AFLAC

Project Overview

AFLAC suffered from a lack of storage space: inventory levels had increased with the volume of orders processed. The company has resorted to offsite storage, but this option showed to be cost prohibitive and still did not provide enough space.

In addition, it had order fulfillment inefficiencies. Even with a three shift operation AFLAC still could not process all customer requests in a timely fashion.

To cope with increased volumes and complexities, AFLAC segregated its fulfillment process in three different units corresponding to its three major product families. This strategy distributed the workload among multiple functional areas, but did not leverage economies of scale that IC could realize by consolidating shipments made to same customers. 

Project Objectives

• Determine how to best utilize the new building addition, including redesigning the entire facility and gain a more effective system and proper selection of storage media
• Peach State’s goal was to implement efficient processes to allow higher throughput rates with the same or fewer resources. These include leveraging common processes for all product types, eliminate double handling of material where possible, streamlining processes in all areas of order fulfillment
• The facility design must be robust enough to handle growing volumes in the future and must be easily adaptable to accommodate any new processes.