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Warehousing This chapter presents a description of a small, fictitious warehouse that distributes office supplies and some office furniture to small retail stores and individual mailorder customers. The facility was purchased from another pany, and it is larger than required for the immediate operation. The operation, currently housed in an older facility, will move in a few months. The owners foresee substantial growth in their highquality product lines, so the extra space will acmodate the growth for the next few years. The description of the warehouse is of the planned operation after moving into the facility. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the operations of warehouses. Basic function sare described, typical equipment types are illustrated, and operations within departments are presented in some detail so that the reader can understand the relationships among products, orders, order lines, storage space, and labor requirements. Storage assignment and retrieval strategies are briefly discussed. Evaluation of the planned operation includes turnover, performance, and cost analyses. Additional information can be found in other chapters of this volume and in the reference material. Role of the Warehouse in the Supply Chain Warehouses can serve different roles within the larger anization. For example, a stock room serving a manufacturing facility must provide a fast response time. The major activities would be piece (item)picking, carton picking, and preparation of assembly kits (kitting). A mailorder retailer usually must provide a great variety of products in small quantities at low cost to many customers. A factory warehouse usually handles a limited number of products in large quantities. A large, discount chain ware house typically “pushes” some products out to its retailers based on marketing campaigns, with other products being “pulled” by the store managers. Shipments are oft en full and half truckloads. The Ware house described here is a small, chain warehouse that carries a limited product line for distribution to its retailers and independent customers. The purpose of the warehouse is to provide the utility of time and place to its customers, both retail in the quantities requested by small retailers and individual customers. Production schedules often result in long runs and large lot sizes. Thus, manufacturers usually are not able to meet the delivery dates of small retailers and individuals. The warehouse bridges the gap and enables both parties, manufacturer and customer, to operate within their own spheres. Product and Order Descriptions 1. Product Descriptions The products handled include paper products, pens, staplers, small storage units, other desktop products, electronic products are delivered directly from other distributors and not handled by the warehouse. One would say that the warehouse handles relatively lowvalue products f