World-Class Warehousing and Material Handling, Second Edition

The classic guide to warehouse operations―now fully revised and updated with the latest strategies, best practices, and case studies Under the influence of e-commerce, supply chain collaboration, globalization, and quick response, warehouses today are being asked to do more with less. The expectation now is that warehouses execute an increase in smaller transactions, handle and store more items, provide more product and service customization, process more returns, offer more value-added services, and receive and ship more international orders. Compounding the difficulty of meeting this increased demand is the fact that warehouses now have less time to process an order, less margin for error and fewer skilled personnel. How can a warehouse not only stay afloat but thrive in today’s marketplace? Efficiency and accuracy are the keys to success in warehousing. Despite today's just-in-time production mentality and efforts to eliminate warehouses and their inventory carrying costs, effective warehousing continues to play a critical bottom-line role for companies worldwide. World-Class Warehousing and Material Handling, 2nd Edition is the first widely published methodology for warehouse problem solving across all areas of the supply chain, providing an organized set of principles that can be used to streamline all types of warehousing operations. Readers will discover state-of-the-art tools, metrics, and methodologies for dramatically increasing the effectiveness, accuracy, and overall productivity of warehousing operations. This comprehensive resource provides authoritative answers on such topics as: · The seven principles of world-class warehousing · Warehouse activity profiling · Warehouse performance measures · Warehouse automation and computerization · Receiving, storage and retrieval operations · Picking and packing, and humanizing warehouse operations Written by one of today's recognized logistics thought leaders, this fully updated comprehensive resource presents timeless insights for planning and managing 21st-century warehouse operations.