Hopewell  –  Multiple  Pallet  Directed  Work  Overhaul  

08  Fall  

MACGREGOR  PARTNERS  CASE  STUDY  FOR:  

 

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Case  Study:  Hopewell  –  Multiple  Pallet  Directed  Work  Overhaul    

Business  Problem    

MacGregor  has  been  working  with  Hopewell  for  several  years.    Over  time,  Hopewell  has  incorporated  various  facets  of  “Directed  Work”  into  their  operation  to  reduce  paperwork  and  also  to  increase  productivity.  

 As  additional  “Directed  Work”  functions  were  brought  into  the  fold,  they  began  to  realize  a  limitation  of  the  system  for  their  type  of  operation:  

 

When  users  have  the  ability  to  travel  with  more  than  one  pallet,  the  second  or  subsequent  pallet/task  rarely  made  sense  when  paired  with  the  first  task.    They  would  routinely  receive  a  pallet  pick  and  a  replenishment  pick  in  conjunction  with  each  other.    When  they  did  receive  two  pallet  picks,  they  were  rarely  for  the  same  order.      

 

If  a  user  performed  a  pallet  pick,  but  had  room  on  their  equipment  for  a  second  pallet  (vehicle  capacity),  why  not  give  them  another  pallet  pick?    Taking  it  a  step  further,  why  not  make  it  a  pallet  pick  for  the  same  order,  shipment,  or  carrier  move?    In  fact  why  not  allow  the  system  to  logically  group  up  certain  activities,  through  configuration,  as  viable  tasks  to  group?  

 

Hopewell  was  in  need  of  logic  that  afforded  a  more  intelligent  and  configurable,  “Next  Task  Acquisition”,  module  embedded  into  the  Directed  Work  function.    Having  made  these  types  of  changes  of  directed  work  changes  for  our  clients  as  far  back  as  2012,  this  was  right  in  our  wheelhouse.  

 

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MacGregor  Partners  Approach    MacGregor  worked  with  Hopewell  to  design  and  implement  a  solution  that  provided  Hopewell  with  the  following  features:  

1. Backported  the  vehicle  capacity  concept  introduced  in  2009.2  into  their  release.  

2. Ability  to  configure  and  control  what  tasks  are  viable  grouping  candidates:  

a. Picks  (Pallet,  List,  etc.)  

b. Replenishments  

c. Putaway/Transfers  

3. The  configuration  and  flexibility  to  qualify  what  sub-­‐tasks  can  group  together:  

a. Picks  –  Same  Carrier  Move,  Shipment,  Order,  source  area,  destination,  area,  etc.  

b. Replenishments  –  Same  source  area,  destination  area,  destination  location,  etc.  

c. Putaway/Transfers  –  Same  source  area,  destination  area,  etc.    

Result      

Configurability,  flexibility,  and  supportability  were  paramount  to  Hopewell.    The  solution  provided  allowed  Hopewell  to  slowly  ease  into  the  process  via  configuration,  but  also  dial  in  the  details  when  ready.  

 

Hopewell  started  slowly  with  the  new  solution.    They  were  concerned  about  adoption  of  a  true  directed  work  state  by  the  operation  and  wanted  to  ease  the  operators  away  from  paper  and  manual  tasks.  

 

However,  over  the  course  of  just  two  months,  they  had  operator  buy-­‐in  and  had  configured  the  solution  exactly  to  their  needs.  

 

The  implementation  of  this  solution  was  the  catalyst  for  taking  their  operation  to  the  next  level  of  productivity,  via  directed  work  and  interleaving.  

 

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Do  you  have  similar  challenges    moving  to  a  full  interleaving  directed  work  solution?  If  so,  let  us  help  you  simplify  your  directed  work  needs.