Abstract:
The supply chain is a network of nodes that connects the different states through which a raw material must go from the source to being a finished product available to the consumer. The intermediate nodes that help reduce the distances between the manufacturer and the customer when distributing products are called warehouses, distribution centres or cross-docks. These facilities serve as temporary storage that reduces distribution costs and allows products to be available closer to the customers when required. In many operations worldwide where automation is not an option as it is a costly alternative, these warehouses, distribution centres and crossdocks manually operate with workers their activities of loading, unloading, picking, sorting, storing, among others. This study seeks to address the workforce sizing problem in warehouses, distribution centres or cross-docks to understand what the indicated number of workers should be to meet the site's performance indicators, meet demand and reduce operating costs.
The research was developed under a methodology with mixed methods, where from an exploratory sequential approach, it begins with a systematic literature review to find the most relevant variables or factors used by multiple studies when trying to address the problem of dimensioning the workforce in distribution centres, warehouses, or cross-docks, as well as contrast their approaches and identify the techniques and tools used. With this, a total of 46 variables were found by breaking down their frequency of appearance by journal article or conference proceeding, clustering them into 7 categories which are input and output operations, material handling equipment (MHE) performance, warehouse configuration, warehouse performance, product complexity, picking operations and labour and worker conditions. Based on these variables, some were used in the technique that most frequently appeared in the literature, simulation. Here, a crossdock of a company belonging to the mass consumption sector was virtually represented using Flexsim software. The objective of this simulation was to find the number of forklifts needed to handle the loading and unloading operation of 5 types of trucks under different demand scenarios, or the total number of trucks to attend per day. After developing the model and extracting the results for 4 demand profiles, a sensitivity analysis was carried out where the influence of the forklift quantity on the crossdock performance measures was demonstrated, finding that as the number of forklifts increased, the average truck cycle time decreased, the total quantity of trucks attended reached the expected number per day according to the demand profile, and the average forklift utilization decreased. Finally, the limitations were shown from the literature and from the simulation model to address the workforce sizing problem, giving suggestions for future research that can deepen or address the problem from another approach.
Citación recomendada (normas APA)
Guillermo Andrés Duarte Suárez, "Warehouse Workforce Sizing: An Approach to a Mass Consumption Company", Colombia:-, 2023. Consultado en línea en la Biblioteca Digital de Bogotá (https://www.bibliotecadigitaldebogota.gov.co/resources/3711870/), el día 2025-05-09.
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