Study Questions

1. Discuss the differences between rigid and nonrigid containers. Discuss the importance of load securing in unitization.

2. What benefits do flexible unit-load materials have in contrast to rigid containers?

3. What trade-offs are involved in the use of returnable equipment?

4. In terms of basic handling, what is the role of a unit load?

5. Why have automated handling systems failed to meet their expected potential?

6. What is the logic of "live racks"?

Challenge Questions

1. Assume the warehouse personnel didn't want to attach the packing list to the outside of the master cartons in the packaging example on page 250. The supervisor's reasoning was that it required time to attach the list, and the activity disrupted efficient handling of cartons to the warehouse shipping dock. His primary argument is that the new pro-cedure ended up reducing warehouse handling efficiency. How would you support the continued need to attach the packing lists?

2. The use of third-party pallet exchange pools offers some clear advantages in compari¬son to a firm owning its own pallets. Under what conditions would you use company-owned pallets versus pallets provided by an exchange pool? Compare the justification of pallet pools to the decision of owning and operating a private trucking fleet.

3. In the Diapers.com illustration, robots were being utilized to move and position racks of merchandise to the location of order pickers. What, if anything, concerns you about this concept? What in your judgment is necessary to render this deployment of robotics a significant breakthrough? The Diapers.com business model is e-commerce. Would your reactions be the same if the distribution center was replenishing retail stores?

4. Given the fact that both the Navy and the Air Force regularly fly pilotless aircraft for surveillance and combat missions, the idea of a driverless fork truck seems somewhat of a no-brainer. Why not pilotless cargo aircraft such as FedEx and UPS? Why not semi-trucks moving intercity without drivers? How would your answer differ if we had high-ways that were dedicated to truck-only traffic, either on an exclusive or time-allocated basis? Where do you think the concept of probotics will eventually end up?