Terraforming the warehouse

BILSTEIN GROUP is a leading automotive aftermarket player and invested in a highly automated 19,000 sq m distribution centre in Markham Vale in 2018. But that is by no means a development end point. Adrian has been tasked over his last 18 months in post with ensuring the facility continues to improve, particularly as the Group has ambitious growth plans.

Central to the Markham Vale facility is a Witron OPS automated picking system, which has driven efficiencies for the firm. OPS is an integration of an automated small parts warehouse (AS/RS), a distribution loop, and upstream ergonomic picking workstations. Markham Vale was a consolidation of other warehouses and while the transition went well, Adrian is always seeking improvement. 

“First of all, it must be emphasised how exciting it is to work in warehousing and logistics. The complexity, growth and pace of change is staggering. 

“It was gathering momentum pre-pandemic, but since, the pace of change, what technology can now achieve, if you can manage it correctly, is really exciting.”

What a great endorsement of the exciting role warehousing plays in the UK economy. Warehouse transformation is very much the sweet spot of Logistics Matters and our Tomorrow’s Warehouse event, and we are proud that Adrian spoke at our event in Coventry this year.

It’s one thing living in a time of great change, it’s quite another being able to harness that change for the better, and bring business benefits to your operations. 

Adrian’s philosophy centres on continuous improvement.

“I have a background in lean, so I am always working on continuous improvement. Rapid and constant small changes are more effective than a ‘big change, dwell, big change, dwell’ pattern.”

Chunking the learning

In any transformation, you need to make progress in several logical chunks. 

Adrian explains: “Trying to change everything in one big transition, a big bang, is not the way to go. I’ve seen too many people fail too many times with this approach. And when it comes to suppliers, I want companies who will work with us to come up with solutions. This is preferable to off-the-shelf systems. I like to build a solution for the process rather than work the process around the solution.”

Planned growth for Bilstein will involve introducing new products, for trucks, as well as cars.

“From a logistics and warehousing point of view moving into truck, means bigger, uglier products, so storage space will be precious for us,” says Adrian.

The firm has also implemented a shrinkwrap tunnel, bringing consistency, repeatability and efficient consumable use to the process of wrapping such ‘uglies’.

As well as more volume, and greater variety of SKUs, order complexity is growing for Bilstein as it expands its kitting offering, with kit-to-order, adding late differentiation with around 500 different variants. This will be managed by cells working on order configuration as order SKUs are delivered from the OPS and other sources.

Availability is very important in the automotive aftermarket, and Bilstein has invested heavily in stock to steal a march on competitors on those all important delivery times.

Adrian explains: “To do that we have had to rely on a lot of external storage. A key goal of a possible expansion is to make us self sufficient in terms of pallet and larger item storage. The move could also allow us to scale up the OPS system. 

“We also have a lot of height above us and we will be looking at how we maximise our cubic space, possibly with mezzanines and pick towers.”

On the WMS side, Bilstein also plans to move to SAP EWM by 2028, which will mean warehouse software consistency across the group.

Phew! That’s a lot of transformation right there, but that’s not all by any means.

As well as looking to warehouse equipment and expansion, Bilstein is turning its attention to energy matters and the warehouse roof. I’m sure you can guess what that means. That’s right - solar panels.

“We have signed off a project to become more energy efficient, generating more electricity than we consume,” says Adrian.

“We could implement up to 4,000 solar panels. That said, this is one of the longest lead time items. It involves a submission to the grid, a G99. In a nutshell, this will help us determine how much of the electricity we generate can be taken into the grid.”

This will then influence how the project proceeds. 

“Depending on how much the grid can take, we could scale back the number of solar panels planned, or we could explore battery storage, which would also provide business continuity benefits.

“It’s a thought provoking project, you might think of this as a formality, but there is a gap between the desire to generate clean energy and having the infrastructure in place to support it.”

People

While there is much in the plan for technologies of various kinds, people are absolutely central to the strategy.

“We’ve been on a journey,”Adrian explains. “We try to do everything we can in terms of induction and training. For example, new starters have a meet and greet with the SLT. We’re all human and we want staff to know we are approachable.”

Training tackles a wide variety of needs, from soft skills in managers and those showing management potential, to MHE training, product awareness and much more.

“Training helps reduce staff turnover and has helped to reduce our reliance on temporary labour, and indeed a lot of our temps have gone on to full time roles.

“We are trying to promote from within by cultivating leaders in the warehouse, so we are putting together a training package for managers and future leaders, focusing on communications skills, conflict management, emotional intelligence and more.

“We also focus on hard skills, training 20 people on IOSH last year, and tackling MHE skills with an in-house trainer.”

The full time MHE trainer is AITT accredited and trains on all levels of vehicles for the setting.

“I take safety very seriously. We got Mentor Training on site to do an audit of our MHE – standards, training, records, policies etc. The audit allowed us to see where the gaps were and address them.

“We are not only upskilling MHE operators, we are training managers and supervisors to observe MHE use and provide feedback. It’s about building a culture, and it has helped us jump on near misses, rather than waiting for incidents to occur.”

Revamp of MHE

Bilstein is in the process of a major revamp of MHE on site, moving to Jungheinrich as supplier, with safety one of the gains highlighted by the new models, along with ergonomics, better control and sustainability.

“We’ve moved to lithium-ion based MHE supported by a fleet management system. It’s a safer system as the trucks are fob-controlled and backed by analytics. 

“We like the opportunity charging that comes with the lithium-ion, and the longer lifetime of the batteries.

“I like that Jungheinrich manufactures its own batteries, so if I have a problem with a battery I’m dealing with them, not through an extended chain of communication. 

“I’m also impressed by the evolution of their trucks, such as the 216i reach truck, the way they look at the driver experience, with better visibility.”

The partnership with Jungheinrich also ties in neatly with use of automation on site, says Adrian.

“We want to increase in size over next few years, while keeping our operating costs manageable, not just throwing more people at operations. So automation is key. We have looked at AMRs, and lower level AGVs, but we’ve opted for a Jungheinrich automated forklift because we want picking from flow racks and it’s got to go from a certain height. The automated forklift also gives us versatility. Furthermore, the Jungheinrich interface allows us to put different models on that system, so if the next vehicles are AMRs, AGVs, or automated VNAs we won’t need multiple systems.”

Eye on tomorrow

In a nutshell, that’s what Adrian is building – practical solutions that work well today, with an eye on scaling up in the future as the business expands, with a minimum of entanglements. 

A key principle is the sensible use of automation to scale without incurring runaway labour costs. A key tactic is looking at tech that works well in other industries and testing if it can be applied to Bilstein’s setting.

All this is achieved with an overarching focus on continuous improvement.