Working hours decision

The decision at what time of the day warehouse should start functioning and end is important issue. Warehouse should be operated at minimum expenses with the highest efficiency. Two main operations should be done as quickly as possible: inbound and outbound operations. Outbound operations generally depend on sales. The higher sales, the higher outbound quantity and inbound quantity. So to make decision on number of personnel and working hours and working days warehouse should work, the sales data should be analyzed. As warehouse will handle mostly textile products, the sales depend on seasonal fluctuations. There will be dead days and peek days. But generally the sales during the day will be as following:

The sales will begin with the opening of stores at 10:00am and end with closing the stores at 22:00 pm. 15% of the sales done during 19:00 and 22:00. Generally 30% to 70% of sold merchandise exists in warehouse and only 30%-50% of these sold items are absent in the stores by the end of the day. So by collecting and delivering items sold during 19:00-22:00 till the next day, it was calculated: there could be an increase in sales by 3%. The decision had to be made: working 24 hours of the day during 7 days of the week with four shifts or to work 12 hours of the day during 6 days of the week with 2 shifts. It was calculated that 4 shift working increases sales by 3% and increase warehouse operational cost by 85%. If increase in sales is bigger than increase in operational expenses, working with 4 shifts could be implemented. Because the sales area is not big enough the company increase in sales did not cover the increase in operations so 2 shift working was decided. But as soon as sales area increase the 4 shift 24 hours working could be started.

The decision was made to start at 9:00am and end at 21:00pm. The sales data is collected from all stores every 30 minutes, so every 30 minutes merchandise in warehouse could be allocated and picking lists printed. The last sales collected and delivered the same day to Kiev stores are 19:00pm sales. This method of merchandise allocating is called "pool method" because every minute drop by drop pool is filled and at the end of day the pool is emptyed rather than filled one time in the day and emptying it at the day of the day. So by this method we avoid peeks in collecting goods and there is always work to be done for warehouse staff if there is no inbound in the warehouse.