1. Labor Shortages Will Continue

One of the biggest trends that remains for the warehousing industry in 2022 is labor shortages. This has been a concern for warehousing professionals for several years now, and it does not look like it will be resolved anytime soon. According to a recent survey from Modern Shipper, a whopping 73% of warehouse operators can’t find enough labor. This is up from 26% in 2021.

Naturally, a rise in the cost of labor accompanies the shortage. Faced with rising costs, warehouse operations must be creative to be considered an attractive employer. Integrating autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) can help attract, train and retain employees while reducing time to productivity. 6 River Systems’ AMR, Chuck uses system-directed picking which empowers associates to be more productive. Associates learn how to pick with Chuck in 15 minutes, increasing their time to productivity compared to a traditional cart picking and employee training comes at an overall lower cost.

2. E-Commerce Will See More Growth

In 2021, e-commerce sales grew 14.2% over 2020, with more total retail sales shifting to e-commerce. With higher order volumes, expedited shipping and less hands on the floor, operations need help getting orders out the door. 6RS’ Guaranteed SLA feature enables you to introduce flexibility into your operation and reduce complications for floor managers without the risk of compromising important shipping dates.

3. The Rise of Robotics
Various forms of robotics have been used in warehouses for several years now, and the adoption rate is accelerating. AMRs have seen spectacular growth, from $0.99 B in 2017 to a forecast of $6.97 B in 2022, a CAGR of 47.6%. AMRs help by reducing unnecessary walking, increasing fulfillment speed, and enabling associates to get more done in less time.In traditional warehouses, employees can easily reach exhaustion from walking over ten miles per day. Chuck’s system-directed picking eliminates long walking distances and time spent searching for items. Once picking or replenishment is complete, Chuck autonomously travels to the next pick location and the associate follows without having to push a heavy pick cart.

4. An Increasing Number of SKUs
Consumer expectations are driving a trend toward inventorying a larger number of SKUs. Warehouse managers worry if they don’t stock a slow-moving item, their customers will shift to a supplier who will. In addition, the pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions are causing a shift from striving for lean inventory to having extra items on hand, just in case. With shifting consumer behaviors and more SKUs on hand, there is a greater need for flexible and configurable fulfillment solutions that support mixed picking methods such as discrete, batch, cluster and zone. Whether you’re picking jeans or computer components, Chuck can be configured to pick and transport a variety of products.

5. Millennials Are Making Up a Larger Portion of the Workforce
Born between 1981 and 1996, millennials are rising into leadership positions in warehouses as the previous generation retires. Millennials grew up with the internet and smartphones, and they have different expectations than their predecessors. A 2020 Gallup poll indicated that, above all, millennials want an employer that cares about their well-being. In addition to more work-life balance, this new generation of leaders wants more purposeful work.Many warehouse tasks are dirty, dull, and potentially dangerous. Because the 6RS solution reduces the long walk and manual strain part of picking, associates are safer by reducing the risk of workplace injury allowing them to focus on value-added work. An element of gamification comes with a fulfillment automation solution. By creating some friendly competition through a daily picking competition, associates of all ages will be motivated to push the envelope if they have incentive.

6. Returns Handling and Replenishment Are Becoming Increasingly Important
Online sales are increasing, which in turn means product returns are on the rise. Under the best conditions, reverse logistics can be a complicated process. Every minute a returned product sits waiting to be received back in inventory, it loses value. With our Returns Putaway capability, it’s easier to get returns back on the shelves to maximize warehouse space and profitability. Processing replenishment should also be a top priority to keep inventory stocked. To avoid short picks, establish a replenishment process so products aren’t left at the dock door and orders can be filled correctly.

7. Risk Management is a Focus
The COVID-19 pandemic suddenly made warehouse operators aware just how vulnerable they were to unforeseen disruptions. Enormous difficulties in staffing, employee safety, and supply chain delays became the order of the day. As a result, risk management has risen in prominence. Risk management seeks to take preemptive action to minimize disruption to operations such as delays, product damage, and threats to employee safety. Then there is the question of economic shocks – and, of course – diseases. Despite labor shortages and unpredictable demand, operations need to fulfill orders quickly and correctly to meet delivery expectations. 6RS AMRs provide a system-directed approach which reduces risk and human error. By navigating the shortest path throughout the warehouse, employees are more productive pick to pick.

8. Omnichannel Fulfillment – Consumers Want It
The rise of e-commerce along with a global pandemic led to all kinds of new shopping habits over the last few years. We saw some customers shifting to buying online and picking up in store (BOPIS), with curbside pickup as an added bonus. Some in-store customers went online to look for deals and have products delivered to their homes or to order a different color or size from another store. Others expected the option to buy online and return in store. As we see e-commerce starting to slow, in-store shopping is seeing growth again with an increase of 8.2% in 2021 over the previous year.

As consumers demand more ways to shop, retailers are transforming their warehouses and expanding into dark stores or pop-up warehouses to accommodate omnichannel order fulfillment. With the shift from picking full cases and pallets to picking eaches for direct to consumer (D2C), warehouse managers need to equip their facilities and adjust their picking strategies accordingly. Ensuring inventory visibility across the entire organization will be the key to success for omnichannel fulfillment.

The Outlook

As we approach Q2 2022, it’s fair to say labor shortages will continue and supply chain disruptions will still be unpredictable. No matter what happens, versatility and risk mitigation should be top of mind for operations/warehouse managers. With a flexible fulfillment solution, you’ll be able to flex the labor you do have, increase productivity to accommodate shifting demand and support omnichannel fulfillment.

Ready to tackle your top fulfillment challenges? Set up some time to share your supply chain priorities and learn how 6 River Systems and Chuck can help your operations run more efficiently.

The post Eight Warehousing Trends Continuing in 2022: What You Need to Know appeared first on 6 River Systems.

The demand for warehouse employees is going to be high for the foreseeable future. BLS notes in its report that, “the demand outlook for warehouse space surges alongside coronavirus-related e-commerce sales. Employment in warehousing and storage now exceeds its February level by 14,000.” A June 2020 report published by eMarketer indicates that retail e-commerce sales are expected to reach $709.78 billion in 2020, an increase from $601 billion in 2019, which will increase demand for both e-commerce warehousing space and warehouse workers.

In this context, motivating employees and retaining the best talent is a top priority for warehouses. On average, labor costs constitute 65% of a warehouse’s total operating costs. Wage requirements are also increasing. The average hourly wages for logistics employees rose by more than 16% over the past decade. Fair compensation is one of the biggest factors in motivating and retaining a productive and efficient workforce. If employee turnover rates are high, warehouses are faced with continuously recruiting and training new workers, which takes time and increases overall workforce costs. Additionally, new employees may not be making maximum contributions to production while in training, which can hinder overall warehouse productivity. All of this contributes to the need for warehouses to keep employees motivated and boost employee retention. Below, we’ll discuss a few proven strategies for motivating and retaining warehouse employees.

1. Offer financial incentives

The most obvious way to motivate and retain employees is by offering competitive monetary compensation. One study found that 60% of warehouse and distribution center operators agree that labor recruitment is a top operational challenge. Higher wages can attract more qualified workers, but gainsharing is a strategy that couples increased compensation with higher output. It can be configured in many ways, but in general, the strategy rewards employees with bonuses or other monetary incentives when targets or business objectives are met.

Gainsharing ensures that employees have a stake in the warehouse operation’s success, and they will actively strive for improvement. The key to successful gainsharing is to reward not just output but also customer service, safety, accuracy and quality.

2. Foster ownership and responsibility

Employee retention is challenging in any industry when demand for qualified employees is high. While compensation is a key component of employee motivation, but it’s not the sole driver of morale or retention. Workers also consider respect, status and pride to be motivational factors; they want to be treated as professionals. “Warehouse work is physically demanding and often entails long hours, but employers try to create the best working environments they can by, for example, keeping facilities spotlessly clean, understanding that warehouse workers often regard things like culture and benefits in ways that are markedly different from their white-collar colleagues, and, most commonly, being present on the warehouse floor and looking for opportunities to have personal interactions with workers,” explains Mark Feffer in an article published by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM).

This aspect of psychology is even utilized in virtual games in a concept known as gamification. Giving employees ownership and responsibility for some part of the operations fosters a sense of pride and removes the boredom from work, increasing loyalty and boosting job satisfaction.

3. Provide a clear path forward

No one dreams of performing the same monotonous tasks every day for decades until retirement. Employees crave improvement. They want to move up the ladder and not feel as though their careers are stagnant. That’s why it’s imperative for your employees to know what opportunities exist going forward. It helps if potential promotion paths are clearly written with no ambiguity.

Employees must be able to derive actionable insights from potential advancement paths and clearly assess where they currently stand and what changes they need to make to move up the ladder. Tying promotional and advancement opportunities to warehouse KPIs also helps to improve the performance of your warehouse and provides clear and quantitative targets for employees to work towards.

4. Cultivate cohesive teams

Human resources experts have noted for years that often, employees leave managers, not companies. According to Gallup’s State of the American Manager report, “Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores.” Employees also find it difficult to leave a company where they’re working with people they consider friends rather than colleagues.

That doesn’t mean you have to fly your employees to exotic locations and conduct team-building exercises with expensive coaches. Even providing employees with opportunities to bond over pizza will go a long way. As with any personal relationship, warehouse employees cannot be coerced into becoming friends with colleagues. But warehouse work, by nature, is a team effort, so you should foster cohesive team-building and encourage friendly working relationships for a positive work culture.

5. Offer work shift flexibility

Shift-based work is a given in the warehousing industry. Shift work can cause a strain on employees’ family and social lives, particularly if they’re working shifts at odd times and on weekends when they have the most opportunities to socialize with family and friends.

Considering the impact on work-life balance, providing flexibility in shift changes can be a significant benefit for employees and may even motivate your employees more than monetary rewards can. While accommodating a favorable shift for every employee every time is impossible, be sure your workforce knows that you value their lives outside the workplace and support work-life balance.

6. Provide the right tools: implement collaborative automation solutions

Collaborative robots are increasingly common in warehouse operations, and they offer several benefits to boost employee motivation and morale, which helps to retain warehouse employees. Collaborative mobile robots like Chuck by 6 River Systems are easy to implement and intuitive to operate. For instance, implementing 6 River Systems’ solution enabled one leading 3PL to navigate the labor market more effectively by eliminating distribution center experience requirements and lessening language barriers. Additionally, the company reduced the time to achieve performance objectives by 90% by minimizing the time new hires spent learning processes and tools and getting to know the warehouse floor/map.

Chuck leverages machine learning and AI to optimize pick routes and prioritize work in real-time based on the current conditions on the warehouse floor, eliminating unnecessary walking. Navigating to each pick location autonomously and eliminating the need for associates to push and pull manual order picking carts, Chuck helps to reduce physical strain and fatigue, which in turn enhances safety. Chuck also guides associates through each task, reducing order picking errors and improving overall efficiency, which helps to boost employee morale. Collaborative robots like Chuck by 6 River  Systems have a proven track record of increasing productivity and employee retention.

Learn more about how collaborative mobile robots can improve warehouse safety and productivity by downloading our white paper, 7 Reasons Why Warehouse Robots Beat Traditional Automation.

The post 6 ways to motivate and retain warehouse employees appeared first on 6 River Systems.

A white paper published by DHL found that inefficient handling of supply chains causes high costs, wasted resources, and reduced agility. It is evident that supply chains are a cost driver for a retail business, and the efficiency with which supply chain is handled will determine whether the business will generate a sustainable profit or go under. Here are five supply chain management tips for the retail industry to bring in sustainable profits.

1.  Implement automated ordering

Except for the rare brand like Supreme, which thrives on product scarcity, shoppers are not thrilled to encounter out-of-stock products. It hampers the brand image and leaves money on the table, which isn’t desirable for any business, especially in the retail business where alternatives are readily available for the consumer. Automated ordering alleviates the pressure on supply chain executives and also can take care of triggering replenishment orders automatically. Since every business is connected with technologies like ERP software, it is easier to implement such solutions and have the complete supply chain adapt readily to demand shifts.

2.  Leverage big bata, analytics and optimization

Supply chains were driven by numbers and statistics for a long time. Quantifiable performance indicators were always considered key metrics by supply chain executives. With the technology available today, companies can track goods from raw materials to the final products, even after the purchase cycle is complete and the products are delivered to end consumers.

When dealing with this volume of data, tracking and analyzing data using an Excel spreadsheet is not realistic, as billions of data points can be created every minute. According to a report by the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC), investing in data analytics is a top priority for supply chains.

With big data analysis techniques, companies have the power to harness unstructured data and extract useful information out of it. Data that once would have been discarded can now be put to use, revealing avenues for optimizing the supply chain at an unprecedented rate. 36% of supply chain executives say that analytics is the top instigator for optimizing their inventory to balance supply and demand. Modern big data analytics tools are user friendly and have strong visualization tools to assist users in gleaning actionable insights from raw data.

3.  Automate warehouses and distribution centers

Warehousing is one of the important drivers of cost in the retail supply chain. There are plenty of opportunities to increase the profitability of a retail business through efficient warehousing. A lot of manpower, machines and systems are involved in the operation of a warehouse. Inefficiencies in any of these areas leads to an increased risk of errors and can create a bottleneck in the supply chain.

Order picking comprises 55% of the operational expenses of a warehouse, so reducing picking errors and improving order picking efficiency are obvious strategies when boosting profitability is the goal.

There are many levels of automation solutions available for warehouses. Amazon was a pioneer in warehouse automation, and today, there are many automation solutions within reach for any business. Collaborative mobile robots like Chuck by 6 River Systems are an intuitive and cost-efficient system that can integrate with your existing warehouse layout and offer faster ROI compared to traditional automation solutions, such as conveyor systems. For example, one leading 3PL implemented 6 River Systems’ solution within three months and achieved a full ROI within 18 months, with a 25% improvement on picking accuracy. In another case, a global retailer saw a 62% increase in pick rates within just three months after implementing 6 River Systems’ collaborative mobile robots solution while also reducing picking errors — at a fraction of the cost of traditional automation.

4.  Develop a cohesive strategy

The supply chain of a retail organization cannot function as a stand-alone organization. It has to work side by side with marketing, sales, finance, operations and other departments. One of the most important facets of supply chain management is demand planning. The sales and marketing departments provide the data necessary to develop an accurate model for predicting future demand, which in turn impacts supply planning. Similarly, other business functions are mutually dependent on the supply chain function.

