WERC,the Warehouse Education and Research Council, is a really fantastic organization that has done a lot to help educate professionals in the distribution industry. Easy Metrics was fortunate to be able to present at a WERC conference back in 2014. Since then, our industry has gone through a massive transformation, and WERC invited us to […]
One of the challenges when measuring process productivity is deciding on what measurements and metrics to use. Industrial Engineers take a reductionist approach and try to get as much process detail (metrics) as possible. This is useful, but makes it very complex to determine and measure ongoing improvement. From an IE perspective, all of those […]
The business world has evolved to one of data driven decision making. From our own experience, we have seen a multitude of times where the data paints a completely different story than just managerial observation. As part of any Continuous Improvement effort, measuring the processes you are trying to improve is critical and that requires […]
Most companies have continuous improvement initiatives ongoing at any given time. There are a variety of continuous improvement methodologies used such as Kaizen, Six Sigma, Lean and Total Quality Management that all have similarities. One of the common improvement models is PDCA: Plan : Identify an opportunity and plan for change. Do: Implement the change […]
One of the biggest challenges we find with any customer is the lack of 100% visibility into how employees spend their time in distribution and manufacturing operations. Within distribution, most WMS systems only track on standard work, ie direct labor. Anywhere from 25-50% of labor then is unaccounted for. With manufacturing, it can be even […]
Engineered labor standards focus on all of the measurements that compose a unit of productivity for an employee. The labor standard formula is: labor standard = AX+BY+CZ + . . . Where A, B and C are the calculated coefficients done through engineering or observation and X, Y, and Z are the quantity. An example […]
