Distribution is most often defined as the movement of goods from the manufacturer, through a network of wholesalers and retailers, to the final consumer. An important element of distribution is the relationship: distribution warehouse – retail point of sale (recipient). The flow of materials in this relationship can be called both shipment (from the warehouse’s point of view) and delivery (from the recipient’s point of view). The most important features characterizing this flow are the quality and cost of delivery. The technological issues presented below largely determine both the quality and the cost of delivery.
Palletization – depalletization of shipment
The issue of palletization – depalletization of shipment (choosing the form of shipment) can be formulated as follows: should the Palletized Load Units (PLU) completed in the distribution warehouse be loaded into the vehicle in their entirety after applying transport security (variant 1), or should they be dismantled and each package of goods loaded separately into the cargo box (variant 2).
In the first variant of shipment, costs of the PLU dismantling operation are saved, while losses result from higher transport costs (poorer utilization of the volume and load capacity of the transport vehicle). In the second variant of shipment, it is the opposite. It is obvious that the solution to the dilemma in question for a specific real case should be sought by comparing the costs of implementing both variants under identical quality conditions. […]
A chart of the material flow process in both variants, prepared using symbols used in transport technology [1], is presented in Figure 1, which also shows the locations of the costs identified above. The method for solving the problem of palletization – depalletization of shipment is described in [2]. The numerical example presented in [2] does not determine the clear superiority of palletization or depalletization of shipment in Polish conditions and indicates the need to perform calculations for each real case.
After determining the form of shipment, the following technological optimization issues should be considered:
– loading the shipment onto multiple pallets (for palletized shipment),
– loading the shipment into the cargo box (for depalletized shipment).
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 1/2008.