SCE Industry Group releases summer 2012 quarterly report

The Supply Chain Execution Systems & Technologies (SCE) Industry Group of Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA) has released it’s Summer 2012 Quarterly Report titled Leveraging Performance Metrics to Justify an SCE Investment. The report features an interview with SCE member John Hill who discusses how to estimate potential value of supply chain execution systems and technologies through analysis of current performance, followed by establishment of and comparison with metrics-based improvement targets.

“The key is alignment of the SCE solutions with the metrics appropriate to the operational environment. Once in place, the metrics can be used to calculate the likely return, and, once deployed, the SCE solution(s) can be used to monitor and audit performance to ensure that the targets are achieved on an on-going basis,” says Hill.

The SCE Group encourages end users to pick the metrics that best fit their environment and adapt them to assure accurate profiles of actual performance.

“Take Orders per Hour, for example,” notes Hill. “A single warehouse may ship pieces, cases and mixed and full pallets. Pallet pick rates are generally much lower than the rates for the cases, and even lower than piece picking rates. Accordingly, in that all three are important to operational performance, metrics should be calculated and targets set independently for each.”

Once established, a comparison of current and target metrics—coupled with an estimate of the potential incremental value of target achievement—will help to determine if it makes sense to proceed with an SCE investment.

The report details how to analyze and calculate performance metrics and provides direction on which SCE technologies and systems enable performance improvement in each area. It also includes a template SCE created for profiling current performance and establishing and valuing improvement target achievement.

Quarterly Reports are an information source from several Industry Groups of MHIA. Each report focuses on trends in the use of material handling and logistics equipment, such as guided vehicles or automated storage, to solve challenges in the plant and warehouse ranging from ROI to sustainability to productivity in the new economy.

Members of MHIA Industry Groups supply material handling and logistics equipment and systems. These industry experts evaluate operational challenges and solve them efficiently and cost effectively. They are authoritative sources for solutions to challenges that end users face on a daily basis.

SCE is an Industry Group of MHIA. SCE members are the Industry’s leading suppliers of supply chain execution software, hardware, services and related technologies. They supply solutions worldwide and in virtually every major manufacturing and distribution sector.