It’s not just the departments within the company, but vendors, suppliers and distributors are also key elements of a supply chain. The success of each entity is dependent on the strong relationships built with its partner organizations. Supply chain management must be a collaborative effort with all company departments and partners, so breaking down information and communication silos is a top priority for supply chain executives.

5.  Consider 3PL solutions

Building an end-to-end logistics operation is cost-prohibitive and time-consuming, so many retailers turn to 3PLs. From behemoths like DHL and FedEx to regional 3PL players, there are many third-party logistics (3PL) providers that specialize in everything from warehousing and distribution to transport and last-mile delivery.

Leveraging a 3PL is a viable strategy to increase the profitability of your retail business. Many retailers find it more cost-effective to leverage 3PL solutions, particularly as their businesses grow and the retail logistics demands become too significant to manage. Utilizing the services of a 3PL allows retailers to focus their internal resources on the company’s core competencies.

These five supply chain management tips can help your retail organization achieve greater sustained profitability. By making smart investments in systems and solutions that can drive better decision-making and automate key business processes, retailers can boost productivity and efficiency for a healthier bottom line, both in the short- and long-term. To learn more about how collaborative mobile robots can help retailers address top fulfillment challenges, download our white paper, The Business Case for Collaborative Mobile Robotics.

The post 5 supply chain management tips for retail for sustained profitability appeared first on 6 River Systems.

• How much inventory do you need to meet current demand?
• Is demand likely to increase, decrease or remain the same over the coming weeks and months?
• How much does it cost to store and maintain slow-moving or stagnant inventory?
• How long does it take to receive new inventory from suppliers?
• Given the time it takes to receive orders from suppliers, how soon do you need to reorder each SKU?
• Do you have inventory that requires climate-controlled storage, significant space due to size or an unusual shape, making it difficult to optimize your warehouse layout and inventory storage?

In addition to the questions above, other considerations include accounting for lost, damaged or expired inventory, having adequate safety stock to mitigate the risk of possible supply chain disruptions (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) and ensuring availability and reliability of backup and secondary suppliers. Returns are yet another variable that can throw a wrench into your carefully laid plans, leaving you with excess stock that’s taking up valuable square footage in your warehouse.

Efficient inventory management requires quality, accurate data, and lots of it. Warehouse management systems (WMS) provide greater inventory visibility, automating processes such as updating inventory counts when items are scanned for shipment and leave the warehouse. Analyzing data on sales and returns as well as historical and seasonal data can improve forecasting capabilities to enable warehouse inventory managers to optimize inventory levels to maximize profits.

Adding intelligent automation solutions like collaborative mobile robots and mobile sorting solutions help to reduce error rates and improve productivity for more streamlined, efficient warehouse operations. Collaborative robots like Chuck by 6 River Systems, for instance, optimize replenishment routes in real-time and prioritize tasks based on the current conditions on the warehouse floor. Chuck guides associates to the put-away location, the associate scans the location and product, verifies the quantity, and performs the task, resulting in fewer errors such as SKUs placed in the wrong pick locations, which can lead to picking errors and inventory discrepancies.  Chuck then sends a confirmation and any exception information to the WMS, ensuring more accurate inventory data.

For more insights into the most common and most significant warehouse inventory management mistakes and how to avoid them, we reached out to a panel of warehouse professionals and asked them to answer this question:

“What’s the single biggest mistake made with warehouse inventory management (and how do you avoid it)?”

Meet Our Panel of Warehouse Pros:

Read on to learn what our panel had to say about the biggest warehouse inventory mistakes you could be making and how to avoid them.

Jonathan Karelse

@JKarelse

Jonathon Karelse is the CEO of NorthFind Management. He is a global leader in Sales and Operations Planning and forecasting and predictive analytics. He creates clarity in supply chain strategies, optimizing for today’s global digital landscape and delivers transformative outcomes for leaders who want to improve their operations in supply chain management.

“The single biggest mistake made in inventory management is assuming that all inventory should be managed equally…”

It is critical to understand the demand personality of every single SKU and manage it accordingly. Details such as which SKUs have steady-state versus intermittent profiles, which make higher margins, have higher or lower turnover or ship to specific geographies are just a few considerations when deciding where and how to warehouse each item. By optimizing inventory levels using a Plan For Every Part strategy, you can reduce inventory levels, increase service levels and optimize capital utilization.

John Moss

@EnglishBlinds

John Moss is the CEO of English Blinds.

“Carrying too much inventory, particularly when it comes to seasonal or perishable items, is…”

Perhaps the most widely spread mistake when it comes to inventory management, and this is often compounded by poor stock rotation protocols or auditing procedures.

Reviewing and analyzing layout and picking paths too infrequently is another huge mistake, and it’s one that can directly cause or exacerbate the aforementioned issue of poor stock rotation. Workers will commonly shortcut or pick closer/more accessible items if their picking paths aren’t intuitive, are overly convoluted or they’re in a hurry, and even if this only happens relatively infrequently, the impact it can have on wastage and stock loss can soon become significant.

Auditing warehouse contents, stock levels and benchmarks alongside demand and seasonality, plus regular reviews and revisions of your picking path maps and monitoring how they’re actioned on the ground are all essential to mitigate these problems.

Abir Syed

Abir Syed is a CPA and digital marketing consultant and focuses on e-commerce clients.

“In my experience, the biggest mistake I’ve seen with clients is…”

Not having the WMS properly integrated with their ERP or financial system.

Between inventory receipts, sales, location transfers, shrinkage and returns, there are too many opportunities for the WMS to be out of sync with the financials. And that can lead to poor inventory forecasting, lost margin, increased shrinkage and just bad decision-making overall due to how important inventory data is to some companies.

Ryan Roller

@Bead_The_Change

Ryan Roller is the Founder of Bead the Change.

“The single biggest mistake most warehouse managers make is in one way or another not controlling the accuracy of the inventory in the warehouse…”

Without a good warehouse management system, inventory tracking becomes a nearly insurmountable task. If counts are coming up short, vendors will soon abandon that warehouse for more secure storage solutions for their products. Always keep a strict accounting of the inventory entering and leaving the facility, maintain physical security, listen to your customers and use good inventory management technology.

Stacey O’Neill

@NationWCS

Stacey O’Neill works at the Nationwide Courier Services.

“One of the biggest mistakes that can be made with warehouse inventory management is that…”

Often companies send out products that aren’t up to standard, which means that their quality control department isn’t able to keep up with the demand for their services.

The best way to make sure that they’re on top of their work and only allowing the best products through is to invest some time into making the process as streamlined as possible. That might mean having a system in place for quality control reporting or just hiring another person for the team.

Matthew Baratta

@daimer_inc

Matthew Baratta is the VP of Operations at Daimer Industries. Matthew and his team specialize in selling commercial and residential cleaning products, which demands them to have an exceptional inventory management system.

“The biggest mistake that can be made with inventory management is to assume everything will run smoothly…”

Inventory management must account for unknowable and unpredictable problems, whether it be a shipping delay or a pandemic. A contingency plan and reserve must be in place to ensure continued operations in the event of such an occurrence.

David Bakke

David Bakke is a Warehouse Manager at National Air Warehouse.

“If you’re not effectively utilizing the space in your warehouse with respect to what is probably an ever-changing need based on customer demand…”

You could be leaving money on the table, so to speak. Especially in this current business environment, when you might receive half pallets, less than full pallets or generally nothing at all (because of the supply chain constraints due to the coronavirus), you need to be flexible and transitory. On a more positive note, if for some reason your business is growing, that makes the need for efficient space utilization that much more important. To avoid this, in short, skip the pre-determined planograms and go with what makes sense. Look at height, length and width, and think about a group by dimension strategy. Using dimensioning systems for packages and pallets can help, as well.

Lillian Jackson

Lillian Jackson is the Chief Human Resources Officer of The RedHead Solutions. She earned a degree in Human Resources and worked in several fortune 500 companies prior to venturing out to start her own small business offering human resources, payroll and bookkeeping support to small to medium-sized businesses at a fraction of the cost of hosting those services on site.

“The single biggest mistake made with warehouse inventory management is that…”

The company is managing the inventory through the use of technology; however, they are not properly managing the people moving the products, therefore losing profits in their people cost. Warehouse inventory management software should be integrated with the people component of the cost of goods to ensure that each move of the inventory is cost-effective. In analyzing payroll and invoicing for several small businesses, we have seen a pattern where companies were able to successfully reduce their inventory cost through the use of software platforms, but their payroll costs skyrocketed, thus negating the benefits of the warehouse inventory software.

Allan Borch

Allan Borch is the founder of Dotcom Dollar. He started his own online business and quit his job in 2015 to travel the world. He achieved this goal through e-commerce sales and affiliate SEO. He started Dotcom Dollar to help aspiring entrepreneurs create a successful online business while avoiding crucial mistakes along the way.

“My biggest mistake with warehouse inventory management happened when I was just starting in e-commerce…”

During those early days, I kept track of inventory using spreadsheets. I felt confident in the research I did and in all the math I mastered to complete my engineering degree. However, when you have inventory for three months and are dealing with orders and returns on a daily basis, it quickly becomes chaotic. I soon found myself way over my head with all the work.

I realized that Excel and other manual processes don’t operate in real-time or allow multiple users to access them at the same time. An automated system, in contrast, enables multiple employees to track items across several locations, all while monitoring orders and shipments for those items. So after a month of sifting through everything manually, I went ahead and got an inventory management software. It was a bit pricey, especially for someone just starting on Amazon. However, the ability to automate this key aspect of the business surely made up for it.

Robert Johnson

@Sawinerynet

Sawinery.net was created by a real-life woodworker and a woodworking enthusiast, Robert Johnson. His years in the woodworking and carpentry industry, plus his love for the craft inspired him to reach out to his fellow woodworkers through this website.

“The single biggest mistake made with warehouse inventory management is the failure to invest in an inventory management system…”

With inventory systems, labeling and assortment will be easier as it utilizes barcode scanners to ensure that any product in the warehouse can be located any time. It also provides more accurate listings and quantities, making the workflow more efficient. A good inventory management system can be costly, but it is a good investment in the long run.

Martin Heubel

@consulterce

Martin Heubel is an e-commerce consultant, advising SMB and multinational companies on how to grow their sales and margins online. As a senior manager at Amazon, Martin has successfully developed and implemented e-commerce strategies for 100+ businesses of all sizes and industries over the last 4+ years. On his blog, Consulterce.com, he shares actionable advice that allows his audience to build their own successful e-commerce businesses.

“The single biggest mistake you can make is not to keep an up-to-date catalog of your inventory at hand…”

It’s a costly mistake to realize that your stock is about to expire before you can ship it to your customers. While you might think that this mainly applies to the food industry, think again — products like perfumes, creams or batteries need to fly off your shelves before they are about to expire. Thankfully, it’s easy to automate stock expiry alerts with almost any software out there. But still, it’s a costly mistake that many young entrepreneurs make.

Ian Kelly

@NuLeafNaturals

Ian Kelly is the VP of Operations at NuLeaf Naturals.

“The biggest warehouse inventory management disaster is ignoring safety measures…”

When thinking of improving profits, most managers think of bringing in more efficient inventory storage systems, but the answer can be as simple as adopting better safety measures while moving the inventory. A huge percentage of lost workdays is caused by accidents that are related to poor safety measures. Accidents and loss of workdays equal low workforce morale and loss of money.

Managers should regularly conduct risk assessments and follow them up with corrective measures. There is a lot of research and evidence to point out that this is the number one factor that reduces workforce retention and drastically improves a company’s profits and trajectory. Ignoring this is the biggest blunder any manager can make.

Sean McGinnis

@kurufootwear

Sean McGinnis is the Vice President and Head of Marketing, E-Commerce & Customer Experience for KURU, a DTC footwear company.

“The biggest problem we face is accurately forecasting sales so our inventory team can staff to maintain service levels…”

We have a very high expectation that orders are quickly processed and shipped. When we do not accurately forecast our sales levels and communicate those forecasts to our team, there is a potential that orders will not be processed in a timely fashion.

Garrett Greller

@UncleBuds_Hemp

Garrett Greller is the Co-Founder of Uncle Bud’s Hemp.

“Failing to provide the right tools and systems to manage warehouse inventory and to train workers in the proper application of those tools is a sure path to failure…”

Specialized inventory management software is expensive, but a warehouse mired in disarray due to outdated or insufficient management systems is vastly more expensive. Ensure the workers are fully versed in using the software since even the most competent software still needs proficient users to function.

Jeff McLean

Jeff is the Co-Owner of McLean Company.

“By far, not properly stocking the most critical items can deal a severe blow to a distributor…”

Safety stock is additional inventory of high-demand products intended to prevent stockouts or in case of supply chain delays. By maintaining this safety allowance, warehouse inventory management will never be caught flat-footed by higher than usual demand, replenishment issues or a combination of the two. It is important, however, that the supplier is very attuned to what products will see higher than usual demand. Too much safety stock can hurt company operations and profits.

Norita Taylor

@OOIDA

Norita Taylor, APR is the Director of Public Relations at the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

“As part of the supply chain, one big mistake warehouses make is…”

Using trucks as temporary warehouses by way of making truck drivers wait hours on end to be loaded or unloaded. This habit makes the entire supply chain inefficient and forces truck drivers to violate hours of service regulations.

David Altemir

@AltemirConsult

David Altemir is the President/Senior Consultant at Altemir Consulting – Lean Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Engineering, & ERP.

“The most significant and most prevalent inventory mistake, particularly for smaller manufacturers, is that raw materials are not correctly consumed during production…”

Raw material inventories can become wildly inaccurate as a result. Many accounting and inventory software systems simply are not designed to support manufacturing adequately. Therefore, many manufacturers are left trying to fit a square peg into a round hole when it comes to maintaining accurate inventory.

Willie Greer

@AnalystProduct

Willie Greer is the founder of The Product Analyst.

“One of the biggest mistakes is manual inventory management…”

Lots of companies resort to manual handling of their inventory, as this is somehow believed to be more accurate. However, it is not convenient and is very time-consuming, plus, the accuracy is not even guaranteed.

