A technological project of a new warehouse has been developed for the federal distributor of pet products "Zoograd"

2024: Warehouse Process Design Development

On July 24, 2024, AXELOT announced that it had developed a technological project for a warehouse for the federal distributor of pet products "Zoograd."

According to the company, the warehouse of the Zoograd company is designed taking into account the peculiarities of the architecture of the two-story building and the planned growth of the flow of goods. AXELOT has selected the optimal storage system and provided a detailed plan for optimizing business processes that will ensure high-quality cargo processing.

The presence of various sales channels, an extensive branch network and its own fleet contribute to the stable development of the company's business. Against the background of active growth, Zoograd planned to modernize the warehouse to prepare it for the expected increase in trade.

As of July 2024, the logistics infrastructure of the federal distributor includes several warehouses in Vladivostok - the main distribution center, areas at the responsible storage warehouse and another additional storage site, a total of about 5,000 sq.m. The company's management decided to move to a two-story warehouse with a total area of ​ ​ 14,000 square meters. m, which will allow not only to consolidate the materials from all sites in one place, but also will have space and resources for processing the increased flow of goods.

However, the company's management understood that simply putting the building into operation would not be enough. It was also necessary to optimize the main business processes of the warehouse. The management of "Zoograd" turned to experts in the field of logistics consulting and technological design of warehouses - AXELOT.

At the stage of the survey, AXELOT specialists analyzed the existing warehouses - they studied the topology, cargo turnover, the equipment used and the information system, which made it possible to identify a number of features of business processes that should be taken into account and additionally worked out:

• 2 types of pallets are processed at the warehouse - EUR and FIN, the goods are mainly received by DFE and PFE containers, shipment is carried out by trucks of 3 tons and passenger courier cars;
• a corporate information system is used for accounting, there is a reference address system, but full address storage is not implemented;
• there is a delay in replenishing the sampling area, insufficient transparency of business processes, the areas of functional areas are limited.

Taking into account these features and the basic requirements for storage and cargo processing, the AXELOT design team proposed a concept for the operation of the warehouse complex, which provided for the installation of a wide-passage system of front racks in 4 tiers on both floors of the building, as well as a two-story mezzanine on the framework for the selection of small-scale goods.

The solution using wide-passage racks on the second floor of the warehouse was due to the architectural features of the room, as well as the specifics of the floor reinforcement, which was originally designed for the installation of this type of structure, and the installation of narrow-passage racks could introduce an imbalance in the load distribution on the bearing structures.

Detailed layouts have been developed for each floor of the warehouse, which indicate all process areas - from acceptance to shipment - with the arrangement of rack systems. While working on the project, AXELOT specialists took into account the architecture of a two-story building, which created the need for reliable and fast communication between floors.

In particular, AXELOT experts recommended replacing the freight elevator, the installation of which was originally intended, with the use of richtrak to transfer pallets between floors. The possibility of this technology lies in the greater lifting speed, as well as fault tolerance: if the elevator breaks, the warehouse will be paralyzed, and if the richtrack breaks, it can be removed from the mine and continued using another loader. In addition, the customer already had richtraki, and the elevator had yet to be purchased.

As a result of the design, the customer received a well-thought-out topology of the warehouse complex, which determined the optimal capacities of functional areas, their mutual location and relationships. In addition, detailed descriptions of the routes of movement of personnel and equipment, algorithms of the main warehouse operations, comprehensive information on all are provided. relevant storage and cargo handling systems. AXELOT specialists calculated the need for personnel and lifting and transportation equipment, and also developed a target model of cargo turnover, which reflected the planned growth in terms of nomenclature and storage places.

To optimize the warehouse topology, an ABC analysis of the item was carried out according to several criteria, on the basis of which recommendations were formulated for the assessment of groups of goods in accordance with zones A, B and C. Thus, those units of product that are in greatest demand and are most often found on delivery notes will be located closer to the picking and shipping zone. This will reduce the assembly time of orders and optimize the work of personnel and the mileage of equipment.

At the request of the client, AXELOT also made recommendations for preparing for the planned warehouse automation. The technological processes were worked out taking into account the management using AXELOT WMS, the required amount of equipment was calculated, a list of functional boundaries was formed to determine the parameters of the project for the implementation of the warehouse management system.

The concept of operation of the Zohrad warehouse complex created by AXELOT will allow the company to implement development plans, providing the necessary storage capacity for increased commodity flow. Automation of logistics and optimization of the main business processes optimizes the quality of cargo processing.