CF11T Warehouse Design Case Study Brief – October 2022

The Company
Evador is a small manufacturing company based in Glasgow, Scotland. It produces a small range
of high-quality toolbox products from plastic and steel and buys-in a range of other products, all
for sales to domestic (UK) customers.

The strategy
In response to the growing interest in Do-It-Yourself home improvements during the COVID-19
lock-downs coupled with the re-opening up of the economies, Evador is confident that they can
significantly grow their market share through a rapid increase in their sales volumes.

The site
The Board recognise their marketing strategy is likely to require development of the site in
order to accommodate the increased activity and has decided to do a high-level analysis of the
likely site impacts. Although used by the company for the last 5 years, it is a former grain
storage facility and mill.

The task
You are a team of consultants from Logistics Excellence Consulting Limited. You’ve been
appointed to review the site’s physical logistics capacity and ascertain what needs to be done to
accommodate the planned growth.

This means conducting an analysis and making suitable recommendations to meet them. This
will include:
• an analysis of inbound & finished goods from production product flows
• an analysis of outbound product flows of all finished goods to customers
• an analysis and assessment of on-site storage capacities for raw materials &
components, packaging and finished goods
• suitable recommendations for increasing storage / product flow capacities through
alternative material handling and / or extending / building infrastructure
• a review of materials handling equipment commensurate with the proposed facilities.
• a review of site vehicle management flows

NOTA BENE: Although this is a high-level feasibility study, there may be a lot of data that can be
used in calculating flows. However, you will be working with averages and general trends rather
than detailed design.
 CF11T Warehouse Design Case Study Brief – October 2022

The assignment:
Your task is to work as a team and come up with a viable solution at a concept level for the
movement and storage of goods on-site, which means:
• inbound volumes (vehicles and pallets/cartons) of raw materials, components,
packaging and finished goods
• storage of all products on site – raw materials & packaging as well as finished goods
• outbound despatch of finished goods to UK customers

Specifically, this includes:

• calculating new product flows from forecast information requested / provided
o inbound vehicles (raw materials, components, packaging, finished goods)
o outbound vehicles (finished goods)
o product flows to / from production
• assessing, evaluating, and calculating spatial requirements for storage and vehicle
operations (current capacity versus future needs).
• assessing / deciding on (alternative) storage media (i.e., types).
• selecting materials handling equipment.
• assessing and selecting operational requirements including staff for inbound goods (e.g.,
unloading and storage locating activities, including from production).
• assessing and selecting operational requirements including staff for outbound goods
(e.g., picking and loading activities).
• any potential re-location of facilities on-site or extension / building work, if you conclude
these are needed.
• approximate resourcing plans (staff numbers and approximate costs).
• budget-level costs for all and any changes.
• the health and safety aspects of the site.

Output:
The output from this project assignment will be
o a production of a 3500 – 5000-word (jointly authored) report that explains your analysis,
design work and conclusions
o a 10-minute joint presentation by your whole team of the results.
o You will need to clearly explain why you have made the conclusions and choices.
 CF11T Warehouse Design Case Study Brief – October 2022

Pre-tutorial tasks
• Form your team – if not already done so. This should a maximum of 5 students. Ideally
you will have a balance of people for the following: working with numbers (e.g., Excel);
researching on-line for logistics equipment etc; working with masterplans / basic
architecture (spatial skills); and / or developing reports and presentations.
• Prepare for the tutorial: You need to decide what information you need to complete
the task – this is not automatically given to you, but you will ask the client’s
representative to provide what you think you need!
o Read this case study brief along with the chapters 16 and 19 of Ruston et al
(2014) [chapters 18 and 23 if you have a copy of the 2017 (6th) edition]
o Look at the site plan (below)
o List information needs: From what you have learned from the brief and the
readings, as well as any other knowledge you have on warehousing, come to the
lecture and tutorial with a list of what information you think your team will need
to conduct the analysis.

Evador is unusually prepared with access to a lot of information on their plans but needs to
be asked specific questions so they can provide logistics-specific data.
 CF11T Warehouse Design Case Study Brief – October 2022

Product examples

Toolboxes – Large, Medium, and Small

Storage box

Food keepers
CF11T Warehouse Design Case Study Brief – October 2022
CF11T Warehouse Design Case Study Brief – October 2022
 CF11T Warehouse Design Case Study Brief – October 2022

1,230 pallet locations

 CF11T Warehouse Design Case Study Brief – October 2022

Block stack: 1,040 locations at 2 high Blue racking: 138 locations at 3 high
Yellow racking: 1,428 locations at 3 high Case pick: shelves, 3 high, 10 locations per level
CF11T Warehouse Design Case Study Brief – October 2022