truck that has to turn in it loaded, not for the truck empty. A counterbalance truck needs the width its mast and a loaded deck demand; a pallet truck and a picking trolley need the width a person walking beside them demands. Aisles are kept clear: nothing is staged in an aisle, not even for the length of one job, because staging in an aisle is how a pallet ends up in two places on the record.

A pallet crosses the middle of the unit once, from the bench to a location, and once more from a face to a marshalling lane. Any pallet that crosses more often has been put away in the wrong place, and it is treated as a put-away error rather than as a transport job. Pedestrian routes and truck routes are marked separately on the floor, and the two halves have their own access to the aisles so an inbound pallet and an outbound build are never in one aisle going opposite ways.

09

Rotation and the date on the case

The rule is applied from the record, because the oldest pallet of a code is very rarely the nearest one.

Why rotation is not left to the floor

The date written down

Rotation needs a date, and the date used is the one received, written against the pallet at put-away. Where a range carries its own production or batch reference that reference is recorded alongside, because a supplier’s batch is the only thing that can be queried back to a supplier. Household ranges do not spoil, but they do change: a printed card is reprinted, an outer is redesigned, a range is superseded. Rotation is what stops the superseded version of a case sitting at the back of a run.

Oldest first

The oldest pallet of a code goes to the face first. A face is replenished from the oldest reserve pallet of that code; a part pallet is finished before a full one of the same code is broken into; and a superseded case marking is picked out and held rather than mixed into a face. Each of those is a line on the replenishment entry, so the order a run was emptied in can be read afterwards.