SPRING 2025

28THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

28THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINKRobert FootlikRobert B. Footlik, PE is a retired Professional Industrial Engineer. With over 50 years’experience as a Warehouse and Logistics Consultant to a wide variety of clients includingFastener Distributors, Bob has a wealth of valuable information for our industry and he iswilling to share it. While Footlik & Associates is now closed, his expertise is still availableto his friends and our readers. For friendly advice, a second opinion or just to start aconversation, he can be reached at robert@footlik.net.THE “5-STAR” WAREHOUSE – THE PHYSICAL FACILITY -SEASON 1, EPISODE 3Over the years I have toured many warehouses andgenerally everyone started by following the processesfrom the office that does the purchasing, to receivingwhere the goods arrive, thru stocking, put away, orderpicking, packing and final shipment. This is the path themerchandise follows for order fulfillment. Touring “5-StarSupply,” however, followed a far different roadmap.After spending quality time explaining thephilosophies and personnel policies that have radicallychanged both the staff work habits and their lives, BossMike, the Operations V/P led the way to what he called“THE HEART OF THE OPERATION,” the shelving area.More Than Just Filling A Space WithShelvingAs Mike explained, “We used to have a very neatand mostly organized shelving area. It was essentiallyour Founder’s first layout moved multiple times to anew space. Everything was organized by vendor forease of stocking, and to expedite the manufacturers’representatives who would periodically ‘eyeball’ theinventory for reordering. The only change was torelocate the fastest moving items in a “family” to anaisle endcap to expedite picking. The remainder of the“family” was still located down the aisle/row of theshelving. This was great for stocking, but inefficientCONTRIBUTOR ARTICLEfor picking. One of our warehouse staff observed thatwe stock once and pick a hundred times. This startedeveryone thinking about a different paradigm.”“The shelving was also set to expedite countercustomer sales. What we thought was an active walkin trade turned out to be less than 2% of our businessand most of the transactions were will call orders withat least 30 minutes of warning. Online ordering was agrowing percentage of what amounted to a minisculepercent of sales and customer pick up is now thru adrive-up window. So, why was the shelving designed toexpedite the tail wagging the dog?”Thanks to the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence(AI), what I used to call “Data Mining,” we reanalyzedthe last three years of orders by type of customer. Thisresulted in a more customer-centric family grouping.Currently we are looking at Original EquipmentManufacturing, Repair/Maintenance, Construction,Customer Specific Stocking, Branch Reordering, BranchCustomer Orders and Casual (walk in) customers asseparate businesses. As we walk thru the shelving areaI’ll point out some of the layout differences.”“Essentially there are now six zones for stockingmaterials. The first floor front bank of shelving is usedfor primary picking of materials common to most, if notall of the customer families.CONTINUED ON PAGE 94