"Efficient warehouses are clean, well-ordered with written, available standard operating procedures that reflect the actual operation of the warehouse," says Simon Bragg, ARC Advisory Group.

Bragg has created a survey of ten questions to help warehouse managers recognize the best practices defining best-in-class performance. The survey also includes a description of the best practices and the enabling technology implemented by industry leaders.

The latter is important, says Bragg, since nearly one-third of large warehouses and two-thirds of medium-sized facilities are still operating in a paper-based environment. That limits a facility's ability to handle multiple orders simultaneously, provide critical value-added services, and accurately measure performance. What are the critical questions facing warehouse managers?

• Can you handle multiple orders simultaneously?
• Does your inventory accuracy exceed 99%?
• Do you give customers a totally reliable delivery date?
• Can your numbers identify changes that most impact performance?
• Can you smooth the workload for each section in the DC?
• Do you pack items to simplify downstream partner tasks?
• Can you and your customers do single scan receiving?
• Can each warehouse manager support colleagues across your multi-site distribution network?
• Have you eliminated manual quality checks?
• Is the supply chain capable of being reversed?

"The ten questions identify weak warehouse management practices and processes," Bragg says. "Each yes indicates that you've achieved a degree of operational excellence." No's represent areas of opportunity to improve.

For more information, contact ARC Advisory or Simon Bragg at sbragg@arcweb.com.