Warehouse management: crawl, walk and run to better facility performance
The key to getting the most from your warehouse or DC metrics is to take benchmarking one step at a time.
Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 12/18/2008
Take it slow and don’t worry so much about what the other guy is doing.
Those might be two of the most important takeaways for any company that plans to benchmark its facility to drive improvements, says Jim Barnes, president of enVista.
“We urge our customers to take a crawl, walk and run approach,” says Barnes. “The problem is that most companies want to skip the crawl and walk steps, which are the foundation for any system you’re going to put into place. But most productivity systems fail when you try to run right out of the gate.”
What does it mean to crawl? Barnes uses a labor management system as an example. Without guidance, most employees work to about 65% of their capabilities, which leaves plenty of room for improvement. But a labor management system alone won’t drive change.
“You don’t start by implementing a labor management system,” Barnes says. “Instead, you start by making sure you have good processes and methods in place. Then, you identify simple productivity metrics, like lines per hour, that impact internal and external customer satisfaction and focus on the processes and methods that impact those metrics.”
Most important, once you have nailed down your processes and established simple productivity goal for your facility, you provide feedback to your supervisors, individual operators and team members on a regular basis. “Most companies establish metrics,” says Barnes. “Few, however, share those with their employees. If you don’t tell your people what you expect from them, then observe and report on their performance, you’re not going to get the most from them.”
Ready to walk? Once methods, processes and standards in place, it’s time to put in a labor management system. That allows you to refine your observations, by ensuring that your employees are working to a standard, and by capturing tasking time – the time when employees are performing their jobs – and non-tasking times, when they’re not productive.
With processes, practices and a labor management system, you’re ready to run with the big dogs and implement an incentive program. “Now, you’ve got a foundation in place and you can try to get more out of your workforce in way that is beneficial to you and to them,” says Barnes.
What’s the benefit of a crawl, walk and run approach? “It’s cost-effective,” says Barnes. “You can use the improvements from each phase to create enthusiasm and credibility with your workforce. More importantly, you can use the savings from each phase to fund the next phase.”
View All On-Demand Webcasts
