Picking The impact of the design and selection of shipping containers throughout the entire supply chain is one of the most neglected areas of opportunities for increasing logistics efficiencies. Containers of all kinds cartons, totes, pal- lets, trailers, 20- and 40-foot ocean containers, rail cars, and air containers- are the building blocks of supply chain. Containers should protect, secure, the and identify the merchandise they contain(see Figure 8-39). Containers should stack and easily, collapse when they are empty, handle comfort- ably, fit together naturally with other containers, and provide easy means for tracking and tracing. Containers should be reuse able and/or returnable to minimize the impact of logistics on the environment(see Figure 8-40).
Automated Loading
Eliminate shipping staging and direct load outbound trailers.
As was the case in receiving, the most space and labor intensive activity in shipping is staging activity. To facilitate the automated loading of pallets onto outbound trailers, pallet jacks and counterbalance lift trucks can serve as picking and loading vehicles enabling a bypassing of staging. To go one step further, automating pallet loading can be accomplished with pallet conveyor interfacing with specially designed trailer beds to enable pallets to be automatically conveyed onto outbound trailers with automated fork trucks and/or