DTDC Courier Logistics Facility Design & Optimization

About the Organization | DTDC
Established in 1990 and headquartered at Bangalore, DTDC has 7 Zonal offices, 20 strategically located Regional Offices and over 430 operating facilities spread across India. DTDC Express Limited has its presence in more than 500 district headquarters through its large network of more than 10500 franchisees and extends services to over 10,500 Pin codes while handling more than 12 million shipments every month.

DTDC Zonal Hub Operations | Business Case
DTDC’s west zone operation is a crucial lever in the entire west distribution of parcels, documents and heavy products. With the west operation having a multi fold growth & a multi fold business forecast, existing infra is used well beyond the brim of capacity leading to multiple inefficiencies in the operations impacting the areas of customer service levels, productivity and safety. Thereby, there is a compelling need to move to a new zonal hub which is well aligned with the current business forecast & management expectation. These inefficiencies are the real opportunities to quickly scale up the business and they are:

  • Right Space Planning
  • Well Defined Layout
  • Efficient Design for Maximum cubic space utilization
  • Seamless Material Flow
  • Defined Space / Location for each activity
  • Efficient Material Handling
  • Right Containers / Pallets
  • Improved Through Put time

Scope of Work
Basis the voice of customer and the voice of the business, the scoping is done. The Scope of work includes –

  1. Current Courier Supply Chain Mapping at existing DTDC Operations
  2. Gap Analysis at the current Benchmarking facility (hub) within DTDC
  3. Efficient Layout Design & Space Planning to curb all the Inefficiencies and reap all the opportunities listed in the business case
  4. Process Improvement streamlining flow and velocity
  5. Safe and Efficient Material handling through Material handling equipment, Methods and best practices

Key Result

200+% Space Improvement (Capacity) created through efficient planning, design and infra


 
Tools & Techniques used

  • Value Stream Map (VSM)
  • HISTO Analysis
  • Product Spaghetti
  • Pallet Design tool called ‘Container-Modeller’
  • Throughput Analysis tool called ‘TPut-Pro’
  • Space Modelling tool called ‘CSpace’
  • Slotting Technique
  • Congestion Analysis
  • Process Flow Diagram

DTDC Hub Design & Optimization

  1. Current State Mapping – value stream mapping tool would be used to document the current state of the business. The details in terms of the people, process, performance and the systems would be documented.
  2. Data Analysis – the data analysis would be three folds: (a) Gap analysis (b) Inventory Analysis and (c) Throughput analysis.
  3. Layout Review – the current layout and constraints of the layout would be documented on-site.
  4. Space Planning – The current volumes and the forecast are collected. All the parts characteristics like the dimensions, weight and the velocity are considered to complete the slotting for the warehouse. In parallel, the recommended storage quantities based on the throughput and the inventory patterns are estimated. The slotting output and the storage quantities would drive the space plan.
  5. Facility Layout Design – The facility layout design has 3 sub heads.
    1. Block layout design | all the site specific constraints are kept in mind and the block layout is designed. Each space and the location is scientifically arrived at.
    2. Flow design | the site specific material handling, material flow and equipment are arrived at.
    3. Layout Design | finally the layout is detailed out with space for each and every infra planned for that facility.
  6. Process map & MIS – process maps and MIS are common t0 DTDC operations and site specific nuances are updated as needed. The current business performance management practices of DTDC would be replicated to the new facility and any key KPIs would be added if not there.

Few Schematics:
Considering the sensitivity of solution designs and the competitive edge through these optimization nuances, only few schematics which represent work done are shown:

DTDC Courier Logistics Facility Design & Optimization
DTDC Courier Logistics Facility Design & Optimization

 

DTDC Courier Logistics Facility Design & Optimization
DTDC Courier Logistics Facility Design & Process Optimization

Project Results
200+% Space Improvement (Capacity) created through efficient planning, design and infra
Space Utilization improved by 4X at Staging Areas using Collapsible Pallets
Streamlined Material Flow by clearly defined Areas, Right Location and Right Sizing for each activity
Improved Material Handling by usage of efficient material handling equipment, opt storage and movement containers and conveyors
Batch Sorting with BTL – would bring in great benefits of scalability and efficiency on handling Dynamic variations in demand
Efficient utilization of Space and Resources within Four walls of the Facility

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Author: Hesol Consulting
Hesol Consulting is a Supply Chain Consulting firm offering strategy, solution design and implementation services in the field of Supply Chain and Logistics. We have a portfolio of 400+ projects across 15+ sectors & we have implemented supply chain solutions in 20+ countries. Please visit www.hesol.co.in for more information!

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