Material Handling Student Design Competition 20012002

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Material Handling Student Design Competition
2001-2002

• Contest Rules Case Content
• Sponsored by
• College Industry Council on Material Handling
  Education (CICMHE)
• Design Plans IdeasGross Associates

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Project Summary

• Student teams will design a distribution center
  using good material handling practices. The
  project will require analysis and design of
  material flow, selection of appropriate material
  handling equipment, and a detailed description of
  the operation. The final designs will be judged
  in a competition.
• Detailed case study files available at
• www.mhia.org/cicmhe

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Contest Information Rules

• Teams are limited to a total of four members.  No
  more than 2 of the 4 may be graduate students.
• Only students currently enrolled in college
  courses are eligible to participate.
• Only one (1) entry per college/university will be
  accepted.
• Reports are limited to thirty (30) total pages,
  including appendices.
• Projects should be completed over a 5-week period
  in either the Fall 2001 or Spring 2002 semesters.
• Teams must complete all of the work themselves.
  They may receive only limited guidance and
  direction from faculty advisors or industry
  professionals.
• Students may use technical equipment catalogs or
  internet sites as resources in choosing equipment
  for their design.
• A faculty advisor is expected to distribute and
  explain the contest rules to their student teams,
  collect the submissions, choose the best entry
  from their school and submit it by the contest
  timeline.
• Reports will be judged by representatives from
  DPI, Gross, and CICMHE.

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Team Deliverables

• Five copies of the report (30 pages max) which
  must include
• A written description of the operation and the
  decisions that were made during design.
• A list of the equipment used in the operation.
• A 3.5diskette (labeled with team members names
  and school) that includes
• A layout of the final design submitted as an
  AutoCAD (.dwg) or Adobe (.pdf) file.
• A digital photo of the student team. (.jpg file)

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Final Reports must be postmarked by June 1,
2001and sent to

• Dr. John S. Usher
• Department of Industrial Engineering
• University of Louisville
• Louisville, KY 40292
• [phone]
• usher_at_louisville.edu
• The developers of this case will not answer
  questions regarding case content nor will they
  provide any additional information to student
  teams. Teams are expected to make and justify
  their own assumptions in areas where the
  information provided is unclear or insufficient.

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Timeline

• September 2001
• Case study files are available for download by
  participating colleges and universities.
• May 31, 2002
• Deadline for receiving entries.
• July 1, 2002
• Entries are reviewed and a winners list is
  generated.
• November 2002
• Winning entries appear in DPI issue.

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Prizes

• 1st Place - 1500
• 2nd Place - 1000
• 3rd Place - 500
• In addition, the academic departments of the top
  three finishers will each receive a 500
  contribution for their participation.

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Sneaky SneakersExisting Conditions
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Company Profile

• Sneaky Sneakers (SS) is a retailer that sells
  athletic shoes in it own stores. It currently
  operates 500 stores that are located primarily in
  shopping malls. They have recently opened their
  website and are now selling shoes directly to
  consumers. They have outgrown their current
  facilities, and they need to design a new
  distribution center that will be able to handle
  their retail and internet business in the same
  facility.

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Facility Description

• Sneaky Sneakers has found a property for their
  new distribution center. This 200,000 square
  foot existing facility features 32-0 available
  clear stacking height to the top of the top load
  (including clearances required for overhead
  sprinklers). SS would have to sign a 5 year
  lease on the facility. The facility lease cost
  is 4/square foot/year. The landlord will allow
  SS to lease the space they will require for their
  operation. Any unused space by SS may be leased
  to another party and will not be available to SS
  after that.

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Empty Facility Space(file available on web site)
Typical Bay is 55-0 x 44-6
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Operational Details

• Sneaky Sneakers has a warehouse where they house
  their current operations. This warehouse is
  approximately 75,000 square feet. Cases are
  received floor-stacked in containers from
  overseas. Pallets are built manually on the
  receiving dock and then moved to storage. All
  product is stored in pallet lanes. Not all
  pallets are stored in this facility. SS uses
  another remote warehouse to store overflow
  pallets. Pallets from the overflow warehouse
  arrive already palletized. Cases are picked from
  pallets on the floor to complete orders. Manual
  pallet jacks are used to travel the warehouse and
  build orders. Completed pallets are moved to the
  shipping dock where they are stretch-wrapped and
  paperwork is generated. Pallets are then shipped
  via LTL carriers to the retail stores.

