• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • SCB YouTube
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile

  • CORONAVIRUS
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Express/Small Shipments
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Supply Chains in Crisis
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Robotics
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • REGIONS
    • Asia Pacific
    • Canada
    • China
    • Europe
    • Latin America
    • Middle East/Africa
    • North America
  • THINK TANK
  • WEBINARS
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • PODCASTS
  • VIDEOS
  • WHITEPAPERS
Home » Five Steps to Close 2018's Warehousing Performance Gap

Five Steps to Close 2018's Warehousing Performance Gap

Five Steps to Close 2018's Warehousing Performance Gap
February 6, 2019
Joe Tillman, SCB Contributor, Donnie Williams, SCB Contributor, and Karl Manrodt, SCB Contributor

Consistently maintaining performance on most of the measures in the 2018 DC Measures Study still eludes everyone.

Best-in-class, median, and major opportunity performers saw performance decline on a majority of the metrics. Best-in-class performers are still ahead in that they maintained performance on some of the measures. However, their performance dropped on those metrics that they had improved in 2017.

As we look back over the years, the biggest trend in the annual DC Measures Study has been the closing of performance gaps between best-in-class and major opportunity performers. In 2018, however, there was little improvement in performance on the metrics in the study.

The decrease in performance suggests that consistency is missing. To drive consistency, we must focus on continuous improvement and training employees to utilize those methodologies. It's time to tap into the brains of our people and not their brawn, especially on the shop floor. 

A Culture of 'Measure and Improve'

Having a continuous improvement and measurement process in place ensures frequent, constructive reviews of the metrics. The key is to show workers how their performance affects the overall business, then work with them to facilitate the selection and implementation of the measures.

A five-step process, Validating the Value-Add (VVA) establishes metrics that support the overall company objectives and goals.

1. Clearly define the company’s objectives. Companies need to determine their desired outcomes and strategy. Then articulate the desired outcomes and strategy such as “I want to achieve a 10 percent improvement in shipping accurate orders.” Follow up with your people to make sure they understand the strategy and what their role is in helping to achieve that objective.

2. Develop the validating the value add (VVA) statement. Create value-add statements that are under your team’s control. Essentially, how does the team add value in achieving the company’s objectives. For example, “Our team adds value by maintaining 99.4 percent or better accuracy on order picking.”

3 Measure the progress against your VVA. Once clear expectations have been set, measure the team’s progress against their goal. Make it easy to see that goals are indeed being met by summarizing data so that the results are obvious. Also, be sure to include historical data to track trends.

4. Build a Pareto of reasons for not meeting the goal. Create a process for root-cause analysis and development of corrective action plans. For example, create a Pareto chart to show where to focus your efforts. The obvious problem is usually not the root cause, and in order to keep the problem from recurring, the team must drill-down to find the underlying reasons for the problem.

5. Take action — fix the problem. By outlining the steps you are taking to correct problems that have been identified in Step 4 you mitigate emotions and finger pointing. Plus taking action will help drive change to improve your performance. However, if you are not willing to do something about it all of the work to this point means nothing.

The Outlook

We continue to see strong performance results from firms which focus on people first. Regardless of what processes we use or what technologies we implement, people will continue to be the driving force in the warehouse. In other words, our processes and technologies are only as good as the people using them.

Joe Tillman is founder of TSquared Logistics and a researcher at WERC. Donnie Williams is an assistant clinical professor at the University of Arkansas. Karl Manrodt is a professor at Georgia College.

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED VIDEOS

HR & Labor Management Quality & Metrics All Warehouse Services Robotics
KEYWORDS All Warehouse Services Automation & Robotics HR & Labor Management Quality & Metrics supply chain quality and metrics
  • Related Articles

    Four Steps to Align Qualitative and Quantitative Metrics in the Warehouse

    Three Steps to Manage and Monitor Logistics Performance

Joe Tillman, SCB Contributor

The Evolution of Supply Chain in the Cloud

More from this author
Donnie Williams, SCB Contributor

More from this author
Karl Manrodt, SCB Contributor

More from this author

Wake up to live
“Supply Chains in Crisis”
updates and the latest Supply Chain News!

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

Popular Stories

  • Medical drone

    Amazon May Be Proof That Delivery Drones Aren’t Practical

    Last Mile Delivery
  • Warehouse worker

    Why Higher Wages Alone Won’t Solve the Supply Chain Labor Shortage

    Warehousing
  • Adidas

    From Sneakers to Teslas, China Lockdowns Upend Global Supply Chains

    Coronavirus
  • SEC building seal

    Get Ready for the Next Phase of ESG: Mandatory Corporate Due Diligence

    Regulation & Compliance
  • ESG Guide

    Confronting the ESG Imperative in Supply Chains

Digital Edition

Scb may 2022 sm

2022 Supply Chain ESG Guide

VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

Case Studies

  • 3PL Doubles Productivity With Robots to Fulfill Medical Supply Orders

  • E-Commerce Company Cuts Order Fulfillment Time by 40%

  • Fashion Retailer Halves Fulfillment Time With Omichannel Automation

  • Distributor Scales Business by Integrating Warehouse Automaton Software

  • Fast-Growing Fashion Brand Scales E-Commerce Fulfillment With Whiplash

Visit Our Sponsors

Yang Ming Alithya Barcoding
Blue Yonder BNSF Logistics Generix
GEP GIB USA GreyOrange
Here Honeywell Intelligrated Inmar
Keelvar Kinaxis Korber
Liberty SBF Locus Robotics Lucas Systems
Nvidia Old Dominion Parsyl
Redwood Logistics Saddle Creek Logistics Schneider Dedicated
Setlog Holding AG Ship4WD Shipwell
Tecsys TGW Systems Thomson Reuters
Tive Trailer Bridge Vecna Robotics
Whiplash    
  • More From SCB
    • Featured Content
    • Video Library
    • Think Tank Blog
    • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
    • Whitepapers
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • Digital Offerings
    • Digital Issue
    • Subscribe
    • Manage Your Subscription
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Events Calendar
    • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
    • Supplier Directory
    • Case Study Showcase
    • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
    • 100 Great Partners Form
  • SCB Corporate
    • Advertise on SCB.COM
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • Data Sharing Opt-Out

All content copyright ©2022 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing