dling investment until it is needed, rather than forcing
premature investment in a costly, down-the-road
requirement.
Send in the clones
Within the facility, our bias favors the addition of clone
pick/pack/ship modules around a central warehous-ing/storage module. An effective design could easily
accommodate a four-module facility. To be effective,
traffic flows and total land requirements for just such an
expansion must be considered from day one. Outbound
dock doors are located on the long sides of each shipping module, with inbound receiving doors on both
ends of the warehouse/storage module. It almost goes
without saying that knowing which walls to remove is
critical to design success.
The design process should reveal an optimum-sized
fulfillment module. When the market demand is some
multiple of that “natural” facility size, the answer is not
to create a bigger, more complicated physical solution.
Instead, create enough clones, or mirror images, of the
module to meet demand; then, stage their construction
and installation to parallel the pace of marketplace
growth.
This “cloning” process has several advantages, including the prudent management of capital investment. It
also results in a distribution center in which shutdown
in one module does not cripple the entire facility. That is
a huge advantage in a world of demanding customers.
The managed growth aspect is powerful. Each new
shipping module adds outbound dock doors and is
accompanied either by filling in existing warehouse storage capacity or by adding more to reach the ultimate
design state. Admittedly, careful design of internal activities in the warehouse is required to establish replenishment flows to each of the pick/pack/ship modules.
This has been a lightning tour through an alternative
approach to planning and handling growth. Not all of
the recommendations are easy sells. When construction
costs approach $100 a square foot, the CFO is likely to
look askance at an “extra” 50,000 square feet, unless you
can show the alternative cost of tear-down and rebuild.
The keys are vision, courage, attention to detail, and
knowing where the walls are coming down. This proactive approach is difficult and costly, but it works. The
alternative is reactive and incredibly expensive—and it
doesn’t work.
