Let me share with you some of the issues encountered in F&N’s warehouse operating process.
All F&N finished products are stored in the designated cold rooms of the warehouse instantly after being released from the production. Table below shows the storage location for all finished goods.
Storing Location | Products |
CR 1 | Yoghurt, margarine, sour cream |
CR 2 | Tea |
CR 3 | For order-picked goods and extra goods that their specified cold rooms are unable to accommodate |
CR 4 | Juices |
CR 5 | Milk (All brands, Magnolia, Farmhouse, Daisy, Masters, etc.) & Soya |
Warehouse personnel will usually receive the products placed in the crate or carton and store them in a temporary waiting room. The crate or carton will then be stacked on the pallets and moved to the metal rack. A tally sheet is used to record the quantity received, product type, expiry date, pallet number and rack number. Upon recording, these documents will be handed over to the warehouse clerk for data entry into the ERP system (JDE).
Photo below shows the crate which consisting of 250ml Aloe Vera Juice, with expiry date on 3rd Aug, and the pallet number is 24.
We can conclude that F&N does not have a systematic approach to guarantee the first-in-first-out rule, real-time product movement, and just-in-time product retrieval system. Every process is done manually.
Such inefficient practice gives rise to issues of data accuracy and reliability. Human error might occur during the data-entry. Time and manpower (and also man-hour cost) wasted may cause delay in the storing process, which increases the risk of product damage.
In the case of quality issue, F&N may have difficulty to trace and recall the defective products or the affected lots. It could be more disastrous if there is a human error during key-in procedure. The dangerous lots may go undetected eventually, costing its customers’ health.
How to solve???To improve quality product handling and storage, F&N should integrate certain degree of automation to the current storage system. This will help to increase the accuracy of the inventory control, order processing and achieve error-free handling in the distribution cycle.
The proposed solution would be the implementation of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology in product-handling and storage cycle, offering hassle-free, quick and accurate identification of product category, tracking, and tracing of the product movement without involving human to read and record data. Strong capability in data storage provided by RFID will also assist the automated collection of important real-time information for immediate business decision. Localized temperature indicator can also be innovated to be part of our RFID system, to monitor the temperature fluctuation along the product movement, and hence reducing the risk of products damaged.
