60 seconds with... Dave Zuern

Dave Zuern on the power of better labor management.

By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 7/1/2005

Before we had a group come in from the University of Wisconsin at Madison to evaluate our operations, we didn't know that labor management in our warehouse needed to improve. When they first told us, we doubted their findings. But they showed us that, in fact, we had 50 different people working in 50 different ways. Furthermore, we didn't really know what people were doing.

It also became clear that our supervisors were enforcers. They prodded people to work. It soon became clear we needed to put the responsibility for getting the work done on the people not the supervisors.

In short, we needed to work smarter not faster. Getting there was an incredibly complex process. We mapped out all processes, and determined the best way to get work done. So we created a standard operating procedure for each area in the warehouse then for each task performed. This information was then plugged into a software template.

Today, there is a single best way for workers to perform tasks. And they can't meet the standards by working differently from the standards. By the way, it's ok for them to exceed the standards but they can't underperform. While people were initially skeptical, they now embrace the system. It eliminates all of the soft issues from performance evaluation. They either measure up or they don't.

Just as important, we got an immediate 15% pop in labor productivity. And our supervisors are now facilitators to make our operations even more efficient rather than enforcers carrying a big stick. Recently, we rolled out labor management to our value-added assembly area too.