Good Luck Is a Residue of Preparation - Jack Youngblood

As we celebrate the annual St Patrick’s Day festivities, it’s a good time to talk about luck. Good luck is indeed the residue of preparation.  Distributors and manufacturers alike must continuously prepare themselves for changing tastes and expectations of faster delivery and cheaper products.  No longer do our customers need to ask themselves if they’re getting a good deal because our phones now serve as a bar code scanner that can provide multiple prices and delivery options for the exact same item.  In our world, customers know the rules of thumb for cost per linear feet of conveyor by type and cost per pallet position. 

So how do we prepare ourselves so good luck may follow? 

·         Do you know the dimensions and weights of your SKUs so you may do an automatic comparison of the actual weight to of an order to the expected weight of the order?

o   Reduces overages

o   Reduces returns

o   Reduces omissions

o   Reduces unit of issue problems

o   Most importantly, it improves your customer experience

·         When you walk through your Plant or Distribution Center, are you using rack for pallets, individual cases individual SKU’s and everything in between?

o   Are there big pockets of space where there is no product?

o   Are SKUs mixed in with each other so it’s cumbersome to pick, put away and cycle count?

o   Do you have a lot of cubic space available but you are not sure how to take advantage of it? 

·         Do your smaller SKUs fall between the openings in wire decks? Is there a lot of product on the floor?

·         Are you using standard cases for all shipments, paying unnecessary shipping costs for air?

·         Are you using one shipper for all your outbound orders or do you rate shop for the best deal?

·         Are you applying shipping labels manually? 

·         Do you have record of products shipping from your facility in case of customer complaints of missing orders?

o   Pictures, date time stamp, bar code scan?

o   Are you dealing with inbound cases and bags with no bar codes on them? 

If these questions sound familiar, let’s prepare together so we can make our own luck. 

 

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg

 

 

The Importance of Being Important

“If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity.” 
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

A couple of years after I joined TriFactor, we were given copies of the famous book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, written by Dale Carnegie.  At the time, I had known who Dale Carnegie was and the famous book he wrote but I had never read it.  So dutifully I read it and it made absolute sense to me, making the complexity of interpersonal relationships simpler to grasp and digest.  I enjoyed it so much I first gave it to my two older sons and asked them to read it and then paid my two younger sons to read it.  You know how that goes, but in the end I was able to make sure they all read it. 

The book is full of wonderful lessons and historical examples of their honest and effective use.  I am gravitated to the chapter of the book that begins with the statement “He who can do this has the whole world with him.  He who cannot walks a lonely way”   It speaks to me and the book continues with “So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it” How true it is in our everyday lives when we meet customers and get so excited to talk about our competence and our list of accomplishments which are important to us and important in general when really it is our customers that should be doing the talking. 

We should strive for our customers to do the talking.  How else will we know what is important to them?  In a distribution environment, there are many variables and definitions of success which are unique to the customer and unique to the main person responsible for the project.  You may deal with the owner who is interested in reducing labor, increase efficiency or stay in his facility longer to avoid the expense of moving to a bigger facility.  You may be dealing with a Distribution Manager who wants to improve customer service, improve the performance on company operational metrics and prove his/her worth to the company.  No matter what it is that our customers want, we can’t give it to them if we don’t make it our first priority to find out what it is. 

Difficult as it may be, sometimes we must suspend what we want in order to influence our customers to walk our way. 

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg

Traveling

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.  Lao Tzu

Travelling in distribution and manufacturing environments is the enemy of efficiency.  Traveling wastes time, creates workload imbalances and increases the cost of product manufacturing and distribution.  Traveling is deceptive since it sometimes appear to be necessary to get the job done. 

When we talk about traveling in the manufacturing plant or the distribution center, it usually involves manually transporting product from one value added process to another or picking items, walking along a designated pick path.  Since it’s only human to want to communicate with each other, walking past our fellow associates without sharing a how the weekend went or how your fantasy football team did is irresistible.  So what do we do about time wasted socializing?  How do we increase productivity without being the communication police?