Some are afraid that software solutions might disregard important details, and it’s uncontrollable. Though in fact, both processes involve the same amount of effort and assurance. The advantage of automated processes is that you can allocate more time to attend to the needs of more customers rather than wasting lots of it by manually tracking your inventory.

Another mistake is working with the wrong people or assigning tasks inadequately. Some tasks require physical strength, while others require certain skills. There might be some that can’t do it all, and who knows what might happen during emergencies, right? It’s better to hire people who are capable of adapting and learning other skills through proper training so they can be trusted with whatever task is given to them.

Albert Lee

Albert Lee is the Founder of Home Living Lab.

“The biggest mistake made with warehouse inventory management is relying on manual inventory management…”

Some companies still rely on a predominately manual approach to inventory management because they believe that changing to automation will cause too much of an upheaval to current processes. After all, why change what is working? Manual inventory management may work for smaller companies. However, when the size and scope of your inventory expand drastically, each manual step is rife with possibilities for human error. Each error is then compounded down the line and may potentially cause great disruption in the supply chain. On the other hand, automation will maximize scalability, reduce human errors, save time and ultimately make your company more profitable.

Kate Diaz

@DenSwanky

Kate is the owner/writer for SwankyDen.com, a home DIY, decor and how-to website.

“As an interior designer, tracking every single thing, down to the last button, is important…”

I think that inventory should be given the attention and respect it deserves, no matter how daunting or overwhelming it can be. Based on my experience, lack of communication with your team is the single biggest mistake you can make in managing your warehouse inventory. A slipup, big or small, can cost your business a lot.

We often make the mistake of relying solely on the inventory management software’s automatic estimates. No doubt, technology can make your life easier, but it’s still crucial to have a face-to-face meeting with your team. Although inventory management is quite analytical, it still requires intuition and human input.

If you and your team are simply relying on automated programs and numbers, then you’re most likely to miss out on profitability. So, always keep in mind that in terms of inventory management. Internal communication is not only crucial but should be on top of your priority list.

Arthur Koch

@ArthurKochMGT

Arthur Koch is the President of Arthur Koch Management Consulting, LLC. Art has 20+ years’ experience in results-oriented business transformation leadership with a particular emphasis on profit creation through improvements to inventory velocity, customer service and factory management, with inventory reductions of over $200MM, increased EBITDA $100MM+ and increased corporate valuations by nearly $900MM.

“Underestimating the impact the last 1% of demand has on business complexity and profitability…”

Too often, systems people and senior leadership will use the 80/20 rule. I hear, “If you focus on the top 80%, the results will come.” Possibly, this can work in the short term. However, in the long term, this is not sustainable.

The reason is what I call Art’s Law #3; the last 1% of demand represents 50% of business complexity. If there are not root cause solutions to complexity reduction (Discontinuation, 3PL management, 3D Printing/Additive Manufacturing, etc.) for the last 1% demand or 50% of complexity, then the 1% will consume greater than 50% of resources, and the organization will never be able to solve the issues to make the top 80% more profitable.

Jim Schoen

@Jim_Schoen

Jim Schoen is the Principal of FRC Group. Jim helps industrial clients grow through Business Assessments, Team Development and Process Improvement. He has 35 years of experience in Consulting & Executive Leadership and is based in Los Angeles, CA, with an MBA & RPI BS in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA .

“The warehouse inventory management system must be driven by business strategy…”

The single biggest mistake in inventory management is not periodically re-aligning with business strategy and deployment. Without strategic goals or alignment, often the warehouse operating cost will take priority over total warehouse performance, thus sabotaging sales growth. With strategy alignment, the strategy will guide the warehouse goals and KPIs; warehouse location footprint analysis and plan; stockout cost model; ABC inventory management plan; parts selection, packaging and stocking strategy; selection of inventory management software and hardware; and workforce selection, training and management. Warehouse performance is typically measured through warehouse sales and trend, fill rate (% of orders filled complete upon receipt — e..g., not a stockout), fill quality (% of orders with fill errors) and warehouse operating costs. Through proper strategic alignment, a warehouse operating system can be designed and periodically tuned that optimizes total warehouse performance, enabling best sales performance through overall warehouse operating and cost performance.

Download our white paper, The Business Case for Collaborative Mobile Robotics, to learn how collaborative mobile robots can help you transform your fulfillment operations.

The post 22 warehouse pros share the biggest mistakes made with inventory management (and how to avoid them) appeared first on 6 River Systems.

Economic recovery is still underway, and that means that the warehousing industry is likely to see additional job growth in the coming months as companies aim to get back to some semblance of normal operations. “Right up until mid-March, the logistics labor shortage was being fueled by a historically low national unemployment rate and a lack of both skilled and semi-skilled workers,” explains Bridget McCrea in an article published by Logistics Management. Now, as workers previously employed in other industries remain displaced, companies in warehousing and logistics are providing new opportunities for some of those workers while simultaneously taking advantage of the opportunity to upskill and attract talent that was difficult to find in the previously tight labor market.

While it may be easier to attract the right talent today than it was pre-COVID-19, warehouses are faced with the challenge of retaining their top talent once they have them on board, particularly as other employment sectors recover and provide opportunities for workers to return to their previous roles. Factors such as an optimized warehouse layout that enables associates to work efficiently, a safe work environment, benefits such as health insurance and retirement savings plans, effective training and opportunities for growth and development all play a role in employee satisfaction and retention.

To learn more about how managers can retain their top warehouse talent, we reached out to a panel of human resources and management professionals and asked them to answer this question:

“What’s the most effective way for managers to retain their best warehouse workers?”

Meet Our Panel of HR & Management Professionals:

Read on to learn what our panel had to say about the most effective ways to retain your best warehouse workers.

Joe Bailey

@MyTradingSkills

Joe is the Business Development Consultant at My Trading Skills.

“Improve their benefits, especially healthcare benefits…”

Offer your warehouse workers better healthcare benefits than the industry norm, and you will find that your best warehouse workers will be set on working for you for as long as possible.

The healthcare market is atrocious in nearly every part of the world. Workers will be more than willing to stay in a company that offers significant health care benefits.

Other benefits you should also consider providing to your workers include a retirement savings plan and shares.

Bottom line: Often, the most effective way to retain the best employees, including the best warehouse workers, is by providing them with meaningful and attractive benefits such as health care benefits, company shares and a robust retirement savings plan.

John Carey

@DAppliances

John Carey is the co-founder of Designer Appliances, a trusted appliance retailer with retail two stores serving NJ and NY.

“One of the best ways we found to retain our warehouse workers was to…”

Make them feel like they were just as important as employees in other departments in our company. We did this by tying metrics to their workload and included those metrics in our weekly all-hands meetings. They are just basic metrics like total shipments per week, shipments per day and item receipts per day, and we compare those numbers vs. previous periods. It helps to put the workload in context, and when the warehouse is busy it helps our other department heads be appreciative of the hard work the warehouse is putting in.

Rachel Stones

@builtforteams

Rachel Stones works as a Business Development Manager for Built for Teams, an innovative HR solution for small and medium-sized businesses.

“Engaged employees are more likely to stick around, so find out what engages your best warehouse workers…”

Do they enjoy opportunities to be a leader? Do they feel appreciated when you solicit their feedback? Or is there an incentive that pushes them to succeed? Answers to these questions can help you develop a plan to retain those star warehouse workers.

It also goes beyond the employee. Do they feel connected to their team? Do they feel connected to your company? When employees feel engaged and connected to their manager, their team and their company, it’s less likely they’ll be looking for another job.

William Taylor

@velvetjobs

William Taylor is the Senior Career Advisor at VelvetJobs.

“The best way to retain your best warehouse workers is to offer them a market salary and…”

Attractive incentives such as productivity bonuses, paid time off, game tickets, team-building trips, etc. You should ensure a clean and safe workplace and provide healthcare benefits. Many warehouse workers yearn for access to training and skill upgrading programs. Overall, you should maintain open communication with the workers and appreciate and recognize their good work. Apart from money and other incentives, I believe a well-defined career path is a big reason for employees to stay with a company.

Bottom line: Offer them a market salary and attractive incentives.

John Moss

@EnglishBlinds

John Moss is the CEO of English Blinds.

“Honesty, consistency and fairness are the keys to retaining top workers, which is important for warehouse workers in particular…”

Because the warehouse can be such a fluid environment, in terms of the variables involved.

For instance, some of the main causes of staff turnover within the industry as a whole include the need for shift work, the potential for antisocial hours and the vagaries of a fluctuating availability of hours from week to week.

Top-performing workers have already come to grips with the nature of the role itself and potential downsides such as repetition or the physicality of the job. Many workers struggle with these things over time, and so for workers who excel, retaining them is vital.

Being honest with workers about forecasting potential hours and the business requirements as far in advance as possible is key, as is being consistent in terms of scheduling the hours that are there, being fair about evenly splitting the workload and rotating or dividing up less popular tasks.

Communication is important too, as is flexibility. Open dialogue between workers and management to ensure everyone feels heard and respected is important, as well.

Michael Alexis

@michaelalexis

Michael Alexis is the CEO of TeamBuilding.

“Have you heard the saying that people don’t leave companies, they leave bosses? This concept is based in a very clear reality…”

Working with bad managers is a major demotivator. However, you most likely haven’t heard the counterpoint: that the best people stay at companies because of friendships with their coworkers. These connections are a powerful way to promote happiness at work, engagement and productivity. One way to encourage these relationships is to include team-building activities in your day to day work schedule. For example, try starting meetings off with a five-minute round of icebreakers, such as asking everyone to share their name, role and what they ate for breakfast. This way, your people start to build connections over shared interests, which leads to friendships and retention.

Ana Casic

@TalentLMS

Ana is a Content Marketer at TalentLMS.

“When it comes to retaining your best warehouse workers, keep in mind that…”

• 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their careers.
• 51% of employees would quit their jobs if their companies didn’t offer training.
• 76% say they want opportunities for career growth, putting training on the list of the top three non-financial motivators for employees.
• Even managers long for more training, with 76% wishing for more learning and development opportunities from their companies.

Additionally, one creative tactic companies can use to retain employees is applying gamification in the workplace. Specifically, our annual Gamification at Work survey found that employees feel that gamification makes them more productive (87%), more engaged (84%) and happier (82%) at work.

Joni Holderman

@thrive_resumes

As a professional resume writer, Joni Holderman combined her passions for writing and helping others achieve their goals via Thrive! Resumes.

“The most important thing managers can do to retain their best workers is show appreciation…”

Catch your employees doing something right and praise them for it. Literally say, “I appreciate you!” to your best workers and tell them exactly why — whether it’s always being on time or having great accuracy. Spend time interacting casually with top performers. Study after study shows that most managers devote 80% of their time to the 20% of employees who perform worst. When only poor performers merit your attention, that sets everyone up for failure.

Andy Morley

Andy works with Multy Lift Fortrucks Ltd, a UK-based material handling equipment dealer with over thirty years of experience in the industry.

“To retain your best warehouse workers, you must show that you are an employer who cares about their health and well-being through the following…”

Ergonomics

In 2017, there were over 9,000 forklift-related illnesses and injuries in the US. Musculoskeletal disorders can occur from regular discomfort and strain when operating machinery and can not only cost a business in legal fees, staffing shortages and sick pay but also reduce productivity and potentially permanently impact the employee’s ability to work.

By ensuring warehouse machinery is optimally ergonomic, businesses will avoid these issues and also show their employees that they are concerned for their well-being. Forklift ergonomics include swivel chairs/cabins to avoid strain, noise reduction and vibration dampening measures, easily reachable controls and more.

Correct training and safety measures

Proper training and safety measures will ensure that your staff members are knowledgeable about how to complete their work safely and efficiently. Providing training shows workers that you are not only concerned about their safety, but also about their career progression.

Sufficient break times and holidays

Relating back to ergonomics and operator comfort, sufficient break times are required to allow the worker time to stretch and move out of uncomfortable positions, helping to lessen the chance of health issues. This also shows that as an employer, you understand how repetitive some warehouse tasks can be, and how appropriate rests can rejuvenate the job, leaving employees feeling more ready to work.

Listening to employees

If an employer comes to you with a problem or alerts you of an issue, it’s important that you listen to them and seriously consider solutions to the problem. This will make them feel valued, and as they’re on the frontline, it is likely they know what they’re talking about and so will impact your business for the better.

Jessie Newburn

@GenerationsWork

Jessie Newburn is the Principal of GenerationsWork.

“Millennials (born between 1982-2004) are going to be more loyal toward employers that…”

• Invest in their careers
• Offer career paths within their company (and help/show younger workers how to succeed)
• Provide mentorships with older adults
• Actively encourage younger workers to meet with senior management to discuss how to improve the company

Team participation is also very important to Millennials, so:

• hire them in teams;
• train them in teams; and
• compensate them in teams.

GenXers (born 1961-1981) are all about doing more with less. Anything that allows them to be compensated based on the bottom-line motivates them, so:

• offer incentives for anyone who saves the company money (fewer accidents, improved systems, higher productivity per hour, etc.);
• meet with Xers (or solicit their input by email) about how to improve the customer experience; and
• remember that all Xers run by the credo, ‘Do more with less’ and ‘Do a good job, be efficient, go home early.’

Xers also value work-life balance above all generations, especially men (dads). Anything that allows them the flexibility to be involved in their kids’ lives is important to them and will earn loyalty.

You probably don’t have that many Boomers (b 1943-1960), but if you do, they are all about finding meaning and calling. They’re good to have on any committees or teams where big questions about purpose and value need to be answered.

Garrett Greller

@UncleBuds_Hemp

Garrett Greller is the Co-Founder of Uncle Bud’s Hemp.

“Warehouse turnover tends to stem from one or more of several well-defined reasons…”

Better wages elsewhere, aging out of older workers without attracting newer, younger workers to replace them, unattractive working hours and/or excessively long shifts and poor training. These are all issues that can be remedied easily. Better salaries and benefits will attract more workers, particularly among career warehouse workers. A difference of just a few dollars can have a tremendous impact.

Along with better pay, consider perks such as productivity bonuses, PTO and instituting new or better benefits. Peripheral incentives like team-building trips or free game tickets can boost morale and quickly get a buzz going that X warehouse is where workers get treated right. Remember that the target age range for warehouse employees at both the worker and leadership level is now firmly based in Millennials, and appealing to their sensibilities will be paramount. Focus on the innovative technology and processes your warehouse uses. Twelve-hour shifts, for instance, are no longer as popular as they once were, so consider varying shifts.