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Future Conditions
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Future Conditions

• The current operation supports 500 retail
  stores. A store normally receives a
  replenishment order every 2 weeks. A normal
  replenishment order is 5 pallets and consists of
  mixed SKUs on all pallets. SS plans on adding an
  additional 75 stores per year for the next few
  years. SSs new internet-catalog business is
  just taking off as well. They currently offer
  100 SKUs to their online customers. The are
  fulfilling 250 orders/day out of their online
  business. They hope to grow this area of their
  business at 20 per year and expand their online
  catalog to include all of their SKUs
  (approximately 2000).

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Returns

• SS Management anticipates Returns becoming a
  significant operation with the expansion of their
  internet-catalog business. It is anticipated
  that anywhere from 3 to 15 of all orders will
  be returned. SS needs to have a work area
  designed that will allow for the quick and
  efficient processing of a returned merchandise,
  and with flexibility to handle the high or the
  low end of the returns rate.

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Product Information

• Cartons range in size from 16x12x8 (48
  cartons/pallet) to 28x18x12 (16 cartons per
  pallet)
• Pallets hold approximately 50 cubic feet of
  product
• Current operations have been found to have
  insufficient receiving and shipping staging. On
  peak days, pallets from both docks clog up the
  aisles in the storage/picking area.
• Damage of cartons is currently a major problem.
• All product is received in cartons. The retail
  replenishment business does not require the
  breaking of the full cases. The new internet
  business has required that pickers open a case up
  to remove one pair of shoes to fill an order.

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Operational Details

• A one shift operation is now in place. SS hope
  to maintain this in the future.
• Receiving occurs between 800am and 1130 am.
• Large inventory items are stored in bulk floor
  lanes (average 2.5 pallets high).
• Most SKUs have picking locations on the floor
  that can be accessed by pickers. Some SKUs
  require pallet juggling to complete orders.
• Carriers arrive between 2pm and 430pm daily. On
  an average day, approximately 1/2 of the staged
  product is shipped. The average stay for a case
  on the shipping dock is 1.8 days.

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Operational Data
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Operational Data

• There has been some limited analysis of the
  current state of Sneaky Sneakers operation. The
  following data reports have been made available
  for your use
• Receiving Log - Last 3 weeks
• Inventory Profile - Peak inventory level
• Shipping Profile - Peak shipping month
• Order Characteristics Lines/Order
  Cartons/Order

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Receiving Log
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Inventory Data
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Shipping Data
Volume Analysis
Peak Month Volume in Pallets
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Order Characteristics
Typical Daily Order Profile
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Order Characteristics
Retail
Internet/
Order Statistics
Combined
Stores
Catalog
Average Lines/ Order
21.7


1.4


4.8


Average Cartons/Order
125.8


1.5


22.2


Average Cartons/Line
5.8


1.1


4.7


Typical Daily Order Statistics
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Equipment

• Students may use any material handling/storage
  equipment including but not limited to
• Pallet Rack - Single or Double Deep
• Pushback Rack, Drive-in Rack
• Lift Truck - Counterbalanced,Reach, Turret, Jacks
• Case Flow Rack, Shelving, Carousels
• Pallet Flow Systems
• Dock levelers, Dock equipment
• Conveyor - Powered and Gravity
• Computers - WMS, scanners, RF technology
• Mezzanines

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Finalist Selection

• Projects will be evaluated using the following
  criteria
• Product Flow A winning design will propose a
  layout that allows for the most effective
  operation, while minimizing the travel distances
  of product and people.
• Equipment Utilization A winning design will
  describe and cost justify the choices and
  rationale used in the selection of types and
  quantities of equipment.
• Space Utilization The winning design will
  illustrate the best use of cubic capacity of the
  building without sacrificing the operational
  effectiveness.
• Operational Plan The winning design will have
  an accompanying operational plan that clearly
  describes overall system features and operational
  details. This includes the job requirements, use
  of all equipment, integration of any computer/WMS
  technology, and guidelines for running this
  operation efficiently and safely for employees.
• Overall Integration - The winning design will
  clearly illustrate overall integration of the
  previous four categories.