While it is difficult to keep our team from excessively discussing the news of the day, it is easy to identify how we can reduce the opportunities for travelling. 

·         Assign pick zones or areas of responsibility so your order pickers have less reason to walk the floor

·         Employ “goods to you” systems such as carousels, mini-load systems, tote or case shuttle systems

·         Employ picking systems such as pick to voice or pick to light that tend to engage the picker, reducing the slack time between picks

·         Convey products from one value added process to another as conveyors don’t speak with each other or at least they don’t verbally

·         Use Human Machine Interface software to graphically depict your automation systems so you may identify jams, malfunctions and safety issues

·         Employ automatic scales, tapers, labeling systems and manifesting to keep personnel congestion to a minimum

Most of our associates are generally hard-working, dedicated and loyal.  We need them to successfully manufacture and distribute the products that allow us to grow and be profitable.  However, we are social beings and we need systems and an environment that reduces distractions, promoting focus on our respective tasks.  Are your associates travelling?

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg

Seeking to Understand Your Distribution Needs

“Don't question what you don't understand unless you're asking questions seeking to understand.” ― Rob Liano

Questions are a necessary evil when developing solutions for our customers; but, if you are like me, when a salesperson asks me questions over and over again over an expanse of time, I start to get irritated.  I especially don’t like it when I have already answered the question. 

Typical Material Handling Questions consist of:

·         Where are your bottlenecks?

·         What kind of product are you picking/shipping?

·         Is it wrapped or not?

·         Is the bottom flat?

·         Is it hazardous inside?

·         What does the bottom of your pallet look like?

·         Can you send me a picture?

·         How do you pass orders from the host software to the hand scanners or the picking system?

·         What is average rate/peak rate? 

Although using a standard questionnaire is a good start to learning and understanding the distribution operations of a specific company, all organizations are unique and thus, a template can only go so far.  Invariably, there are a few questions that were never initially considered and the repetitive calls begin and seem to never end.  Ultimately, I recognize that asking the right questions is essential to develop a good material handling system or any system for that matter. But the manner in which the fact finding mission is accomplished must be done such that customers are not bugged to death with repeated emails and phone calls so that professionalism and confidence is maintained throughout the process. 

In fact, the key component to the process is dedicated time spent with the customer at his or her facility to witness the good, the bad, and the ugly and get all of the information in person.  We really need to see what goes on in the facilities you intend to improve, to ask questions of your team, and not just your executive team but the operators and personnel that succeed or fail with your system.

Therefore, a questionnaire is a suitable start, but the finish line can be pretty far away.  Additional information needed can only come with time spent onsite, measuring, inquiring and challenging how processes work.  There are always standard operating procedures to reference but our operators usually develop their own "work-arounds".  Why did they feel the need to work around your carefully crafted SOPs and how can you incorporate their better way of doing things into your solution?

Too many projects fail due to missed details that could have been discovered by spending quality time onsite using a comprehensive and iterative process.  Isn’t it risky to rely on a material handling system proposal sent to you from someone that didn’t do the due diligence or discovery?  Will the contents have a chance to really make an impact to your facility and operations?

Thank you for the patience with our questions as we look forward to spending time at your facility in the future.

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg

For a quart of Ale is a meal for a King - William Shakespeare

To be sure there are many among us who would love to be a beer distributor.  All that glorious liquid stacked as high as the ceiling, packed to the gills with every flavor for every palate.  And in the quest to have a beer for every pallet, how do you organize the traditional high volume brands with the latest and greatest craft beer?  What product should be stacked?  What product to be stored at a specific temperature?  How do you re-introduce returned product?  How do I keep my order pickers as efficient as possible?  How do I keep my customers happy?  How do I deal with slower moving products that use up my warehouse space and slow my pickers down?  How do I keep my main brewers happy?  So many questions, considerations and planning to deal with, perhaps a beer distributor’s life is harder than I thought. 