Jeremy Owens

Jeremy Owens is the CMO of Seriously Smoked.

“Continually improving a business’s warehouse management system is critical in convincing warehouse workers to stay…”

One of the most frustrating parts of working in a warehouse is if the management has terrible workflow procedures that attract accidents and mistakes.

If accidents and mistakes frequently occur, workers get the blame for being the frontline of the entire operation. With frequent scolding and reprimands, warehouse workers are likely to move on to another job.

However, if management continuously improves the system to lessen mistakes, prevent accidents and increase time efficiency, the company’s best warehouse workers would likely stay for good.

Carolyn Cairns

@CreationUAE

Carolyn Carns is the marketing manager for Creation Business Consultants, business setup consultants who help assist entrepreneurs, small to medium enterprises and multinational corporations enter, expand and restructure in the United Arab Emirates and wider-GCC region.

“There are multiple ways managers can retain their best warehouse workers…”

Here are some tips that will help you retain your top warehouse workers:

1. Money alone will not attract and retain workers. These are some of the factors that attract and retain workers:

• Market salary
• Attractive incentives such as productivity bonuses, paid time off, game tickets, team-building trips, etc.
• A clean and safe workplace
• Healthcare benefits
• Access to training and skill upgrading programs
• Open communication
• Appreciation/recognition for a job well done
• Constructive feedback through a performance management process
• A well-defined career path

2. A different approach to a constantly changing workforce. What you need to do is to educate people on how warehousing works. This will ensure that you have future employees who are skilled and fit for the job.

3. Keep working hours that will benefit you and your employees. A more useful model is annualized hours. Annualized hours give you maximum flexibility and advantage. You pay the same amount to the staff every month, but the hours vary according to the amount of work each day.

4. Start the training process with analysis. The following requires analysis before the training process begins:

• The nature of work
• The degree of safety needed for the job
• The physical and mental ability of the warehouse clerk
• Whether the worker needs cross training because their job is closely aligned with other important processes
• Language barriers (You could consider language classes or employing bilingual workers.)

Michael Hamelburger

Michael has been working as a financial consultant for small and mid-size businesses since 2010. In 2019, Michael founded The Bottom Line Group, an expense reduction consulting firm helping companies reduce their expenses by thousands of dollars by focusing on areas not typically looked at by the leadership team.

“With the ongoing pandemic and social upheaval brought about by…”

The Black Lives Matter protests, growing compassion in one’s workplace has a strong impact on the organization and can make employees, especially in warehouses, feel better. When your prioritize diversity, individuality and inclusion, significant cultural shifts can take place. As the CEO of a startup, I advocate buying from black-owned enterprises to show our support in their struggle for equality and provide meaning to the lives lost in this struggle.

The restaurant industry has suffered a lot from their closure due to the pandemic and now that protests are happening around the globe to condemn the death of George Floyd and so many other victims, it’s time we raise the morale of the black community by supporting their livelihood.

Jane Flanagan

@TacunaSystems

Jane Flanagan is the Lead Project Engineer at Tacuna Systems.

“Here are seven ways to keep warehouse workers happy and motivated…”

1. Proper management

Effective communication, seeking the opinion of workers, grievance redressal, team building, giving and requesting feedback, engaging employees and promoting social interactions are crucial to retaining staff.

2. Create healthy work cultures

Great work cultures that emphasize things like punctuality, transparency, integrity, honesty, accountability, etc. help create a good working environment. Align workers with project goals to generate intrinsic motivation.

3. Offer incentives and perks

Perks such as free checkups from an onsite doctor, gift cards, car wash, etc. separate from basic salaries go a long way in motivating workers.

4. Recognize and reward achievements

Set clear realistic goals, challenge workers, recognize and reward achievements and recognize positive behaviors.

5. Commit to workers’ well-being and safety

Invest in employee well-being and safety, and follow all safety regulations. Show workers that their well being is very important.

6. Offer/promote employee development

Provide room for career advancement, give training and workshops, engage workers’ skills and charge employees with responsibilities and leadership roles.

7. Lead by example.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott is the owner of Termite Survey.

“One of the most effective ways to retain your best warehouse workers is to always reward them for their good work…”

Employees work really hard to complete every single task assigned to them. They even go the extra mile just to finish what needs to be done. The least you can do as a manager is to appreciate them. Show them that you are thankful for the work they put in. Show them that you value them and that you can depend on them. Always give credit where it’s due.

Employees depend on managers to communicate the value they bring to the company. Take the time to compliment workers for something they did well, and thank them when they make an extra effort. When your workers feel valued and appreciated by the company, they become incentivized to take their job seriously.

Sandra Hurley

Sandra is the Operations Manager at Hayden Girls.

“In an age where we keep hearing about the horrific conditions in warehouses…”

It really just takes being a decent human being to retain valuable warehouse employees. If your workers are allowed to take bathroom breaks, you’re already head and shoulders above the competition. But that’s not enough. Warehouse workers have gone too long without basic rights and amenities. Be a fair employer, allow people to take breaks, pay a living wage and do not set quotas that are impossible to reach. Some of your best people will eventually burn out and leave, no matter how good they are, because no one can handle rough working conditions forever — especially if they have alternatives. And the best ones always will.

Remember that just because these employees aren’t working in an office doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve the same treatment. It’s hard work, the hours are long and the environment isn’t exactly neat and pleasant, so take that into consideration when setting wages, benefits and working conditions. We’re in online retail, so we fully depend on warehouses and warehouse workers. They’re our essential workers if you will, so we are aware of how incredibly valuable they are. Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to stay operational during the pandemic, so we’ve given them major props not only as a pat on the back but in the form of a financial bonus. They deserve it.

Ian Kelly

Ian Kelly is the VP of Operations for NuLeaf Naturals. He’s helped launch two major cannabis brands in both Colorado and Massachusetts and has consulted for many various firms across the country.

“The major problem facing managers is the inability to figure out Millennial warehouse workers…”

Millennials are not easy to understand. Their motivations are different compared to those of older generations. Managers need to find creative ways to innovate and keep Millennial workers motivated. Here are some tactics I highly recommend:

1. Make uniforms cool. Fashion and looks are very important for the Millennial workforce. Looks are related to self-esteem and inspiration. Managers should replace generic uniforms and introduce something very new and cool. In the age of social media, this strategy even has a good marketing angle.

2. Convert shift changes to office-Olympics. There’s always some time overlap between shift changes. This is a great time to conduct basketball or table tennis games or something as fun as the ice bucket challenge. Such events can improve team bonding and reduce the desire to leave the company.

3. Use music to set a great ambiance. Music sets in rhythm, and rhythm always makes it easier to work. I’ve heard many warehouse workers say that music makes their work feel like a dance. Managers can introduce the music of their team’s choice and make work as fun as possible. Which workers would want to leave a workplace with an electric atmosphere?

Most warehouse workers do not leave for more money or other aspirations. Most people switch jobs because they’re bored and need a change. The best way to improve retention is to maximize the joy of working in your company.

Matt Marino

@MatthewCMarino

Matt Marino is the Director of Ergonomics and Human Factors at HeroWear. Matt has been an active member of the ASTM F48 Committee on Exoskeletons since its 2017 inception, and he is a founding partner of the ASTM Exo Technology Center of Excellence.

“Believe it or not, making a warehouse into a place people are happy to be every day begins with good ergonomics…”

Work that is overly or unnecessarily physically strenuous or mentally stressful takes a serious toll on workers’ bodies and minds. Physical and mental stress leads to injuries and burnout — two of the biggest reasons for employee turnover. No workers want to do a job that hurts them. If it hurts, they will either file a worker’s compensation claim or quit. Workers also don’t want to do a job that is super stressful. Eventually, stressed workers will move on to better jobs.

Good ergonomics can help solve both problems. By implementing a comprehensive ergonomics program, managers can tackle both physical strain and mental stress at the same time. On the physical side, good ergonomics seeks to identify, reduce and/or eliminate risk factors that are the major contributors to pain and injury. On the mental side, good ergonomics seeks to redesign work to make it less stressful and more enjoyable for workers. Ergonomic solutions can include engineering, administrative and behavioral controls which decrease exposure to risky or stressful job tasks by reducing forces, awkward postures, repetitive motions and other types of stress on workers. Things like better tools or equipment for the job to reduce strain, adjusting the heights of work to minimize awkward postures, appropriate job rotation schedules to manage risk exposure, training and personal protective equipment (PPE) can all make an impact.

In recent years, ergonomics has taken a leap into the future by embracing wearable technologies like sensors that can help managers identify high-risk jobs, as well as wearable assistive devices like exoskeletons and exosuits to reduce strain, fatigue and risk for injury in unavoidably physically demanding jobs.

Not only does embracing ergonomics provide solutions for physically and mentally stressful jobs, but crews will see that their managers care about them, and the entire culture of the workplace can change for the better, further optimizing hiring advantages and employee retention. Good ergonomics helps to drive a positive culture, a happy workplace environment where people want to come to work every day, and reduces strain and fatigue on workers so they can go home at the end of their shift with the energy to do the things they love.

James Jason

@MitradeOfficial

James Jason is an Assistant HR Manager, Financial Analyst and Currency Trader at Mitrade.

“There are several things managers can do to retain their best warehouse workers…”

1. Reward them based on their performance.

For many years, warehouse work has been largely viewed as labor work that does not require incentives and benefits like other types of jobs. This is one of the reasons warehouse employees change jobs more than any other workers.

Employers can take advantage of this shortfall and increase their worker retention by rewarding their warehouse employees based on their performance and not the allocated work. For instance, consider the number of picks that each person manages on every shift. Reward them according to this. Such acts will ensure the hard workers are not punished at the expense of the sloppy ones.

Set targets and if the workers attain it, reward them as a group. This will motivate them to love their co-workers and promote teamwork. A worker who loves his job and feels part of a loving team will not think about leaving such a group. In addition, their teammates would not let them go easily.

2. Give them an office.

Demanding as this suggestion might sound, elevating your warehouse employees by putting together a decent, comfortable, furnished office within the compound will make them feel appreciated. Just like you, they need a break from work in a different setting, which the office would provide.

Your workers can enjoy resting on the padded seats watching the current events on a huge TV during breaks. Add a small refrigerator where they can store some drinks or just water. They can have their lunch or tea breaks inside their office instead of inside their working areas or outside in the yard. Finally, ensure the office has mini lockers where they can keep their personal belongings.

Once they attain the special sense of belonging and actually owning somewhere inside the warehouse, leaving is the last thought they will ever have in mind.

Andrew Taylor

@NetLawman

Andrew is the founder and director of Net Lawman, an online-based legal document template platform. He specializes in commercial and company law, having spent a significant amount of time building his own businesses and learning what it is like on the other side of the desk.

“Make sure that you offer more than just pay increases and commodity to keep your workers…”

Offering health insurance, dental plans, opportunities to study, a lively community and a positive work atmosphere all lend to making some of your best workers want to stay and not move on from your company.

Albert Lee

Albert Lee is the Founder of Home Living Lab.

“One of the most effective ways for managers to improve warehouse labor retention is to show appreciation often…”

Even a simple thank you would go a long way in showing recognition for their hard work and loyalty to the company. However, warehouse managers can do so much more. They can compliment workers in company newsletters and bulletin boards. They can implement an employee of the month award, and they can award training opportunities for workers who perform well. The opportunities to show appreciation are endless.

Equipping your warehouse workers with the tools and technology they need to get more done in less time while maintaining a safe work environment is one of the most effective ways to boost employee satisfaction and retain your most valuable warehouse workers. Read our case study to learn how Office Depot improved safety, reduced the ergonomic issues linked to maneuvering heavy manual carts and energized its warehouse associates with easy-to-use collaborative robots.

The post 22 HR & management professionals share the most effective ways for managers to retain their best warehouse workers appeared first on 6 River Systems.

The supply chain is one area of any business that can be optimized for maximum efficiency and cost savings, but it is often overlooked. In many cases, it is the function that is evaluated to bring about short term cost reductions without a proper outlook for the future. An effective supply chain strategy reduces costs for the business while also ensuring long-term customer satisfaction.

According to a report by Deloitte, 79% of the businesses with high-performing supply chains experience higher growth rates than their industry peers, while only 8% of the companies with sub-optimal supply chains report above-average growth. It is evident that having a high-performing supply chain can be the harbinger to the upward trajectory of a business. 57% of businesses believe that supply chain management brings a competitive advantage to their company. This comprehensive guide to improving supply chain management covers the essential components of a high-performing supply chain:

• Demand planning
• Analytics and big data initiatives
• Software tailored for the sector
• Automated warehouses and distribution centers
• Investments in partnership enhancement
• Monitoring KPIs
• Just-in-time inventory
• Standardization
• Integrated sales, marketing, and finance
• Investments in people

Demand planning

When there is not enough supply of a product to meet the demand for it, the business is losing potential sales. There is also the possibility that customers may switch to competing products. On the other hand, if there is an excess of supply compared to the demand, the business has to bear inventory costs and other overhead costs to store and manage the unsold goods, which also affects the profitability of the business. It is a crucial step in supply chain management to estimate the demand for the product as accurately as possible. 36% of supply chain executives acknowledge that balancing supply and demand and managing inventory accordingly is the top priority for them.

Demand planning cannot be undertaken by the supply chain acting as a silo. Input from the marketing and sales departments is crucial to estimating future demand accurately. POS sales data provides a well-defined picture of the past demand for a product. Statistical tools and software can be used to estimate future demand reliably. Input from the sales and marketing teams shed light on potential changes in trends due to the current and future planned initiatives of their respective departments, as well as other externalities like macroeconomic factors.

Analytics and big data initiatives

Data is a powerful tool in the 21^st century. Analytics can help an organization make smarter, faster and more efficient decisions. According to Gartner, 29% of companies report achieving a high return on investment from analytics investments in the supply chain. Only 4% of the companies did not report any return on their investment after implementing analytics. Data can be utilized to better understand risks in operations and increase accuracy in both demand planning and supply planning.

