The fine art of making do

Innovative materials handling solutions often come from the most unexpected places.

by Jim Apple, Founding Partner, The Progress Group -- Modern Materials Handling, 1/1/2006

Several years ago I was driving home from North Carolina late one night. Tiring, I stopped at a rest area for a quick nap. Upon awakening, my battery was too weak to start the car.

A helpful soul stopped, but neither one of us had any jumper cables. But, he said it wouldn't be a problem.

The kind stranger pulled his car up to mine until the bumpers touched and then proceeded to use the jack handle to span the positive battery terminals. He instructed me to start the car. I was skeptical, but by gosh, it worked!

Even when the right tools are not available, creative people find a way to get the job done. They just "make do."

From my early years in the auto industry, I became accustomed to workplaces customized with cardboard padding and duct tape to make up for the ergonomic comfort that the engineers left out.

My own first warehouse "make do" was in a four-story warehouse building with a freight elevator to get products up and a spiral chute to get them down. Before distributed printing was common, getting orders to the upper floors was tedious. To improve it, we cut small holes in the floors and installed a rope over pulleys, top and bottom. Clips on the rope held orders on the "clothes line" as they were raised to the next floor. A doorbell signaled that they were on the way.

At the same company, we had a common product label on which we stamped the part number for products coming off the production line. The labels were placed on the end of the boxes. As both a cost reduction and productivity improvement, we found that our box supplier could easily print a blank label on the end of the box. And, to keep from double handling the self-inking stamp, we mounted it on the packing bench with a metal guide to permit the operator to push the box against the stamp, rotating its print head. Presto!—print and apply.

My partner, Bob Ouellette, started his career in a small appliance factory. He recalls having a great deal of difficulty maintaining just the right tension on the fabric for heating pad covers. The engineers struggled with it until one day when an operator appeared with a fishing pole. With a little special rigging, it did the job for years. It became the highlight of every plant tour.

Last month, I was in a facility in Canada. The warehouse manager, Joe Fiorello, didn't have the benefit of a warehouse management system (WMS) to support the operation. But, he created a couple of clever "make do's."

When product was low in a forward picking position, pickers released a spring-loaded flag from under the rack beam. As it waved in the aisle, it was a very visible signal to the replenishment operator to bring a new pallet.

At a large mail order house in England, it was important that each picker finish his or her batch in 18 minutes flat to feed an indexing delivery conveyor to the sorter induction stations. Each picker was rated by picking rate and assigned a number of pick lines accordingly. The dispatcher had mounted a measuring stick on the bench so that as a picker announced his or her rating, fan-folded labels could be stretched along the table to the corresponding mark. What a simple work-balancing tool.

We've all seen the broomsticks, poles and homemade hooks for clearing jams on conveyors or in flow racks. I believe that by carefully observing the way the operators "make do," we could learn a lot more about the details of work-place engineering.