Walmart Supply Chain Internship Update
I'm admittedly a bit late to posting a midpoint update about my internship so far with Walmart's Ambient Supply Chain Network, but I promise it's because of how jam-packed the last few weeks have been with learning opportunities. It was difficult to sit down and try to recap my experience so far when I knew that I had more site visits and events scheduled each week. Now that things are winding down, I can better reflect on all of the things I have gotten to see and do, and I am excited to share the work that I have done.
I've had the unique opportunity to work in Walmart's only Manual Consolidation Center, MCC 6938, in Desoto, Texas this summer. In a building without automation, the engineering team has to occasionally think outside of the box to seek out new projects that can improve quality and capacity without increasing the burden on our associates. I couldn't ask for a better team than Jeremy Piper , Camryn J. Prevost, MBA, PMP , Venkat Akhil A. , and Malachi Hall to support me during my internship, providing the knowledge and confidence I needed to find a project that excited me to pursue and making sure I had the tools available to develop a robust project proposal.
POCON Unloading Project
MCC 6938 currently operates with two outbound lanes designated for each distribution center, one on each end of the building, in order to handle the two types of POs that come through the building, referred to as DA and POCON. My primary project proposal this summer focused on analyzing the historical volume at each outbound POCON lane and developing a data-driven recommendation on batching together multiple distribution centers in the same outbound lane. Servicing multiple DCs from a single outbound lane allows for the newly freed lane to be realigned as an inbound lane, increasing the total number of inbound lanes and therefore the total building capacity.
It was important to understand the impact of increasing the volume of freight across each of the operational functions that would be affected- primarily loading, hauling, operations, and transportation. Analysis was also performed on the downstream supply chain effects of potentially increasing the volume flowing through this building. At the end of the day, service to the end customer is the highest priority, and the main goal of increasing volume upstream is to better service the DCs and stores downstream through better in-stock % at stores.
Process Guide Project
The engineering team was tasked with writing and editing Process Guides for roles under the QA and Systems teams. I quickly got trained and certified to write these guides, and worked with the Reports Clerk in the building to ensure that I was accurately capturing their job roles and responsibilities. To date, I have written 2 new Process Guides and reviewed existing guides from the distribution and grocery networks to propose 5 Process Guides that can be implemented in this building with few to no edits.
E2E Supply Chain Exploration
One of the biggest highlights of my internship has been all of the opportunities I have had to visit and tour other Walmart facilities. While each visit on its own was an incredible learning opportunity, all of them together provided me with a comprehensive overview of the ambient supply chain network that allowed me to better understand each building's role within the greater context of the network. Listed below is each of the sites I have had the pleasure of touring this summer, with some included highlights from a few locations.
Consolidation and Imports
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The automation inside of this building absolutely blew me away. Cases were being inducted into the automation system via conveyors, scanned for dimensions, automatically labeled, then diverted to the correct outbound lane to be loaded. For many cases, the only 2 times they were touched were getting unloaded and put onto a conveyor and getting taken off a conveyor to be loaded. Having only been open since April, this building is still ramping up, however the progress so far is incredible to see.
Regional Distribution Center
This building is one of the first that I was able to visit that had automation, utilizing a fleet of robots to receive, store, and retrieve cases in a high-density storage structure. It was exciting to see new automation technologies being implemented within the supply chain, especially surrounding the automation of palletizing of cases being shipped and de-palletizing of cases being received. The RDCs are the downstream facilities from the building I work in, and this trip provided valuable insights into the downstream supply chain effects of the efforts made upstream.
Stores and E-commerce
The automation solutions in the Next-Gen E-commerce building DFW5 were so interesting to compare to the solutions across the consolidation and distribution networks. The goal of these solutions is to both reduce the cost of order fulfillment and reduce the stress and friction points for associates as they fulfill orders. Though the E-commerce network is beyond the consolidation network that I work in, it was valuable to able to see one of the many ways which Walmart services their customers all across the country.
This store has been partnered with Wing, an Alphabet subsidiary, to provide automated drone deliveries within a 6-mile radius for the past year. These drones are capable of delivering up to 2.5lbs at a speed of 65mph while cruising at 500ft elevation. We were able to see multiple deliveries take off and return within just a few minutes!
People Leadership| Program Management| Systems Engineering| Supply Chain Management | Mechanical Engineering| IT Management| STEM Advocate
7 个月You definitely made an impact during your summer internship at MCC 6938!
Project engineer at JE DUNN
7 个月Congrats Spencer !