Volatility is now the rule, not the exception. Labor shortages, unpredictable order volumes, and supply chain disruptions are forcing operations leaders to make high-stakes decisions with limited visibility. Published in collaboration with Logistics Management, the Operational Agility Benchmark Report reveals how industry leaders adapt faster, make smarter labor and process decisions, and turn disruption into sustained performance gains.
Good data and artificial intelligence go hand-in-hand, says Dan Keto, president and chief technology officer with Easy Metrics, Inc., but companies must make sure that data from multiple sources isn't trapped in functional silos.
In the last 15 years, distribution facilities have experienced a “huge datafication uplift,” Keto says, with more than a dozen distribution data sources to contend with — and, at the same time, less visibility of that data.
Easy Metrics Case Study: evo’s Peak Season Preparations
Peak season is, by definition, the busiest time of the year for retail and distribution operations. It comes with unique challenges: changes in labor costs and needs, potential changes in workplace standards and management, and fluctuations in volume and product mix. This is especially true for companies like evo, who strive to have a world class e-Commerce and fulfillment experience for their customers, and simultaneously drive an outstanding company culture for employees.
Modern operations are fast paced and customer focused. The ability to track time, efficiencies, productivity and other operations metrics is invaluable. That’s what allows operations managers and warehouse supervisors to make wise hiring, scheduling, and budgeting decisions to manage costs and spearhead growth initiatives. A labor management system can help you get there.
Measuring productivity starts with your process KPIs. Only then can you communicate those goals to your workforce. Once you’ve established a set of standards to judge performance against, you can use them to reward your top performers and coach anyone falling behind.
The rise of e-commerce has created new distribution requirements that traditional manufacturing distribution, and increasingly wholesale distribution, have struggled to meet. Traditional WMS and ERP systems are not set up to handle eaches - a single unit pulled form a case pack. It's too difficult to accurately track fulfillment costs, reverse logistics add costs, and the burden is falling on operations teams to sort it out.
Today's operations leaders overwhelmingly name labor - that is, recruiting and retaining the best talent and managing the efficiency of their employees and teams - as their top priority. But today's complex customer requirements and fulfillment variability means that everything is in flux. When everything is changing, it's too hard to get an accurate view into when, how much, and where you need labor at any given time.
The challenge of improving an operation’s productivity can be overwhelming. Modern warehouse teams are expected to achieve high levels of performance, to meet budgets and run a profitable operation no matter how difficult the product mix – without sacrificing quality or safety.
If you had a hunch that you have some employees that are checked out, and disengaged from their work, you’re probably right. 70% of employees are not engaged. This causes many problems that spill into areas of safety, productivity, quality, absenteeism, and more. In a distribution environment, employee engagement is critical, and more importantly, achievable with the right plan.
Labor Management Systems are designed and marketed toward increasing productivity in the workplace, and therefore reducing costs. Unfortunately, these systems only give you productivity data on direct processes–leaving other cost and time metrics invisible and unutilized. If the goal is to reduce overall costs, then looking purely at productivity metrics isn’t enough. This is why many companies aren’t seeing the cost savings they were expecting with an LMS alone.
Recent years have brought dramatic shifts in distribution demands. Productivity needs to increase to keep up, but labor management Systems require change management. Peak season is the worst time to take on a labor management project. But many companies are rushing straight into labor management solutions and making costly mistakes.
In this webinar, learn how to optimize your network’s performance without the hassles of change management. Discover how to analyze cost to serve to find waste, create cross-site benchmarks, and drive corrective action.
