Single minded!

And when a single order arrives in several shipments at different times, the likelihood of delays is increased.

In the security equipment distribution industry, most suppliers make arrangements for deliveries to be shipped directly from the manufacturers' warehouses to the customer. The advantage of such delivery is that the distributor does not need to operate a warehouse, hold stock, or undertake delivery.

Likely delays increased
The disadvantage falls on the customer; with a single order probably arriving in several shipments at different times, increasing the likelihood of delays for the installers on site.

One distributor, however, takes the view that no matter how many different manufacturer's products are included, installers need a single order to arrive as a single delivery with a single point to call for delivery enquiries.

Norbain, Europe's leading distributor of CCTV and access control equipment, backs it up with a 25,000 sq feet central warehouse with £11m stockholding of 5,000 lines.

Alan Heath, Operations Manager at the Bredbury, Manchester warehouse, says: "We have built a good system here that our customers rely on.

"We constantly measure our actual performance against our targets, confirming that we continue to meet our availability and delivery promises. To do this, we make sure that every link in the stockholding and delivery chain operates effectively".

The start of this chain is order taking; Norbain takes orders up to 7pm in the evening for next day UK delivery. The sales engineer taking the order can confirm immediately from the sales order processing system whether or not the requested item is in stock.

Up to 800 orders per day
With Norbain's catalogue products, the target availability is that 98 per cent of items ordered are in stock, and once the order is taken the computer system immediately reduces available stock accordingly.

The tuning of the inventory levels is the responsibility of a specialist department of inventory control experts who use a mix of computerised features and human input to ensure that target availability levels are met.

As well as supplying its own Vista products, the company is authorised distributor for all leading brands and the warehouse maintains a high level of throughput.

Up to 800 orders are picked each day and, because the orders can be anything from a single item to dozens, these orders are packed into as many as 2,000 parcels for despatch each night.

'23/5' operation
Order handling is mostly undertaken later in the day, so mornings are devoted to goods inwards – 60 or 70 deliveries per day – with the larger loads time-scheduled to ensure bay and staff availability.

The computer system can be called on to specify where new stock lines should be located, based on size and level of demand, or this can be decided by the staff. All this is achieved by a team of 21 people, managed by Alan Heath and Senior Team Leader Mike Farrell.

  The operating hours could be described as "23/5" – there is a one-hour break in shifts overnight, and the warehouse closes late on Friday and starts the new week at 11.30pm on Sunday night.

A prominent display in the warehouse records the level of accuracy achieved in the picking, with well over 35,000 orders picked in the first three months of the year resulting in less than 30 picking errors – an error rate of less than 1 in 1000 orders! Heath attributes this to two factors – the technology, and the people.

Bar coding throughout
The process of order picking, assembly, packaging and despatch is controlled by PSION Teklogix 7035 hand-held radio terminals and a system of bar-coding of products throughout the warehouse.

At every stage of the order arrival, picking and despatch the picker uses the radio data terminal – effectively a portable PC – that knows the order details and can read the bar codes of all items being picked.

The terminal therefore keeps a continuous check on accuracy, being in real-time contact with the central computer system through wireless connection to the warehouse's LAN through PSION Teklogix 9150 access points.

In the end it’s our people who keep errors down. Each order is the responsibility of a single person, who logs their name against that order ... the fact that one person is responsible all the way through is unusual for a warehouse

The computer system underpinning the order processing and supply functions is the Unix-based Strategix ERP package, to which Norbain added extra functionality to match the specific requirements for inventory, warehouse storage and picking, and distribution.

Frame relay comms links (a form of permanent virtual circuit) keep Bredbury in constant communication with Norbain's central computer location at Winnersh, near Reading.

Personal responsibility
"But good though technology is" says Heath. "In the end it's our people who keep errors down. Each order is the responsibility of a single person, who logs their name against the order.

  The fact that one person is responsible for an order all the way through the warehouse, not only for picking accuracy, but also the care of handling, the quality of packaging, and the labelling, is unusual in a warehouse, and is something our staff respond to."

Care of handling is essential with these often fragile high value electronic products.

The size and weight of the products varies from very heavy CCTV monitors to tiny items such as lenses, and they all need to be handled with knowledge and care.

  Mechanical handling is kept to a minimum, the picking bays are deliberately set at manageable heights for the warehouse staff, and the fact that staff package their own orders all contribute to a low rate of defects and damage of delivered goods.

The final link in the chain is shipping, so often the weak link in the supply chain.

  Norbain has invested considerable effort over the years in building up relationships with its three transport partners, Nightspeed, TNT and City Air Express, who between them handle all deliveries to the UK and Ireland.

Nightspeed is a specialist in High tech/high value distribution, and in 2001 and 2002 won the "Secure Parcel Carrier of the Year" award. TNT handles the time critical UK mainland deliveries.

A ten-year relationship has enabled these companies to develop a close understanding of Norbain's business requirements.

Staff from the carrier companies work permanently at the warehouse as "implants" to ensure effective and error free handover of parcels at the warehouse.

The computerised manifest and despatch systems of the carriers are linked to Norbain's systems.

Any problems of delivery reported by customers can be quickly checked by Norbain's Customer Service staff, and in the near future customers will be able to track their deliveries using Norbain's website, which will be linked to the tracking systems of the carriers.

Operational changes
Last year saw a 30 per cent sales growth on the previous year, which required a few operational changes at the warehouse.

An extra 18,000 square feet have been earmarked in a nearby warehouse for bulk storage, of which 12,000 square feet is currently used. In addition, the staff levels were increased and a new level of flexibility increased with a new shift.

With these changes implemented, deliveries and stock availability targets were met despite the increased demand.

Alan Heath believes that a good warehouse operation can be one of the best arguments for buying from a company.

"We have customer visits here regularly during the year, and they usually go away surprised and impressed by how much effort we put into our operations.

"The activities of my team are business critical, and constant monitoring of our performance shows that we continue to meet the requirements of our customers.