Metal Suppliers
In this company, we supplied various metals in different forms to the public, companies, or our satellite branches. One section I took over was the organization of the storage of offcuts. They were difficult to store and keep track of, so I devised and implemented storage solutions and reorganized and simplified computerized stock locations. Effectively making it easier to pick orders and also helped organize the stock more effectively.
My position was only that of a warehouse operative, but my team leader however, was involved in a lot of different things, and by association, so was I.
The value of the stock and the fact that we produced items (via offcuts etc.) meant that stock counts were continual and needed to prevent us from buying metal that perhaps could have been made that week, but nobody knew existed.
The images to the left is one of my storage design proposals. I found, as with other companies, if you present your ideas well, quite often employers will act on them, more so if they improve the efficiency of the company or solve problems that they are having.
To the Left was the final design we agreed on, to the right is the finished item. Brass and copper are heavy, so the metals needed to be in a structure that supported their weight and was transportable.
Thinking about cost, I had designed the frames to utilize rack supports, of which we had an overabundance. The only things requiring purchase was 1" MDF and fixings. Other tasks, such as welding, were completed by others. I assembled the inner frames.
Relating to cost, they were reasonably cheap. The Forklift instructor, who was also a welder, did that for me.
I adapted two units to have a larger compartment at the base for larger items. The whole frame was about a meter cubed, and only a very few pieces couldn't go in.
Before the redesign, these offcuts were on shelves, that although having a 2000kg limit, quite often bowed the supports (and were therefore useless and unsafe). My storage idea had to have the approval of the Operations Manager.
The above-left picture shows another design I built. Before this, we had larger offcuts on pallets, but they were prone to falling off and also really needed to be contained. After I had designed a few solutions, this design just required a simple explanation to get approved. I constructed twenty boxes, and each box had a removable door front and back. The supports at the bottom were made using packing materials and had a shorter length (not visible) underneath. Consequently, the box was secured within the rack and could not slide forward or backward. The only way to get the box out was to raise the box to the top of its section and then withdraw it.
MDF and fixings were cost items (as was my time). Construction was done solely by me and facilitated by approved overtime. I also used a combination of MDF and wooden battens for most of the shelving that organized the lighter Aluminium (shown in the other picture). One thing I couldn't change was the storage of the larger offcuts as their weight would often damage even the best pallets. On the whole, I think I made the best of a bad situation in that this particular section had always been hard to organize.