strategicinsight
ly during summer months when the
threat of thunderstorms is highest.
Many facilities counter this with on-
site power generators. Some choose
to power the entire facility, while
others restore power only to critical
areas, including freezers and coolers,
or to select equipment, like lighting,
conveyors, and sorters.
down, the design should allow for a swift
recovery.
One way to boost reliability within a
facility’s control system is to minimize the
number of control points. “Instead of 10
PLC [programmable logic controller] systems, we centralize the control,” says
Jacques Hasbani, vice president of software development for Fortna. He explains
that most of the facilities his firm designs
have a cold backup control box that is
plug-and-play ready, so if there is a failure
with a centralized control box, it can be
easily swapped out.
Hasbani also suggests a clustered design
for the servers that operate the application software and associated databases.
Using multiple servers to run the system
allows for higher processing speeds and
provides needed redundancy in case of
drive failure, he says. “We can provide an
uptime of 99.82 percent with clustering,”
Hasbani adds.
Even with clustering, facilities should
have a backup of their software and data
somewhere—whether it’s on site on
another server, stored at a service
provider’s location, or at a third-party
data storage facility.
Lead your league in rebounding
One of the most important parts of the
contingency planning process is outlining
the procedures to follow in case of equipment failure. For companies that don’t have
backup systems and equipment in place,
that will likely mean devising temporary
workarounds. For instance, if an RF system
or other type of automated picking system
were to break down, the workaround might
be to use the facility’s warehouse management system to print out paper pick lists
until the systems can be restored.
Some types of automated equipment
come with resiliency features built in. For
example, many storage and retrieval systems are designed with retrieval machines
that can change aisles so that if one
machine is down for repairs, another can
still gather products from the affected aisle.
Another way to boost resiliency is to
store products of the same SKU in several
locations throughout the building so that
orders can still be filled if the primary
storage location cannot be reached. SKUs