Analytics can also be utilized to identify bloats and bottlenecks in a supply chain and optimize those problem areas for a leaner supply chain, reducing costs and improving agility and flexibility. With the use of effective analytics tools, supply chain professionals can create a dynamic model that can provide more accurate forecasts in real-time with changing parameters. It can also be altered to provide information on the best actions to take in different possible scenarios. Analytics tools are easier than ever to acquire and implementing such solutions costs just a fraction of what it cost to implement similar capabilities in the past.

Software tailored to the sector

Software solutions tailored to the needs of the supply chain sector, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, are useful for tying different parts of the company together. ERP solutions can also support collaboration between companies. The most commonly used ERP software is generic and can be applied to practically any industry with minimal to no customization. However, generic ERP software fails to grasp and contain the nuances of different industries. For example, the needs of a toy manufacturer are different from the needs of a pharmaceutical company. Toys tend to have higher seasonal demand, such as spikes in demand during the holiday shopping season, while pharmaceuticals have relatively consistent demand throughout the year. These variances exist across industries, from food and beverages to electronics, automotive, cosmetics and others.

Even within each industry, the needs of different companies vary. Many factors like size, geography, customers served, etc. are distinct for companies in the same industry. The best approach for supply chain organizations is to build software that is tailored to your company’s unique needs. However, custom software development might be cost-prohibitive for small and mid-size companies. In such scenarios, you can resort to software that is optimized for your industry. Use vendors and software providers with experience in your industry and a focus on developing solutions that meet your industry’s biggest challenges.

Automated warehouses and distribution centers

Order picking is one of the most crucial activities in a warehouse, accounting for 55% of operations costs, but it’s also a function that’s prone to human error. Many warehouses are turning to automation to fully optimize warehouse picking, replenishment and other core warehouse activities.

Amazon was a pioneer in warehouse automation. Now the technology and know-how are within reach for any business. There are many automation solutions available in the market, and warehouse operators should identify and implement the solution that best suits the needs and existing infrastructure of the warehouse. The upfront cost can be a deterrent for some forms of automation, but flexible automation solutions like collaborative mobile robots are a cost-effective solution that requires no changes to a warehouse’s existing infrastructure and allows for rapid implementation and ROI. Supply chain organizations should focus on both short- and long-term benefits when selecting the right warehouse automation solution for their operations. Warehouse automation is one of those technologies that will be ubiquitous in the future, and early adopters will grow leaps and bounds over their competitors.

Investments in partnership enhancement

A supply chain operates smoothly with the cooperation of all the stakeholders. The health of its suppliers, vendors, manufacturing partners and distribution partners is crucial for the sustenance of the company. Taking this into consideration, you must invest in ensuring your partners are in robust shape.

The primary consideration is fostering transparency with stakeholders. Your stakeholders are dependent on you as much as you are dependent on them and having open communication with stakeholders helps to strengthen partnerships. The ERP systems used by your company and other stakeholders must be compatible with each other to ensure seamless data exchange between partners.

When implementing a new plan or strategy, seeking the input of partners is important to ensure that they are on board with the changes. It is also possible that partners can offer advice on better strategies due to their expertise in specific domains.

Monitoring KPIs

Lasting improvements cannot happen without measurement. First, there needs to be a metric to improve. Attempting improvement without establishing goals and parameters is similar to sailing without a rudder. The most commonly used KPIs (key performance indicators) in the supply chain are daily performance, cost reduction, production service rate, inventory turn, production time, lead time, return rate and ROA.

There is no need to rely on the same KPIs other companies use. Each company has specific areas of focus, bottlenecks, and other issues that determine the metrics that should be improved, although comparing KPIs against industry benchmarks can be helpful to determine areas for improvement. The reason to use KPIs is to get a precise and concise snapshot of the operations and particular care must be taken to ensure that there are no blind spots with the chosen set of KPIs. The KPIs you monitor should also make it easier to track and identify problems so you can take swift action to resolve issues before they cause major disruption.

Just-in-time inventory

Just-in-time (JIT) started as a manufacturing technique in Toyota plants. But this principle can be applied across the entire supply chain, not just the manufacturing leg of it. In theory, just-in-time is where a material or product arrives just when it is needed. When it is applied to the supply chain, it translates to products reaching just in time to meet demand, which helps reduce inventory cost and other overhead costs significantly.

The key to implementing the just-in-time principle in the supply chain is to have all the stakeholders working together. ERP systems in the market are perfectly capable of working with just-in-time manufacturing and JIT inventory management to reduce inventory costs and inventory turnover. Implementing JIT principles will ensure the supply chain is lean and performs at peak efficiency.

Standardization

Standardization goes hand in hand with a large-scale operation. It reduces complexity and confusion. Standardization has to be implemented in two spheres: processes and products. The standardization process helps streamline operations to achieve higher efficiency. It also makes interactions with suppliers and other stakeholders simple and easy to handle. There is a downside to this, however. The agility of the supply chain can be much lower when processes are standardized, as the organization will be entrenched in the standard operating procedure, and it can be difficult to change the course. Finding the right balance of standardization with the flexibility needed to support agile operations is key.

Standardizing products is also conducive to higher operational efficiencies. Consider the mobile operations of a company like Apple, which has a very small number of SKUs compared to the mobile division of Samsung, which tries to accommodate every niche in the market. The operational profits of Apple are higher than its competitors. On the logistics side, having standardized products makes implementing automation easier. This form of standardization may not work for every company. For some businesses, having a diverse range of products available to consumers is their competitive advantage, such as in the fashion industry. Therefore, standardization of products should only be implemented if such measures do not negatively affect the company’s competitive advantage.

Integrated sales, marketing, and finance

The supply chain function of an organization works in conjunction with sales, marketing, operations and finance departments, as well as its various stakeholders. We saw earlier how input from sales and marketing departments is critical to demand planning. The finance department has to approve expenses for warehouse automation or other investments to improve logistics. Finance departments, in general, focus on reducing the costs in the short term, so it’s worth getting the finance department on board with an understanding of the long-term benefits of costs incurred now, such as gains in productivity and optimized labor costs. Long-standing collaborative partnerships with other departments make the general operations of the company smoother.

It is not a one-way street. Other departments are also reliant on the supply chain. Sales and marketing teams have to ensure the capability of the supply chain to handle a new product line or expansion into new geographic markets. If the supply chain cannot deliver the promises made by marketing and sales, it can lead to losses and reputation damage for the company. Likewise, supply chain capabilities will also affect the profitability of a new product that has incurred substantial costs in research & development and marketing. All company departments should act symbiotically. Due to the characteristics of the supply chain, it is an ideal node of the symbiotic relationship between the departments in the organization. With the use of modern technology, it’s easy to keep the communication channels between departments open to relay data and ideas.

Investments in people

The supply chain is heavily reliant on the people it employs, so a successful supply chain requires qualified and well-trained employees, including exceptional supply chain executives. Efforts must focus not only on attracting and retaining employees but also on training employees in new technologies and emerging techniques. There are only rare instances in which a hired employee is fit for the job right on day one. Employee development should be a priority in efforts to improve the supply chain.

An important yet difficult task that helps to foster employee creativity is building an open environment in which employees do not feel reprimanded for sharing their input. When employees feel valued, they will provide creative solutions for problems. Employers should also encourage employees to learn new skills, which is beneficial to both the employee and the employer.

It’s also worth investigating whether partners’ and suppliers’ employees are well taken care of. Though they are not directly on your payroll, indirectly they are working for you. They have an impact on your bottom line and the success of your operation. A company must invest time to explore the employment practices of its suppliers; otherwise, your company may face backlash if the public uncovers information about the poor treatment of employees at companies you partner with. For instance, if a company employs a sweatshop to manufacture products — even if they’re unaware that their partner’s employees are treated poorly or paid unacceptably low wages — the company may face substantial backlash and reputation damage if their partner’s practices become publicly known, something that has impacted major brands like Nike, Adidas and Apple.

Wrapping up

A great number of supply chain improvements can be made in a short time, even in complex industries. The points mentioned here are not complex techniques that require years of planning, although long-term outlook is certainly required. A company that focuses on the short term is at risk of losing its place on the map and may gradually become irrelevant.

Implementing modern technology is one of the most effective ways to improve any supply chain. An ERP solution can be implemented in a very short period of time with a return on investment. Investing in smart automation solutions for warehouses and distribution centers that can be brought online quickly for a faster ROI, such as collaborative mobile robots, helps companies minimize upfront investment costs while reaping the long-term benefits of flexibility and efficiency. Investing in people is never a bad idea, not just in the supply chain but for every department and every industry. A well-oiled supply chain is a profit center for any business.

Download our white paper, The Business Case for Collaborative Mobile Robotics, to learn more about how collaborative robots can help you transform fulfillment with the flexibility to meet demand and reduce costs.

The post Comprehensive guide to improving supply chain management appeared first on 6 River Systems.

How does 6RS Improve Training Time?

6 River Systems’ solution uses a system-directed workflow which self-trains an associate as they complete their picking, replenishment, or various other tasks in the warehouse. Our collaborative robot “Chuck” will guide associates to locations following a pre-planned path that can change dynamically, so they don’t have to know where products are stored or the fastest way to get there. Once at the location, Chuck offers simple and clear instructions on how to perform their picking work. Associates don’t need to learn complex WMS RF terminal sequences or, worse, fuss around with a piece of paper to record the activity later. Additionally, with Chuck’s built in scanner, use of product images and put-to-light system, it has a significant reduction on mispicks and other errors.

Related: See how Legend Valve relies on automation to free up their associates’ time to provide an industry-leading customer experience.

How much do we save in training a new employee?

Let’s analyze a typical new-hire scenario for a site using traditional pick carts versus a site using Chucks.

Typically, it takes 4-5 days to train an associate at a cart pick operation. However, they won’t hit expected productivity, or standard rates, for 4-6 weeks. For this comparison, we are assuming that they are 80% of standard rate in four weeks. However, the associate doesn’t magically start producing at one point; their productivity follows an increasing curve within that time period then slowly levels off as they reach full productivity rates (shown in red).

By contrast, our data shows us that Chucks help an associate up to that 80% of standard rate on day one and then to full productivity in the following few days (shown in blue). Assuming 80 Units Per Hour (UPH) for a cart pick operation, the difference between a fully trained associate and the first six weeks of a new hire would amount to about 7000 units over the six weeks shown.

In terms of labor, these 7000 units represent 87 hours or about 12 days of associate work. Assuming a cost of $13/hr, this is well over $1,100 of unproductive labor for each newly hired employee. By contrast, Chuck, performing at 160 UPH, would only have 320 fewer picks, resulting in the equivalent of 2 lost hours or $26 of unproductive labor.

Related: See why everyone at MD Logistics Loves Chuck.

Fewer interruptions for your best employees

Another benefit of Chuck is that it enables an associate to self-train. When a new associate joins the team, there is often significant time spent by floor managers or sometimes your best associates to train up the newcomer. This means that not only are the new employees not producing a high output, they are slowing down some of your most important people. Usually a senior employee spends 2-3 hours for the first 4-5 days of training, and another half hour per day for the following four weeks. This ends up being about 23 hours of the floor manager’s time and at $15/hr would be an additional ~$350 of training costs. By comparison, with less than 15 minutes of training, the associates can be up and running with Chuck, allowing these valuable employees to focus on other fulfillment tasks and exception handling.

The impact of training during seasonal peaks

Rapid training has an even bigger impact on seasonal and other temporary labor. Let’s compare a seasonal associate with an expected productivity rate of 80 UPH (illustrated above with the green line) using a manual cart with a seasonal associate using Chuck. Assuming a typical 100% rate gain, the Chuck-enhanced associate (illustrated in blue) will reach full productivity at 160 UPH. As illustrated in the graph above, although the associate using carts to pick (the red line) is at their full UPH at the end of peak, their average rate over the entire period is only 57 UPH due to their slow ramp-up. The associate using Chuck, however, hits their stride very quickly and averages 152 UPH. In our last scenario, Chuck provided a 100% gain to your long term workforce. For seasonal workers, it provides a much greater gain: 166%!

Related: Learn how Ingram Micro prepared for a 10x increase in volume last holiday season.

The other option is to hire seasonal associates several weeks prior to peak to allow them adequate time to train. Let’s do a comparison assuming a typical 40 day peak schedule and a 20-day ramp-up time. In this scenario, you will pay labor for an extra 50% more time to train before peak. Even with this pre-training period, the average picking rate over 60 days would be 64 UPH, still giving Chucks a 138% rate advantage for these temporary workers.

Add more flexibility in your business

Possibly more important than cost savings is flexibility in your operation. The rapid training possibilities 6 River Systems provides allows for a much more agile business. For example, during the current COVID-19 crisis, many of our customers have seen unanticipated peaks as the demand on ecommerce spiked. They were able to rapidly add additional Chucks and temporary labor to adjust for this demand, far more quickly than otherwise possible. And in some cases, they picked up and moved Chucks across their different facilities to support regional spikes in volume. Temporary and portable capacity is something that no traditional automation can offer.

Related: See how keeping their automation solution flexible allowed DM Fulfillment Services to thrive in uncertain times.

Final Thoughts

Increasing productivity through rate gains is one of the largest benefits of 6 River Systems’ solution. It is important to realize that there are other factors that have significant monetary and non-monetary benefits. The advantages of a system directed approach using mobile collaborative robots that assists associates in the warehouse has a huge impact on training times. This not only translates directly into the bottom line, but also allows your business to be more nimble and adjust quickly to the rapidly changing world.

The post Why training time matters more than you think appeared first on 6 River Systems.

The disruption caused by COVID-19 is unique in that it impacted supply chains across all industries. “In the past, most disruptions were limited to a single supply chain,” explains Dr. Asoo Vakharia, McClatchy Professor and Director of the Supply Chain Management Center at the Warrington College of Business. “The pandemic, however, is affecting supply chains in the aircraft, automobile, electronic products, hospitality, medical, pharmaceutical, retail, technology, travel, and personal service/support industries.” While the effects on each industry differ, no industry has escaped the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As many states have started the process of reopening their economies, supply chain managers are faced with rethinking their supply chain networks. Building supply chain resilience isn’t a new goal, but it’s become a primary focus for supply chain leaders in the wake of the pandemic crisis, particularly in the hardest-hit industries, such as food and beverage. Warehouse managers face numerous challenges, as well, such as the need to keep goods flowing in and out of the facility while enabling associates to practice social distancing measures. It’s likely that in the coming months and years, many supply chain leaders will look to automation solutions that help to minimize physical contact and the number of touches required to move products through the supply chain.