As there are many financial analysts from within and outside the beer industry looking at trends and forecasting the future, there are several points to take away as you examine your existing beer distribution warehouses and plan for new ones. 

·         As people age they tend to drink less beer.  According to analysts, baby boomers and retirees are a larger percentage of the population than young adults. 

·         Liquor and wine sales are rising at the expense of beer sales.  How do you slot the products that are ancillary to beer?

·         Craft beers are increasing with 2,700 breweries in the US alone and how you slot these cases and pallets will need to be different than the main brands?  As craft beers usually cost more they are big potential profit generators.  Being able to store pick and ship them efficiently is a competitive advantage. 

·         Other non-alcoholic products such as water and mixers are growing but are small in terms of overall demand.  You need to carry it but how do you store it?

Beer demand and tastes are changing rapidly.  Doesn’t it make sense to develop storage, picking and shipping plans that are based on product velocity analysis and accurate slotting?  Understanding the dimensions of your product, coupled with the use of sales data that reflects the demand for each SKU will allow you to store pick and ship the right product in the most efficient manner.  Done properly, slotting your facility will reduce labor, maximize the use of available warehouse space and most importantly of all, allow you to examine it at regular intervals to keep up with the changing tastes dynamic.

Here’s to great success in 2014 to all the beer distributors out there as I do my part to help keep you in business.

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg

A Conveyor Carol

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the warehouse

Not a roller was turning, no lights to be dowsed.

The forklifts were parked by the stations to charge

A day off from pallets that are getting too large.

The panels were switched off to take a good sleep

The DC was silent, not even a peep.

When through the e-commerce site came several mass orders

I ran to the server to check the disorder.

Away to the iphone I flew with a flash

The labor, the power, the postage and cash.

The silence was deafening as I made several calls

My head on my desk as no answers at all.

When what to my ears and eyes should perceive

Responses from teammates on Christmas Eve.

“On Jimmy! On Mikey! On Kathy!  On Sue!

“To the electrical panel, to the sorter downstairs”

“Now ship away! Ship away! Ship away all”

As the last box departed I let out a sigh

Another Christmas arrival with no need to cry!

 

Happy Holidays from TriFactor!!
www.TriFactor.com

 

Stuffing 10 lbs of SKUs Into a 5 lb Bag

In my garage we seem to keep buying things and storing them but never seem to remove anything.  Once in a while I realize that some of the things stored there will never be needed or used. 

So too you see it in distribution centers where SKU growth has made it difficult to efficiently replenish, pick and manage inventory.  So what can we do about it?

A good first step is to understand the dimensions of our products.  At a minimum we should know the length, width, height and weight of the unit size we pick from whether it be cased or individual picks.  If you don’t know the SKU volumes then schedule an effort monthly to capture this information using a Cubiscan which you can rent or purchase. 

A close second step is to understand how fast our SKUs move.  Typically, you will want to look at a year’s worth of data so that you may account for any seasonality or for unnatural spikes in demand.  Understanding how fast your SKUs move allow you to store them in the right type of picking media (rack, shelving, pick modules or storage and retrieval systems such as carousels or more advanced systems such as mini-loads and AS/RS). 

It is wise to have assigned locations for your SKUs.  Assigning multiple SKUs to one large location often causes many issues:

·        Order pickers have difficulty finding the appropriate item to pick for the respective order. If you have item in cases that look alike only distinguishable by item number and they are collocated in the same SKU location, miss-picks will surely follow.  

·        Replenishment operators need to efficiently find and place the respective SKUs where they belong.  If it is difficult to know where to put it, operators will just use their best judgment.   A more systematic approach is necessary. 

·        Cycle counting is never a fun thing but imagine doing it with SKUs all mixed up in a collocated location?  Having to pick up unit picks and looking at code designations to get the correct SKU inventoried is expensive and a waste of labor.    

