A CREATIVE SOLUTION TO IMPROVE LOADING PROCESS
DAMDARAN
One of the Biggest Dairy Producer Brands in Iran
DAIRY INDUSTRY IS ONE OF THE MOST CHALLENGING INDUSTRIES. FROM PRODUCTION TO DISTRIBUTION, FACTORS SUCH AS TIMING AND TEMPERATURE PLAY HUGE ROLES. IN THIS PROJECT, WE AS JGS TOOK A CHALLENGE TO COME UP WITH A SIMPLE CREATIVE SOLUTION TO ONE OF THE ISSUES IN DAMDARAN'S MAIN DISTRIBUTION CENTER.
Team Members
Leadership
Saeid Einakian
Director of Engineering & Planning
Moreteza Rafee
Manager of Engineering
Production
Amin Einakian
User Research
Field research and observation, gathering data to start ideation. Analyzing gathered data, ideating with the rest of the group and presenting the solution to the client.
Afshin Barzegari
Senior Engineer
Sadegh Abedi
Senior Engineer
BACKGROUND
How the System Was Working
(use left and right arrows)
PROBLEM
1. Different ground clearances of trucks creates a lot of confusion and hardship for workers and a huge delay in transferring products.
2. This delay increases the risk of products being spoiled as they stay outside in warm weather for a long time.
3. Workers rushing to finish the job to prevent products being spoiled increases the chance of dropping packages and damaging products. It also increases the risk of misplaced orders.
DAMDARAN'S APPROACH
& why Damdaran reached out to us?
Damdaran's approach to solve the problems was to install 20 hydraulic lifts in loading areas between trucks and the distribution deck. They had used this approach in one of their smaller distribution decks with only 8 loading spots before contacting us. This approach had less hardship for workers, but it didn't have any significant impact on other risks mentioned above. It was also an expensive solution.
20(spots) x 3000(price of the lifts in dollars)= $60000
OUR APPROACH
OBSERVATION
3 weeks (40 hours in total) of observation, work study, interviews and gathering Data to understand the process, user journey and pin points.
ALI'S JOURNEY MAP
Ali is one of the workers in distribution center
MAIN INSIGHTS
Loading process happens early in the morning and 90% of the loading time, all the spots are being used by trucks
Main confusion and delay happens one step prior to what Damdaran suggested (It happens in transferring products on the deck)
As the result of the confusion on distribution deck and the delay in loading, the 4 refrigerator gates should remain open longer which increases the use of energy to keep the refrigerators on a certain temperature range and increases the risk of spoiled products.
On a daily average 65% of the trucks have significant height difference from the distribution deck
For trucks with same height as distribution deck, 3 people are needed to transfer boxes into the trucks in time. driver checks the orders list, one worker transfers orders from the stacks on the deck into the truck, and one worker unloads and place boxes inside the truck
For trucks with significant height difference from the deck, on average 3.8 people are needed to transfer boxes in time. As the manual pallet can't go into the truck, workers needs to pick up the packages outside of the truck and move them inside one by one.
OUR SOLUTION
FINAL DESIGN
After sessions of brainstorming based on our field research and time studies, we decided to use a conveyor to connect storage to trucks directly.
workers transfer products from pallets to the conveyor in the storage area and the conveyor transfers products to trucks. There are workers inside the trucks waiting to pick up the boxes based on their order lists and load the truck. Designing height of the conveyor based on average height difference of the trucks helped us to achieve the most efficient result.
OUTCOME
1. By this solution, all the confusion caused on the distribution deck has been omitted.
2. As there are only two small openings on the wall for the conveyor to pass through and all gates can be closed, a lot of energy is being saved and this decreases the risk of spoiled products.
3. Products spend most of the time inside the refrigerators as they instantly get back into the storage area if they are not being picked.
4. Since workers are standing inside the trucks, they can easily pickup the box they need regardless of the trucks' height differences.
5. In order to load each truck, only 2.5 person is needed on average.
6. This solution increased the speed of loading for 60%
7. It only cost $12000 to run this solution which is significantly less (80%) than Damdaran's solution.
