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wharehouse & truck design


alexG

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hello everybody,

i am starting a vending business in nicaragua. i already have vendsoft up and running.

i am now on wharehouse and truck design. i onky have 13 machines but i am planning to scale to 50 machines within 1-2 years.

i want to do the wharehouse and delivery truck design right from the beginning.

- advice on sorting, tools, design for the wharehouse

- design and advice for the delivery cart and truck

All your experience and advices are very welcome!

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It's a tough question to answer as your market could be vastly different from ours, but I think we will all try our best.  For your truck, you want the heaviest products at the bottom.  The most simple way to set a truck up is to install stand-alone shelves and use c brackets (or whatever they are called) to secure the shelves to the studs of the truck.  These shelves hold the weight of your products while the straps simply keep the shelves from falling over.  I have attached pictures of examples of the shelves and brackets.4dd83758c6c69_205304b.jpg17136152?wid=450&hei=450&fmt=pjpeg

 

I usually put my candy and pastries (heavier stuff) near the middle because they typically don't take up a lot of vertical space and I put the cookies at the bottom and the chips at the very top.  The weight generally gets distributed well as the lighter stuff (chips) are at the top and the cookies/candy is closer to the bottom with the soda sitting on the floor.  I also stack soda up no more than 4 cases high.  If you need more room for soda, you can simply build a cabinet that will support the weight of the soda (maybe 2 or 3 cases high per shelf) and strap a piece of wood at the bottom near the front of the cabinet so the entire cabinet leans back.  Doing that is probably the most efficient way to stack a lot of soda while preventing the soda from falling over during harder turns.  Obviously, if you turn too hard or too fast, you can tip anything over.

As for a warehouse, I recommend simply using commercial shelves for your product and setting your warehouse up so trucks can back up to a dock, unload pallets of products into a loading/unloading area, and leave.  The typical way around here to do it is to allow the trucks to pull the skids straight off the truck and park the skids somewhere convenient.  Here is some advice though, but it may not apply to you: If you aren't large enough to order skids of products at a time, then you can easily use a box truck as a mobile warehouse.  I could probably go through maybe 2 skids of product (soda and snacks) each week if I ordered it that way, and every bit of it could fit on my truck if I finished putting another shelf up.  Instead, I simply go to Sam's Club every 2 or 3 days and restock.  It adds extra time to my route but I am okay with that for now.  I don't see myself ever investing into a warehouse until I am at least up to 3 routes, and I don't know if that will ever happen.  I would rather order skids and have them delivered to my garage if possible.  But, again, your situation may be far different than here.

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I'm at 35 machines currently and my advise would be to get set up to pre-kit from the start so you don't need to carry as much product around with you in a mobile warehouse chewing through gas. I have three areas in my warehouse: shelves for chips; pallets and shelves for drinks (high turnover drinks stay on pallets on the floor, others are on shelves; and my chocolates are in an air-conditioned office on a desk with storage underneath.

I have large stackable plastic containers with lids to pack drinks into (or leave in cartons for stacker machines). I generally reuse the cardboard boxes my chips come in to pack them into, and have styrofoam boxes for chocolates. I label the packed boxes with machine number and then pack the delivery van in reverse order of my trip. I layer the van with drinks on the floor and chip and chocolate boxes stacked on top.

It's maybe not the most efficient set up, but it works for me.

Which path you go down will probably depend a lot on local factors, such as the relative costs of fuel, truck versus van, warehouse rent, labour costs etc. I'm not in the US, so things are probably different here from the majority of forumites, but thought I'd share how I do things.

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  • 3 months later...

thanks for you replies.

I have decided to go for a small van available here.

I highly underestimated the size of the warehouse. I had 180sqft for 7 machines. I am now going to 14 machines and soon 25 and getting a warehouse extension of 1200sqft.