As global supply chains start the long process of recovery, supply chain management is in the spotlight, and new best practices and innovative strategies are emerging as supply chain leaders aim to reduce risk in an uncertain future. Below, we’ve highlighted 50 expert supply chain management tips and best practices for navigating the post-pandemic world:

• Mitigating supply chain risks
• Supply chain crisis management
• Supply chain optimization
• Leveraging technology to optimize the supply chain

Mitigating supply chain risks

1. Maintain a culture of compliance, even in times of crisis. “As the logistics industry faces extraordinary pressures, maintaining a culture of compliance is more critical than ever. Senior management should set the tone, announcing that anticorruption efforts remain a priority, and ensure the message reaches all employees and partners by mandating training, reinforcing the code of conduct, and reiterating that now is not the time to circumvent the rules — even if doing so would temporarily speed up business processes.

“Additionally, a review of reporting procedures can act as a safeguard against corruption throughout operations. All stakeholders who interact with the supply chain should be aware of hotlines and other reporting mechanisms, which should establish a clear path and adequate protections for whistleblowers.” — Alexandra Wrage, How to Mitigate Supply Chain Corruption During High-Risk Periods, ASCM Insights; Twitter: @ascm_org

2. Build flexible supply networks to minimize the risk of disruption. “When US–China trade tensions flared last year, leading companies already started to rethink the cost of network risk and invest in more resilient supply chains. Flexible networks help companies adjust quickly in times of stress. They also help production teams pivot nimbly to meet changing market demand, a significant competitive edge.

“Bain analysis shows that companies with resilient supply chains grow faster because they can move rapidly to meet customers’ needs when market demand shifts. They increase their perfect order rate by 20% to 40% and customer satisfaction by as much as 30%. Importantly, flexible supply chains cut costs and improve cash flow, in part through a 10% to 40% increase in inventory turns. Finally, leaders reduce disruption by building buffers throughout the supply network and invest in advanced analytics to improve planning and forecasting accuracy.” — Olaf Schatteman, Drew Woodhouse and Joe Terino, Supply Chain Lessons from Covid-19: Time to Refocus on Resilience, Bain & Company; Twitter: @BainAlerts

3. Get to know your potential suppliers. “An effective due-diligence process answers critical questions about a third-party’s business practices. For example: Does it have a strong track record for meeting contractual obligations? Do existing business relationships create any conflicts of interest? Does it observe the same high standards as your company with respect to providing safe working conditions and protecting the environment?

“Be sure to consider whether your existing supply network can meet your needs before deciding to bring on a new supplier. Forming strategic partnerships with a select group of your best suppliers can allow you to capture a wide variety of benefits—including the potential for scale advantages and priority service.” — Understanding risk management in the supply chain, Deloitte; Twitter: @DeloitteUS

4. Apply a supply chain stress test. “Our methodology has two central elements. One is time to recover (TTR), the time it would take for a particular node in the supply chain — a supplier facility, a distribution center, or a transportation hub — to be restored to full functionality after a disruption. The second is time to survive (TTS), the maximum duration that the supply chain can match supply with demand after a facility disruption. By quantifying each measure under different scenarios, a business can identify its ability to recover from a disaster. For example, if the TTR for a given facility is greater than the TTS, the supply chain will not be able to match supply with demand unless a backup plan exists. This approach provides companies with a way to financially quantify the cost of disruptions and prepare mitigation plans for the most critical parts of the supply chain that could be applied in different scenarios.” — David Simchi-Levi and Edith Simchi-Levi, We Need a Stress Test for Critical Supply Chains, Harvard Business Review; Twitter: @HarvardBiz

5. Adapt to the next-gen supply chain model. “Think beyond your four walls to how you can better collaborate and innovate with your suppliers. The next-gen supply chain model is a networked ecosystem – suppliers, partners, manufacturers, distributors and retailers will all have access to relevant cloud-based data to make the best decisions based on real-time signals.” — Glenn Steinberg, What do you need to help you build a more resilient supply chain?, EY; Twitter: @EYnews

6. Consider localization. “The U.S.-China trade war has already put regionalization of manufacturing back on the table. While production moves have begun in many cases, localizing the supplier base is also worth considering. When Toyota pioneered lean production in Japan back in the 1970s, its suppliers facilitated this by being colocated nearby. Chinese manufacturers did the same as they evolved their operations during the 1990s and early 2000s. Yet many companies, lulled by efficient and relatively inexpensive logistics and transport, have been applying lean and just-in-time production methods that span global networks. The current crisis exposes the vulnerability of this approach. Notably, Toyota continues to practice localization to a greater extent than many of its competitors. In fact, for its Georgetown, Kentucky, factory, more than 350 suppliers are located in the United States and more than 100 inside the state of Kentucky.” — Willy Shih, Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?, MIT Sloan Management Review; Twitter: @mitsmr

7. Supply chain realignment will help companies prepare for future disruptions. “What has been revealed through recent challenges and disruption is that organizations that have aligned supply chain practices—with clear roles and responsibilities and visibility into their supply chain—are able to respond and address the spikes, and come out on the backend being responsive to the consumer and/or customers’ demands. But it’s not too late for organizations to start planning today for the next iteration. And this is where supply chain professionals, along with sustainability professionals, the sales teams, and new-product development, now need to come together and to evaluate what the market looks like, what downstream impact is going to have on their customers and on their suppliers, and their supplier’s supplier.”  — Matt Reynolds, Opinion: As COVID-19 Precipitates Big Consumer Shift, Omnichannel Adapts, Packaging World; Twitter: @packagingworld

8. Automate elements of your supply chain for better data. “Some companies are starting to invest in creating data-backed profiles of their supplier base so they know where and when to look for second sources. Others are increasing communication with suppliers to better understand financial health. For many, conducting deeper financial and health reviews of suppliers will become a regular part of their business reviews. Physical supply chain relocations will likely happen only as a last resort, given the costs involved. However, automation of certain elements of the supply chain — to eliminate time-consuming manual tracking efforts and check tariff structures, for example — will likely become more common as companies seek better data to make more informed decisions.” — PwC’s COVID-19 CFO Pulse Survey, PwC; Twitter: @PwCUS

9. Model new risks and costs. “Business leaders should also look at how new tools and technologies can provide greater intelligence. For example, risk evaluation tools that make use of machine learning can find patterns that can indicate risks or opportunities in macroeconomic, geopolitical and global health, exchange rate and other data. In addition, company executives should consider expanding landed-cost tools to include new elements, such as the (potential) cost of carbon offsets. These tools can also rapidly model alternate supply and transportation scenarios, such as rerouting around a port strike or going to an alternate source of supply.” — COVID-19: Operations and supply chain disruption, PwC; Twitter: @PwCUS

10. Develop a clearly defined risk mitigation governance structure. “As companies struggle to cope with the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis and plan for their eventual recovery, one thing is clear: Preparation is key. It is far easier to conduct periodic supply chain analyses according to an established plan than it is to conduct them all at once in the midst of chaos.

“Supply chain resiliency is best supported by a clearly defined risk mitigation governance structure that is aligned to the strategy of the organization. Establishing protocols, metrics, organizational owners, and related processes can empower organizations to respond more effectively when faced with a crisis.” — Michael Varney and Wil G. Knibloe, COVID-19 and the Global Supply Chain, Supply & Demand Chain Executive; Twitter: @SDCExec

11. Establish a coordinated crisis-support system in collaboration with supply chain partners. “Understanding supply chain risks requires gaining visibility into tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers that, despite their relatively small size, can quickly and significantly disrupt production. The knock-on impacts of China’s shutdowns early in 2020 sparked strong interest in geographical diversification of supply chains. Recent reports show that over 90 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have tier 2 suppliers in the regions of China most affected in the initial phase of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Any impediment to interaction and engagement with these suppliers makes risks hard to manage.

“At the same time, there’s been a heightened premium on accelerating or driving greater agility into supply chains to better manage rapidly evolving situations. Perhaps the most resilient course of all may be teaming up with supply chain partners to establish a coordinated crisis-support system. In such situations, partners will likely rise or fall together, and sharing information, ideas, and response strategies in that climate becomes highly valuable.” — Jonathan Wright and Jim Lee, COVID-19 and shattered supply chains, IBM; Twitter: @IBMIBV

12. Develop alternative sources and diversify value chains. “Once the initial impacts of the crisis are mitigated, it’s all about foreseeing the next ‘when.’

“For example, supply chain leaders and their teams can conduct a scenario planning exercise and develop action plans. It’s also a good time to discover or develop alternative sources and diversify value chains.

“Tackle strategic and concentrated supplies with high value at risk where internal risk capacities to absorb, such as alternative sources, routes, inventory and cash reserves, aren’t sufficient enough to mitigate any major disruption. Being better prepared than the competition could even open new opportunities when the next disruption comes around.

“It is not about analyzing ‘if’ a disruption will happen but about establishing action plans and being able to deploy rapidly ‘when’ disaster strikes.” — Koray Köse, Mitigating Impact of the Coronavirus on Supply Chain, Supply Chain Management Review; Twitter: @SCMR

13. Implement supply chain traceability for assurance. “Many companies are eager to publish their supply chains once they’re mapped. Your legal department will ask for more: that’s because supply chain mapping is only based on supplier disclosure. Supply chain traceability is the process of tracking every commercial transaction in the end-to-end supply chain to account for the time and place where every step occurred in the supply chain of a unit, batch or lot of finished goods. Traceability offers a number of advantages, from real-time chain of custody reports to verification that products are authentic and vendors are certified. It’s also becoming law, from pharmaceutical serialization to US FDA food safety.” — Leonardo Bonanni, What is the difference between supply chain mapping, traceability and transparency?, Sourcemap; Twitter: @sourcemap

14. Don’t let monitoring slide for long-term supplier relationships. “Watch your SLAs and KPIs like a hawk. Now is the perfect time to take a look at your supplier’s obligations and make sure they’re living up to them. If you haven’t developed any KPIs or monitoring processes, start thinking through what measures define success or failure, and how Procurement can go about confirming a supplier stays on track.

“Stay rigid with scheduled check-ins. It is common for quarterly reviews to get pushed back, shortened, or skipped altogether years into these long relationships. Don’t let it happen. Likewise, stick to the agenda even if it feels ‘done to death’ over the years: These meetings are to reconcile today’s performance, not recounting the good years of the past.” — Brian Seipel, Leveraging Strategic Supplier Relationships, Source One Strategic Sourceror; Twitter: @GetSavings

15. Realign your business to respond faster to changing demand signals. “With AI tackling data gathering and analysis, workers can focus on tasks that are more professionally rewarding while also thinking more critically about what the enterprise needs to maintain business continuity. Organizations should also consider better risk management of supply chains enabled by hybrid cloud and analysis of external data, allowing for more careful planning and less reactive decision-making. Finally, they should start to integrate teams around intelligent workflows, helping to realign the business so it’s able to respond quicker to rapidly changing demand signals.” — Jonathan Wright, as quoted by Patrick Burnson in New IBM Report Explains How to Leverage Technology to Counter Pandemic Disruption, Supply Chain Management Review; Twitter: @SCMR

16. Aim for a real-time reach across all tiers in your supply chain network. “What’s needed goes well beyond a basic ecommerce platform. It includes a complete supply chain solution with integrated multi-tier inventory optimization, order brokering, merge, and cross-docking, including last-mile delivery, and the ability to create an allocated Available-to-Promise (ATP) for order promising to a delivery window in a home within a few hours. And all this needs to be optimized on cost.

“A tall order? Perhaps not. Today’s network platforms make it possible, and in this way, you’ll enable your whole ecosystem to capitalize on the shift toward direct-to-consumer and achieve a fast ramp in consumer-driven last-mile deliveries. And you’ll be fully prepared as economies recover.” — Joe Bellini, Demand-Driven Logistics: Consumer Direct and the Last Mile, Supply Chain 247; Twitter: @SupplyChain247

17. Develop a resilient sales and operations planning (S&OP) process. “A key characteristic of S&OP processes is that they bring visibility to operational functions within organizations, thereby exposing hidden buffers (be they excess inventory or capacity) that supposedly protect the enterprise against what is often viewed as departmental ‘bad behavior.’ Examples of such bad behavior include sales representatives inflating their forecasts to ensure adequate supply, or operations maintaining extra inventory to account for low forecast accuracy. When an organization implements S&OP, these hidden buffers become visible because each stage of the S&OP process seeks to remove unplanned slack and improve efficiency by causing inflated forecasts to shrink and inventory caches to disappear.

“While such benefits are laudable, they do present a significant downside: The efficiency-building measures promoted by S&OP can produce business plans that can be quite rigid, making it hard for organizations to respond to unexpected disruptions. Consequently, when a resilience-based approach is not integrated into S&OP, the strengths that distinguish the process can become liabilities.” — Kai Trepte, James B. Rice Jr. and Walid Klibi, S&OP: A new frontier for supply chain resilience?, Supply Chain Quarterly; Twitter: @TheQuarterly

18. Ensure your supply chain continuity plans address remote business operations. “During the present pandemic, remote business operations have proven to be paramount. Supplier-partners should be virtualized and have remote work plans and policies in place, be able to explain how they will deploy employees outside of plant locations, and clarify how quickly they can implement these work processes. All personnel should be able to connect remotely to the systems necessary for them to carry out their job responsibilities. Suppliers should be able to detail the technologies they have installed to enable these connections, including ensuring that employees have laptops or other necessary devices, and their plans for supporting higher-than-usual demands on bandwidth.” — Roger Shaw, 9 Essential Elements of Supply Chain Continuity Planning, ASCM; Twitter: @ascm_org

19. Consider a dual-supplier sourcing strategy. “Sourcing a part and/or assembly with two or more sources—when possible—significantly reduces supplier-related risks. This arrangement typically takes the form of one local supplier—which provides order fulfillment assurance—and one from overseas, which helps reduce overall material cost.

“Of course, this strategy can require additional investment when tooling is required. It can also require more oversight from the supply management function. But these additional costs are usually more than covered when risks that are associated with overseas sole sourcing are reduced or eliminated.

