Re-design warehouse plant layout for a food company

Abstract

This research paper presents a comprehensive look at the issues involved in increasing production by expanding the number of operating lines within a food company at Eau-Claire, Wisconsin. Nestle was the company specifically selected for this study, which includes re-design warehouse storage methods and needs, re-design warehouse layout, and improvement in efficiency of their existing warehouse. Nestlé has been making food and beverage products for families around the world for more than a century. Nestles’ Eau Claire, Wisconsin factory produces wet and dry mixes of infant formula and health supplements. The facility contains a number of wet and dry mixing and packaging lines. The facility is supported by 2 warehouses, at either end of the facility, and 4 off-site warehouses. The North warehouse primarily stores corrugated and labeling packaging materials, and packaged finished goods. The South warehouse stores empty cans, can ends, ingredients, and staged materials. The off-site warehouses store additional bulk ingredients and packaging materials. This study will be focused on the South warehouse. The proposed layout must be robust, able to meet future needs without additional equipment or re-design. Long-term goals are to reduce the amount of ingredients inventory in stock, to reduce dependence on outside warehouses. The quantitative technique was used to describe the current receiving process, warehouse layout, and inventory status. The plant layout design offered potential improvement by trying to optimize quality, promoting effective use of the people, equipment and space and increasing production. Important recommendations are that weigh-up should only work one day ahead based on the next day’s production. Staged items from weigh-in should be stored together in groups of 3 pallets by batch. The location should be adjacent to weigh-up. All full pallets of bulk materials should be sent to the outside warehouses, because of the FIFO policy. Full pallets of bulk materials should be sent to the South warehouse one day in advance of production, based on the next day’s schedule. Full pallets of other ingredients should be stored by lot in the South warehouse.