We are pre packing for the trips which is nice. The warehouse is a bit of a mess. I started with shelves with the name sof the products, but as the promotions come and go, i am a lot more of a certain product and less of others etc so it is not working in my current restricted area.

I hope to be able to improve that in the future extension with a lot more space allocated per supplier.

My drinks don't come in skids... i am not sure what i need to do to have them delivered in skids but it sounds like a good idea.

Also, i underestimated the amount of trash i would be producing. I have a lot of carton for recycle and working now on a non profit organization to come pick them up every 2 weeks.

With regard to my van, the van is too small for putting shelves. We are working with plastic crates. I would have like to have a van big enough for shelves and a ramp. maybe in the future.

I would still take any tips on the matter as i think it is not discussed enough!

 

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Sounds like you are well into it, I work about 90 machines out of a 1200 sqft warehouse and 2 small vans with prekitting.  I have one room set up for packing dry goods (chips, candy, pastry) with shelves all around so the packer is working from the middle.  My drinks are in the larger bay area with skids and shelves.  I order all my canned drinks in 12 packs and try to stock the machines in multiples of 12 so I have no loose cans to manage, it's easier and keeps the cans clean as well.  Bottled drinks I prekit by unit.  Having a VMS software program right from the start gives you a big advantage.  I do get deliveries, and I am set up so that drivers can access part of the warehouse with a door code to drop off deliveries even if I am not there.  I am still reusing chip boxes for packing dry goods (cost is 0 and I have a good supply) and I get enough drink shells from the bottlers to pack the 20 oz bottles.  I am looking at going to the plastic bins for prekitting in the future (better protection for the product and a more professional look when customers see it)  but the cost makes it a "down the road" project for now...

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hello southeast treats. The idea to have part of the warehouse accessible with a code for supplier is a very good one! How do you ensure no stealing between suppliers in this delivery room?

How many people do you have for the 90 machines?

 

Here the service rate is pretty high, i need to refill every 2 days.... good for cash flow but a lot more work for the team too.

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There is no certain way to prevent theft, but in my case I know most of the drivers and don't have anything to steal that is worth their job to them... I do plan to install a camera and recorder at some point for general security...

Right now there are 2 of us servicing routes, but we don't have accounts that require so much service.  Must be a nice problem to have! 

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Down here, i cannot trust the delivery to deliver the actual order... i would definitely need recording for this delivery room. I am thinking about this as i am building the warehouse. 

It is a nice problem to have... however, prices here are lower than what you can get in the US.

My gross operating margin is around 44%... net, it is coming down to around 18%.

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hey southeast,

I'm currently using totes I bought at Sam's for like $7ea but looking at better ones from ULINE @ $20 or less ea that should last a long time.

And alexG can not recommend highly enough a VMS that will handle warehouse and machines. this will help with accountability.

 

 

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After I give these HD totes a workout I will let you know.   When I did the "rolling warehouse" with my van, I used wal-mart plastic totes that were like milk crates.  They sell them in the office supply section, but usually at back to school time they get a bunch in for dorm rooms and such, then after back to school they clear them out for 2 or 3 bucks each, so I would load up.  I still have a bunch and they come in handy for different things, but they are thin plastic so they wear out after a year or so of hard work....

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Big van. I like the upper shelves.

I have a much smaller van with my logo.

What do you guys think about the logo. It makes it more visible (got about 3 leads to put machines) but also more visible for people looking at the product and money we transport.

 

That is my van down here:

Captura de pantalla 2016-12-19 a las 11.54.50.png

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2 hours ago, alexG said:

but also more visible for people looking at the product and money we transport.

True that, I would have a vault for collections, could keep you from losing your cash to a break in while you are in an account.... here are some ideas:  http://www.equipmentinnovators.com/products/high-security-safes/high-security-safes/

 

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i like the idea of the safe in the truck. I am moving towards the employees removing the full bill stacker and replace with an empty one. These are pretty bulky unti and the size of the safe might be too big for 8-10 of them.

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