“Personally, I believe that a dual-supplier sourcing strategy represents a best case middle-ground approach and should be considered, especially when demand forecasts are open to significant error.” — Paul Ericksen, Supply-Chain Risk Planning: What’s the Best Approach?, IndustryWeek; Twitter: @IndustryWeek

20. Rethink safety stocks. “The traditional view is that inventory should be treated like calories: we need a certain amount each day to function, and things tend to go south when there is excess. But have we taken too radical a view when it comes to inventory levels?

“Trying to ‘lean out’ our supply chains has been the mantra for ages. We strive to reduce working capital. Safety stock is ‘bad.’ Do we need to reassess this? Look for certain supply chains – think medical devices, pharmaceuticals – to rethink how they view safety stocks. This will push financial institutions to reconsider how they measure the financial health of these businesses.” — Guy Courtin, Opinion: A Post-Covid 19 World for Supply Chains: Back to the Future?, 6 River Systems; Twitter: @6riversystems

Supply chain crisis management

21. When a crisis hits, establish a war room to oversee your company’s response. “Establish a ‘war room’ staffed with the right talent and empowered with clear c-suite mandate and decision rights to respond to crisis. This team will drive required actions while monitoring the evolving risks daily. In addition, be sure the team balances a quick response with a long-term sustainable approach.” — Ben Aylor, Marc Gilbert, and Claudio Knizek, Responding to the Coronavirus’s Impact on Supply Chains, LinkedIn; Twitter: @BCG

22. Prioritize discovery to obtain a full picture rapidly. “Develop a high risk for supply chain disruption monitoring and response programs for countries impacted by the virus and potential supply chain exposure from tier 1 and below. If lower tier transparency is missing, start building up the program and prioritize discovery to get a full picture rapidly. It’s also important to assess how customer spending might be affected.

“The next step is to make sure all inventory is within reach and outside impacted areas and logistical hubs. Additionally, supply chain leaders should work with their legal and HR departments to understand any financial implications of not being able to deliver supply to customers and provide guidance to employees located in the impacted areas.” — Sarah Hippold, Coronavirus: How to Secure Your Supply Chain, Gartner; Twitter: @Gartner_inc

23. Ask new third-party partners to outline their contingency plans to evaluate preparedness. “Many supplier screening programs were devised for a differing level of risk. As the context has now changed, so too must the program. After shortlisting suitable alternatives, ensure that context-heavy, proportionate and risk-based screening is carried out to identify the legal, reputational or financial risks they may bring with them. Ask new third parties to outline their own COVID-19 contingency plan to see how well-prepared they are to face the pandemic and the knock-on effects. This approach will help to streamline workflows when looking at a high volume of entities.” — John Wilkinson, COVID-19: Four key steps for managing integrity risk in supply chains, EY; Twitter: @EYnews

24. Consider appointing or hiring a COVID-19 intelligence agent. “Another best practice we see is the emerging role of the COVID-19 intelligence agent. CSCOs are transitioning their most experienced demand planners away from traditional planning operations and into this new role. This enables them to focus on gathering key indicators and insights to better inform assumptions and scenario planning. Sometimes, this role also includes managing the recovery scorecard.

“A recovery scorecard is a great way to determine when operations can start to establish a new business-as-usual approach. For example, a consumer products business might determine that it will reestablish its demand plan once 90% of field agents — employees who work closely with retail customers — have returned to work and provide localized forecasts. Other indicators that might be included in the recovery scorecard are the growth rate of COVID-19 cases, consumer spending, supplier material availability or factory output.” — Tina Hu, 2 Best Practices for Rebooting the Supply Chain, Gartner; Twitter: @Gartner_inc

25. Segment your product and customer portfolio to identify priorities. “Carefully segment the entire product and customer portfolio based on margins, lead times, and criticality. Not all are of equal importance or vulnerability. Create a matrix based on these two dimensions identifying customers, products, and sources of supply that are most critical and most vulnerable within each quadrant. Set priorities. Which customers get served first? Which suppliers are critical? Which components have the longest lead times?” — Nada R. Sanders, Bracing for the Coronavirus Downturn: 6 Steps to Take Now, IndustryWeek; Twitter: @IndustryWeek

26. Direct supplies to the highest-margin products and customers. “During several disruptions to microelectronics supplies over the past 25 years, the largest PC makers, including HP, Dell, and Apple, were high on suppliers’ priority lists. Differentiated allocation policies favor some customers while impeding others.

“A related allocation criterion is to direct supplies to the highest-margin products and customers. For example, General Motors scrambled to find scarce materials in 2011 after a trifecta of disasters — an earthquake, a tsunami, and a nuclear meltdown — hit Japan and devastated factories there. In GM’s crisis room, ‘Project J’ had supply chain professionals scouring the globe to find sufficient parts to keep all of the company’s car factories running. Despite the frantic search, at one point GM could not find enough airflow sensors for its trucks. The team decided to prioritize full-sized trucks over small trucks because the larger vehicles were both more profitable and had smaller retail inventories.” — Yossi Sheffi, Who Gets What When Supply Chains Are Disrupted?, MIT Sloan Management Review; Twitter: @mitsmr

27. Emphasize quality and efficacy. “With all the learnings, opinions and behavior evolving before our eyes, one factor can be safely assumed: Over the coming weeks and months, consumers will be seeking greater assurance that the products they buy are free of risk and of the highest quality when it comes to safety standards and efficacy, particularly with respect to cleaning products, antiseptics and food items.

“In the short term, this intensified demand from consumers will require manufacturers, retailers and other related industry players to clearly communicate why their products and supply chains should be trusted. In the longer term, and dependent on the eventual scale and impact that COVID-19 has on consumer markets, it may speed up a re-think on how shoppers evaluate purchases and the benefits that they see as the key factors to consider.” — Regan Leggett, Quality and Efficacy May Beat Out Price Sensitivities Amid Coronavirus Concerns, Nielsen; Twitter: @Nielsen

28. Take the opportunity during shutdowns to identify and eliminate bottlenecks and update system data. “Systems will have to fully support operations restart plan implementations and will require adaptability to adjust to the crisis development. The lockdown period should be used to remove traditional burden and complexities such as:

• anticipate bottlenecks and reallocate resources to mitigate/remove them;
• simplify system entries and processes whenever needed especially in WMS & TMS systems;
• re-parameter systems to fully leverage touchless operation like MRP;
• automate processes and basic transactions to ensure systems can operate with limited resources; and
• adapt system profiles and rights to ensure more flexibility.

“A significant amount of work is also going to be needed on system data update, especially carrier and inventory data, to ensure the right information is used to make decisions.” — Emmanuel Hassoun and Pierre Mawet, How to restart operations after coronavirus shock: A logistics perspective, Modern Materials Handling; Twitter: @modernmhmag

29. Dedicate tasks and decisions to the most qualified team members. “Effective emergency response requires clearly defined roles and responsibilities, so that during a crisis teams can concentrate their efforts. As requests and inquiries come in, and information is essential, team members need to know who to go to for answers. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Eric McNulty warns against micromanaging and over-centralizing decision making. Delegation of tasks and decisions to those who are best equipped to make them will keep your office’s response efficient and flexible. This allows team members to play to their strengths and allows the chief official to focus on the big picture and the next steps in the response.” — Chadwick Stephens, 5 Ways to Improve Your Procurement Crisis Management, Procurement Pulse by NASPO; Twitter: @NASPOnews

30. Plan for a bull-whip effect in the aftermath of COVID-19. “In the medium term, companies should plan for a bull-whip effect to impact their business and their suppliers due to high volatility. Link supply to the consumer demand within the business and allow trusted suppliers to have full visibility of demand. On a broader scale, AI/ML-based demand planning tools using big data and hot data sets should be leveraged to aggregate metrics like weather and seasonal shopping habits that allow for stronger predictive models in preparation for the ramp of demand during the path to normalcy.” — Hilding Anderson, COVID-19: Preparing Your Supply Chain in Times of Crisis, Publicis Sapient; Twitter: @PublicisSapient

31. Establish a control tower leveraging AI and machine learning to respond in real-time. “Supply chain management technology can also play a crucial role; if businesses cannot keep track of everything that is happening, how can they even begin to react when they hit disruption? This is where control towers can be deployed to give visibility over all activity, offering a visual representation that makes it possible to fully comprehend the status of all moving parts. This viewpoint makes it a more realistic prospect to identify problems as they are beginning to unfold, and to figure out how to resolve them.

“Once full visibility over activity has been achieved, businesses can also use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to ‘read’ what is going on and recommend how to fix problems. In time, AI/ML systems could even put those changes into place without input from humans, to form an autonomous supply chain. AI can also start to predict disruptions and then, autonomously prevent or avoid them.” — Alan Duncan, Add some muscle: How to avoid being hamstrung by your supply chain the next time a crisis hits, Supply Chain Digital; Twitter: @SupplyChainD

Supply chain optimization

32. Take a holistic approach to supply chain management. “Through the expansion of more comprehensive software and holistic management practices, improved supply chain management techniques have become a smart, yet still under-utilized tool for today’s most savvy executives.

“Excellent supply chain strategies provide ways to move ahead of the competition in an increasingly complex marketplace. To achieve supply chain excellence, organization leaders need to pay particular attention to the details of their infrastructure. Viewed collectively, these details can support a more efficient and effective supply chain management process that can promote more aggressive performance goals across such areas as purchasing, general operations, distribution, and integration strategies.” — Understanding Supply Chain Excellence, Michigan State University; Twitter: @michiganstateu

33. Conduct an end-to-end maturity analysis to evaluate the health of your supply chain. “An end-to-end maturity analysis can evaluate the current state of the existing supply chain. The health check includes a survey of customer expectations, an audit of stakeholder beliefs, and interviews with business executives to gauge their commitment to improvement. The results help businesses identify benchmarks and key trends, and understand the opportunity for supply chain optimization.” — Customer-Centric Supply Chain Transformation, Boston Consulting Group; Twitter: @BCG

34. Determine where your organization falls on the transparency continuum. “Transparency can be measured along two dimensions: supply chain scope (the depth of interaction in the supply chain) and milestones on the path to complete transparency. Based on our learnings over the last decade, we have applied part of the innovation diffusion theory, a concept originally posed by Everett Rogers that outlines how an innovation spreads and is adopted, to map the progress of firms moving towards supply chain transparency.

“Most companies are either at the Majority stage, where they have proper oversight over their facilities, or occupy the Early Majority stage, where they audit and monitor direct suppliers for compliance. Fewer companies can be considered Early Adopters that engage with indirect suppliers (suppliers beyond their direct suppliers) and trace individual transactions. Only Innovators are ready to share information about raw materials suppliers.” — Alexis Bateman and Leonardo Bonanni, What Supply Chain Transparency Really Means, Harvard Business Review; Twitter: @HarvardBiz

35. Improve transparency and visibility with a single source of truth. “When planning, sourcing, design production, and logistics are part of one connected enterprise system, retailers can thoroughly assess problems to mitigate damage.

“Collaborate globally. A digital supply chain platform helps companies access one ‘single version of the truth.’ Workflow calendars and exception management are critical as companies scramble to update production schedules when factories are shut down.” — Mark Burstein, COVID-19 Supply Chain Resources & Strategies, Inbound Logistics; Twitter:  @ILMagazine

36. Leverage supply chain mapping. “Yes, supply network mapping can be resource intensive and difficult. However, there is no way around it. Companies will discover the value of the map is greater than the cost and time to develop it.

“The most common approach is to use the bill of materials and focus on key components. It typically starts with the top five products by revenue and goes down to their component suppliers, and their suppliers, ideally, all the way down to raw materials suppliers. The goal should be to go down as many tiers as possible, because there may be hidden critical suppliers the buying firm is not aware of. The map should also include information about which activities a primary site performs, the alternate sites the supplier has that could perform the same activity, and how long it would take the supplier to begin shipping from the alternate site.” — Thomas Y. Choi , Dale Rogers and Bindiya Vakil, Coronavirus Is a Wake-Up Call for Supply Chain Management, Harvard Business Review; Twitter: @HarvardBiz

37. Implement supplier scorecards. “When manufacturer-supplier relationships aren’t built on communication, collaboration and transparency, risks to quality grow greater in likelihood and consequence – even in the best of times. With the added layer of complexity and urgency in the supply chain due to large-scale disruptions like a global pandemic, manufacturers must forge stronger partnerships with their suppliers.

“Direct, honest communication between a manufacturer and supplier helps deliver quick changes to the product and needs. As part of establishing two-way communication, it is important to identify responsibilities and define expectations for each party. This should help build accountability, accelerate response times and streamline the entire sourcing process. The supplier scorecard is a great form of communication, as it sets up a structured measurement or cadence of collaboration; the supplier should always know their score and how they’re trending.” — Alex Butler, Supplier Quality Problems During a Global Pandemic, Industrial Distribution; Twitter: @InDistwebsite

38. When something’s not working, embrace innovation. “The risk of change goes way down in a crisis. If something’s not working today, there is little risk in trying something new. Many of the marketplace changes we’re experiencing now – the continued migration to e-commerce, the growth of new delivery services and working from home, to name a few – will probably remain with us. Think of ways your business can benefit from the changed environment. Speed company decision-making and try out something new to meet the changing circumstances. To paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, don’t let a serious crisis go to waste. It’s an opportunity to do things that you never thought possible.” — Lauren Pittelli, Moving from Just in Time to Just in Case, IndustryWeek; Twitter: @IndustryWeek

39. Use SLAs (service level agreements) to create a feedback loop. “It’s proven that being a data-driven company provides unique advantages. But it’s hard to be data-driven without good data!

“SLAs become an excellent way to collect data that can be a feedback loop into decision making processes. Beyond the benefits [of] driving clarity and agreement, a partner providing data to support an SLA is a legal requirement of the contract. It’s an unavoidable window into transparency with the partner.” — Jason Murray, How Service Level Agreements (SLAs) Can Propel Your Supply Chain, SCM Dojo; Twitter: @muddassarisim

40. Always stay up-to-date on regulations and standards and be prepared to prove you’re meeting compliance. “There is no doubt that supply chain transparency is very important and becoming more so every year. Consumers care about where their products come from and how they arrive. Customers want confidence, knowing that they aren’t contributing to the many negative global issues that plague the earth and her citizens.

“They are placing more and more value on responsible sourcing and will go out of their way to become fierce brand loyalists when they know their money is solving problems, not causing them.

