ALPHA PTE LTD (ALPHA) is a Well-known E-commerce Company: Distribution Centre Management Assignment, NUS, Singapore

Project Scope

This project aims to allow students to apply the knowledge acquired through weekly lectures and tutorials into an application-based scenario.

• The project will focus on SIX (6) key areas, namely:
• Distribution Centre (DC)
• Processes Resources Planning
• DC Layout Design
• Operational Costing
• DC Automation
• Safety and Security Management

Scenario

ALPHA PTE LTD (ALPHA) is a well-known E-commerce company that runs an online retail portal for running shoes. It is currently looking for a new 3PL to help them set up and manage its new distribution center (DC) in Singapore to serve its customers in the Southeast Asia region. ALPHA has high expectations when it comes to the selection of 3PL. It expects the 3PL to be someone who understands and manages DC requirements very well.

As such, ALPHA has approached ORIENTAL LOGISTICS to submit an operations plan for this new DC as the latter is an internationally well-known provider of DC and transportation services.

As part of the DC Setup Team from ORIENTAL LOGISTICS, your team has been tasked to determine and evaluate the resources necessary to manage this DC. This set of information is to be compiled into a proposal, and this will be submitted to the management of ORIENTAL LOGISTICS for consideration.

You have been given the operational specifications, the expected daily volume, and ORIENTAL LOGISTICS’ business assumptions in Appendix A and Appendix B respectively. These data are to be carefully considered in the solutions that your team will be proposing.

Contents of the Business Proposal

In your proposal, you are required to provide solutions to the following :

• Your team wishes to do a comparison of process steps between the manual method and usage of automation. Your colleague from the Industrial Engineering Department has proposed the 2 sets of process steps. Refer to APPENDIX C for the sets of INBOUND and OUTBOUND process steps.

Describe how automation has been applied to take over the manual steps.

• ALPHA has decided to have BOTH the OUTBOUND and INBOUND operations to be available on a “24-hour/7-day basis”. You need to derive a new number of employees to be employed. Your answer should include the following information :
• • • Number of shifts per day
    • Start and End-Time of each shift
    • Number of permanent handlers and supervisors to be employed per shift
    • Number of temporary staff to be employed (if any)
• Workings, including the usage of the Manpower Calculation Grids, should be shown. There should be a total of 4 Grids – 1 for INBOUND and 1 for OUTBOUND for MANUAL method; 1 for INBOUND and 1 for OUTBOUND for AUTOMATED method.
• Assuming that ALPHA prefers the AUTOMATED method, propose the following prices :
• • INBOUND price per pallet
  • OUTBOUND price per pair
  • STORAGE price per pair
• Advise ALPHA about the benefits and shortfalls of using the automated methods for the DC processes. What does ALPHA have to take note of its inventory profile when comes to using automation?
• Sketch the possible layout design for this DC. The following diagram shows the floor plan of the facility. This facility has a clear ceiling height of 14 meters. (A blown-up version can be found on PolyMall.)

Recommend the locations of emergency exit doors and CCTV cameras. Suitable walking paths should be included, too.