This week we will be discussing warehouse performance from Dan Bolger, who works in the furniture industry. Thanks Dan for tips.
The old saying is you can’t improve performance if you can’t measure performance. You should develop a self appraisal checklist and get your managers and warehouse people to answer candidly. Score each answer and compare the scores. They will tell the story for you. These questions should focus on warehouse conditions, delivery experiences, condition of product and most importantly any feedback employees get from customers about their deliveries. Just as there is a right way to write an order, there is a right way to run the warehouse. Pick the weakest area in your warehouse operation and strive to improve those areas as you already know customer retention and satisfaction are tightly coupled.
Management should focus on the following bullets involving people and process.
- There should never be any question on the book inventory and where it is in the warehouse. Good warehouse management says you should know where it is all the time.
- Delivering the correct goods is the first opportunity to build good customer relationships.
- The best managers visit their warehouse at least a couple of times a day.
- Additional brick and mortar investments are usually not required if inventory is kept under control. Please see note below.
- Measure warehouse operations using this simple formula: total all items received and shipped, and divide by total warehouse labor hours worked in the day. Your results are your warehouse efficiency. This measurement can be done in cases or pounds to make it easy to keep track.
Note: This has been a recurring theme in all our inventory centric newsletters, get rid of old inventory and sell off the dogs, you make more money in the long run with inventory cost savings.