“Additionally, a bevy of new laws, regulations, standards, and guidelines are put in place regularly to help stymie issues that crop up all along the chain of supply. Your company must be up to date on them and able to provide documentation to prove you are following protocol. Otherwise, you could be in a world of reputational hurt and flooded with fines and fees.” — What Are the Benefits of Supply Chain Transparency?, Avetta; Twitter: @AvettaNews For even more, check out our article on “The Benefits of Supply Chain Management.”

41. Leverage self-forming/autonomous teams to drive agility. “Self-forming/autonomous teams are proving very effective at driving greater agility on both projects and operations, in addition to improving employee engagement. New skills such as facilitation and storytelling are required of team members. Members of these teams have demonstrated extremely impressive agility, an ability to work under pressure, self-motivation and higher overall job satisfaction.” — Stan Aronow, Next Generation Agility: An Antidote to Uncertainty, SCM World; Twitter: @SCM_World

Leveraging technology to optimize the supply chain

42. Conduct an end-to-end review to find areas where technology can improve processes. “We all know that manually driven processes are a huge reason for a lack of visibility along the supply chain. This is especially true of global companies.

“You must review end-to-end to find areas where technology can improve the process (rather than first buying into a specific software package and finding where it can fit). Then, go a step further and use technology to gain data and detailed reporting. This will better inform the supply chain council on how to improve performance and plan strategically. Ensure each automation is well-managed and maintained throughout the cycle.

“An oft ill-tapped resource is your company’s own IT department. They are professionals who keep up on all the latest tech and have a solid understanding on what can actually work well for your particular supply chain. Involve them in discussions and heed their tech advice.” — Your Guide for Effective Supply Chain Improvement Projects, Avetta; Twitter: @AvettaNews

43. Adopt innovative technology that allows for social distancing. “When mitigating risk of exposure to pathogens, there are two schools of thought that we are recommending to our customers: sites should seek to minimize tactile exposure throughout the warehouse and maximize social distance between associates. Regardless of the approach decided upon by the customer, 6RS is a directed system with associates simply following instructions from Chuck.

“Without making any changes to a site’s operational design, Chuck enables a base-level of social distancing within a warehouse by automating long walks between induct, active picking, and takeoff areas, all of which are often crowded areas on the warehouse floor. With the exception of breaks, the associate can remain on the picking floor at a safe distance from other associates.” — Chris Cacioppo, How 6 River Systems solutions protect warehouse associates during the COVID-19 crisis, 6 River Systems; Twitter: @6riversystems

44. Leverage and master your supply chain data. “Bottlenecks in supply chain processes directly affect the agility of your operations and eventually adversely affect supply chain resilience. Inefficient supply chain master data management (e.g., material, price, logistics, vendor, and customer) will disrupt your operations, create stock outs, and tie up valuable resources. However, with the right blend of cost-effective resources coupled with intelligent automation solutions, master data management can be handled seamlessly to optimize your operations across all major supply chain disciplines.” — Jörg Junghanns, How to create sustainable resilience across the supply chain, Capgemini; Twitter: @Capgemini

45. Implement cloud-based supply chain solutions. “In the current unpredictable environment, retailers must be able to responsively pivot their supply chains in close to real time as events require. If a damaged location can no longer serve as a ‘dark store’ to support local delivery, retailers need to be able to accurately track needed products at other nearby stores and warehouses. Stores may have to quickly be stood up for curbside and BOPIS depending on shifting COVID-19 guidelines.

“Retailers need to implement cloud-based supply chain solutions they can easily scale and customize according to needs that may literally change day to day. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities help ensure supply chains can react with maximum efficiency to situations that simply cannot be predicted. Technologies such as computer vision and RFID enable the item-level inventory transparency that is necessary to achieve normalcy in [a] decidedly abnormal social and business environment.” — Dan Berthiaume, Surviving the ‘new abnormal’ with leading-edge technology, Chain Store Age; Twitter: @ChainStoreAge

46. Extend supply chain visibility beyond your primary suppliers. “Supply chain professionals have long understood the value of seeing beyond the tier-one suppliers into the web or network of suppliers that feed them through their primaries. This may require investment into additional human resources or knowledge as well as possible investment into some technologies that specialize in supply chain management.

“You really need to be able to visualize inbound parts and supplies from raw material all the way through to finished deliverable parts, assemblies or supplies. This will require the collection of localized information and data related to individual suppliers, market forces and other drivers that can affect the availability and scheduling of product delivery further down the chain. This will likely require some sophisticated analytical capability and dedicated headcount.” — Lou Washington, Supply Chain Management During the COVID-19 New Normal, Cincom; Twitter: @Cincom

47. Implement technologies such as IoT to increase the visibility of channel inventory. “In the value chain planning domain, traditional demand forecasting relies on time series techniques which create a forecast based on prior sales history. However, past sales can be a poor predictor of future sales considering real-world events such as abrupt market shifts, weather changes or natural disasters. One of the leading global beverage companies has adopted Internet of things (IoT) and visual recognition technology to sense demand in coolers installed in convenience stores, restaurants and supermarkets. With such technologies in place, the company can increase visibility of channel inventory and better respond to an event like the coronavirus outbreak even if distributors cannot provide [a] current-state forecast.” —  COVID-19: how to build supply chains resilient to disruption, EY; Twitter: @EYnews

48. Invest in technologies that enable auto-populated data to streamline workflows and reduce corruption. “Improved collaboration efforts through auto-populated data further streamline workflows and reduce the risk of errors when entering and sharing data. Take the average shipment. A single device could be physically touched dozens of times in shipping, and with each touchpoint, systems of record may require more information. Every data entry becomes a possible source of corruption. However, digitized collaborative resources that auto-populate and share data eliminate this risk. And, those same benefits can be scaled to allow for digital document management capabilities too. Remember that physical document management is responsible for 15% of total logistics costs, so any improvement that eliminates the costs of managing physical documents will effectively pay for itself. Any other gains are icing on the proverbial cake.” — Adam Robinson, Commentary: How digital transformation builds supply chain resilience, Freight Waves; Twitter: @FreightWaves

49. Use software to monitor strategic supplier financials. “Now more than ever, it is critical to request and more frequently monitor strategic supplier financials. Steep contractions and rapid increases in supplier sales strain cash flows, working capital and bank loans.

“Actions: Software that allows you to request updated financials from suppliers and automatically calculates key financial metrics can prove an invaluable tool, as such information for many private suppliers is limited. Understand key supplier financial metrics like the Z score bankruptcy-predictor model and available credit lines to gain a better supplier health report.” — William Crane, CPSM, Heeding Early Supplier Warning Signs Can Help Avoid Disruption, Inside Supply Management Weekly; Twitter: @ism

50. Leverage AI to conduct scenario planning. “Organizations must act with imperative when developing and implementing enhanced risk management practices, focusing on the opportunities scenario planning offers in creating pre-emptive action plans. Scenarios enable organizations to see the bigger picture and make effective trade-off decisions on issues like: how much stock to hold – and where, or how to balance the cost of inventory versus the cost of failing to satisfy customers. Simulations can be run swiftly to identify ‘sweet spots’ between apparently conflicting objectives, based on real-time inventory data, customer demand, and supplier capability. Increasingly enabled by AI and automation, these scenarios [can] help prescribe rather than just predict. By analyzing past events and hypothesizing future threats, organizations are able to identify strategic and concentrated supplies that are at risk, and most importantly, recognize when current internal risk capacities prove insufficient.” — Beyond this challenge: What the coronavirus response teaches us, KPMG; Twitter: @KPMG

Interested in more? Let’s discuss the solution that’s right for you. Contact us today.

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At 6 River Systems, we maintain a laser focus on our customers’ needs and improving our solutions for them. In today’s environment, the top thing on most operators’ minds is keeping their associates safe while running their operations. In response, we devoted a team to focus solely on recommendations, updates and features to improve the safety of associates with respect to pathogens such as COVID-19.

Operations that are using Chucks for automation already have an advantage in the fight against COVID-19 compared to traditional cart pick operations: they are more efficient and require fewer warehouse associates in the building than manual operations to get the same throughput. While this is a great start, our goal is to find new ways to increase safety at our customers’ operations.

Each operation is unique; not every solution works for every site. Likewise, designing solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic is a balance between safety, efficiency, current site design and demand. Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all solution, we have compiled a list of recommendations to review and implement in partnership with each customer site. Here is some of what we’ve shared with our customers.

What we are recommending immediately:

Hardware Recommendations

Health and hygiene recommendations differ from operation to operation, though we are recommending that all associates wear protective gloves and a mask. Chuck is designed with large, easy to clean and robust action and pause buttons and lights, reducing interactions with touchscreens. Chuck’s touchscreens are compatible with styluses and with a wide variety of gloves, which helps prevent cross-associate contamination. Similarly, we have provided our customers recommendations for proper sanitation of screens and surfaces on Chuck. When an associate meets a new Chuck and before they begin the picking, induct or takeoff process, we have advised them to take a few seconds to wipe down the few areas that are touched (action buttons, pause button and touchscreen) with a sanitizing wipe which is stored on the Chuck.

Operational Recommendations

When mitigating risk of exposure to pathogens, there are two schools of thought that we are recommending to our customers: sites should seek to minimize tactile exposure throughout the warehouse and maximize social distance between associates. Regardless of the approach decided upon by the customer, 6RS is a directed system with associates simply following instructions from Chuck.

Without making any changes to a site’s operational design, Chuck enables a base-level of social distancing within a warehouse by automating long walks between induct, active picking, and takeoff areas, all of which are often crowded areas on the warehouse floor. With the exception of breaks, the associate can remain on the picking floor at a safe distance from other associates.

To minimize shared surfaces and tactile exposure, we can implement changes to limit the number of Chucks an associate works with during the day. Alternately, operators can limit cross-contamination on the pick faces by utilizing static zoning rules to ensure associates remain in place while Chuck crosses from one zone to the next. Combined with a regular sanitization of buttons, screens and other items on Chucks, this should significantly reduce contamination risk.

Our solutions and data insights teams are ready to review the impact of layout changes, such as temporarily restricting 2-way aisles to 1-way traffic. This practice, long in place at many of our sites to maximize inventory storage and recently adopted by local supermarkets, reduces in-aisle interactions between associates and supports social distancing.

We also recommend that sites picking to totes wipe them down at induct or temporarily switch to picking into shipping containers, if possible. This reduces the risk of commonly touched surfaces.

What we are working to provide:

We are working to quickly prototype and deploy an accessory to hold sanitizing wipes and gloves that we will provide to customers at no cost. In addition, we are working to enhance compliance with new hygiene practices by updating our software to remind associates to wipe down Chuck’s confirmation buttons and screen immediately after they badge in (a touchless process). Furthermore, we are working to make the entire picking experience touchless by using an associate barcode “cheat sheet” to replace most of the common touches on Chuck.

Our engineers are making software changes to ensure that when Chucks are engaged with associates, they follow social distancing protocols when coworkers do meet in picking aisles.

At MODEX this year, we announced a tote auto loader/unloader for our Chuck robots. This type of automation increases safety by reducing touches of common surfaces and will also increase our customers’ throughput during this surge in direct to consumer ordering.

Our promise:

So much of today’s dynamic environment is uncertain. We recognize that each of our customers’ sites are experiencing different challenges, be it in volume, labor, safety or uncertainty. We are dedicated to providing the right solutions for our customers. Internally, we have always championed flexibility in our solutions which allows us to rapidly make changes in times of need. We are driven by a handful of core values, one of which is we all win when our customers win. We will continue to look at new approaches and technologies to keep our customers’ associates safe. We at 6 River Systems wish you, all your employees and loved ones good health in these difficult times.

About the Author

Chris Cacioppo is the Chief Technology Officer and co-Founder of 6 River Systems.
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Chris Cacioppo is responsible for technical oversight and advanced programs at 6 River Systems. Chris is a veteran of many startups and previously ran engineering at Mimio, an education technology company. Christopher has a Masters from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

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Such great heights. The Shanghai Skyline

Warehouses have also adopted this strategy. We face constraints on the ground, but if we can go up…then the sky’s the limit! And this made sense when warehouses were truly pass-through for inventory. It used to be that you would source, manufacture, store, send to a store and then the consumer would access that inventory.

But then the world changed. Everything went digital: the internet brought us ecommerce. Suddenly our supply chains shifted; they were no longer linear, but constantly evolving networks. Now it’s possible to drop ship directly from the factory floor or fulfill an order directly from a warehouse. Inventory now has to be much more nimble and therefore supply chain nodes can no longer resemble their static nature of old.

Before we blindly build upwards, what should we consider?

As a result of digitization, consumers are expecting more from their favorite brands. In response, supply chain professionals have to consider the importance of the velocity of their inventory when designing and operating their supply chain. This is particularly crucial to warehouse operators. So before we blindly build upwards, what should we consider?

What are the true characteristics of my inventory?

There’s no news flash here: not all inventory is created equal. However, we have to be savvy to that fact when we consider the optimal flow of our inventory.

Some questions to ask:

• How does it behave in normal times?
• What about peak season?
• What about unexpected demand spikes?

Supply chains are constantly regulating the flow of inventory, trying to avoid out of stocks, the wrong mix of inventory or poor placement of inventory. Supply chains need to constantly identify and understand their inventory’s characteristics. This will be crucial to how warehouses need to approach the velocity of their goods.

What speed of fulfillment is needed to meet my customers’ needs?

Next day delivery, even two hour delivery sounds lovely. But is it really necessary? For most items, no. So what is the right mix for your product and customers? What is the pace at which your business needs to fulfill your customer’s orders? Companies must determine what reality is and what type of fulfillment is needed. This will have a deep impact on how the various nodes of the supply chain is calibrated.

Do I have access to the right information to best determine how I organize my inventory?

Answering the above questions requires access to relevant and timely data about inventory flows: the true capability of our supply chain nodes. It is important not only to be aware of real-time information, but how historical information can be used as a benchmarking tool. Supply chains need to measure decisions based on baselines.

Bottom line, supply chains have to look at their inventory and understand the speed at which it must move. Understanding this allows for better space utilization within the four walls of warehouses, and to some extent, how we leverage our stores. One size does not fit all. So before we blindly replicate the late 19th century Chicago and New York building booms and focus on the vertical, let’s ensure that we balance vertical with our velocity needs.

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