Select a process and deseribe it briefly. We would select the Picking process fo

Question

Select a process and deseribe it briefly. We would select the Picking process for order fulfillment in a warehouse. A typical flow would be there are 3 pickers who report to duty at 900 hrs. The first batch of pick lists is printed at 915. Typically these are all orders which were either not picked previous day or ordered overnight. Novw the pickers take a set of 5 pick lists and go to the shelves with a forklift and pick all items into the 5 baskets meant for the 5 orders. Once all the orders are picked completely they come and drop the 5 baskets at the packing stations. This completes the picking process. Estimate the capacity of this process. The capacity of this process is as follows. A worker works for 9 hours a day minus 1 hour for his lunch, tea breaks thus the effective hours is 8 per worker per day. Next on an average (long term average) it takes 15 min to pick an order completely and thus each worker can com 32 orders in a day 60/1 5 Since we have only 3 forklifts in our warehouse, w can have only 3 pickers in any shift and we picking process capacity is Would you use input or output measures to measure capacity. Yes we use output measures that is picks completed (output parameter) and not the picklist generated (input parameter) as a measure to evaluate the process capacity. How does capacity compare relative to the demand- Adequate, High, Low The capacity for the process is adequate given the size of our business and an average flow of approx 100 orders a day For this process what would be some reasons to maintain capacity cushion Although currently we do not maintain a capacity cushion, but during peak sales season (Christmas), we do hire a forklift for a few months and the operator as temp labour. This is done to ensure that all the orders are picked everyday and shipped across. Typically we see 30-40% increase in order during Christmas sales and thus maintain 1 additional forklift. If not done, we would have a backlog of orders every day and it would keep piling up since the rate of input is more than the rate of output. This will lead to lot of order cancellation and business loss. Advantages and disadvantages of holding a large versus small capacity cushion Advantages Buffer capacity for peak needs Buffer capacity for any untoward incident like absenteeism, machine breakdown etc I. Disadvantages 1. Additional direct costs to maintain buffer Additional overheads in the form of space, manpower, management bandwidth to manage the buffer 3. 2. Small buffer might lead to incomplete fulfillment of orders during any surge Based on your analysis what level of capacity Cushion is adequate A cushion of approximate 10-20% is enough for most of the processes as all of them typically possess input fluctuations within this range

Explanation / Answer

1. Step 1: Given Data

The number of effective working hours is 8 Hours

The time taken to pick an order completely is 15 minutes.

Step 2 : Formula

Number of orders that can be completed by each worker is

= Total effective working time/ Time to pick an order

Step 3: Time Calculation

Here, total working time is given as 8 Hours per day. So it is converted to minutes (1 hour=60 minutes) as the denominator is in minutes, i.e., 15 minutes.

Therefore, total effective working time = 8*60

Step 4: Final Result.

Number of order picked by an employee =8*60/15 = 480/15=32

2. The input picking list generated shows only the items and the numbers to be picked. Depending on the requirement, the frequency of the list generated might vary. The output measures take into consideration the capability of the picker to complete each pick within the scheduled time. The capacity of the process depends on the time taken to complete the process in the working hour in a day.

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