 
Curing these issues often is not an expensive proposition.  Rather it requires a little distribution center elbow grease.  Most Warehouse Management Systems homegrown or otherwise can handle assigning SKUs to what level you require.  SKUs can be measured and recorded for future slotting use.

Finally, SKUs that are seldom used or never used can be relocated to more remote areas of the distribution center to allow for the prime movers to be picked efficiently.

 

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg 

“Waste Not Want Not”

Often we accept the waste in our packaging as the cost of doing business. For companies who are shipping a myriad of products, it’s tough to consistently select the most efficient shipping carton.  As a result:

·         We pay for cartons that are underutilized

·         We fill up the unused space with void fill that is not free

·         We use void fill machines that can be expensive to buy, service and maintain

·         The postage paid on the case is more than what it should be due to extra weight

·         We buy totes then use our associates to dump the contents out and transfer to a case using their intuition

Continuing on this course is an option to be sure.  However, in many packaging and shipping operations, we can improve on this waste by knowing the characteristics of what we are shipping.  The length, width, height and weight of our individual SKUs are crucial information.  Armed with this information, we can calculate the expected volume of a given order.  If we know the anticipated volume, we can select the right shipping container at the beginning of the picking process using carton weight calculations. The benefits include:

·         Potentially reduce the width of the case conveyor through the elimination of totes

·         Reduce or eliminate the void space in our shipping cartons

·         Reduce labor required to audit, transfer and process void fill

·         Reduce corrugated stock costs

·         Identify mis-picks through weight validation

 As we all know, there is continuous pressure on margins and a focus on waste may be the edge you need to reduce your unit costs. 

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg

“Seeing the forest through the trees”

It is hard to see the forest through the trees sometimes.  In our world (Distributors and Manufacturers), the trees that block our view are the pressing demands on a Distribution or Plant Manager.  You all know them well as they are routine in nature:

·         Hiring enough and the right type of associates.

·         Making sure we are meeting our customer service expectations.

·         Keeping up with new products, new acquisitions and promises made by our sales force.

·         Finding the space to accommodate growing business requirements.

·         Adapting to increased e-commerce needs that accompany society’s changing purchasing behaviors.

When you are blocked by the trees, we all tend to handle these demands ourselves using the path of least resistance.  As our SKUs increase in volume and in number, it is easy to continue to find empty spaces, hire new people and do things the same way until it starts to affect our customers.  Once our customers become affected and the top and/or bottom line reduces, the praise you once received for doing more with less is replaced with questions about how you are going to fix it. 

Although the economic slowdown is continually in the news, I have met more than a few companies that are growing 10, 20 and 30 percent year over year.  Many of these companies do not employ the sophisticated metrics developed and available to larger companies so where do we begin?

An essential beginning is to understand our SKU’s (Stock Keeping Units).  It is valuable to know the dimensions of your product (length, width, height and weight).  Additionally, the same dimensions for the case we traditionally pick out of if other than case quantities.  Since most companies know their sales data, we look to understand the demand and the size requirements to store and pick. If you don’t have time to do this, hire someone to help you see the forest.   

Stepping back from tress, looking at your product speed, dimensions, replenishment requirements and future growth projections will allow you to redesign your picking operation to replenish less, travel less, use floor space better and reduce current and future labor. 

If you are blinded by the trees, hire a lumberjack to help you cut them down.

For more information from Greg, view his page at www.trifactor.com/greg

Should I stay or should I go?

Successful distributors often find themselves a victim of their own success.  Your “Once Small” business has now grown into a very large distribution center.  Your work-force that was once a few tried and true set of associates that you knew personally and could rely on for their ability to use their initiative and “tribal knowledge” of your business has grown multiple times.  Perhaps you don’t know them by name anymore as unfortunately they seem to come and go.  Your once spacious warehouse continues to grow laterally and it is getting tough to find space to pick, package and stage product.  So the subject comes up: “Are we getting too big for this facility?” and “Maybe it’s time to move to a bigger place”.   Don’t get me wrong, System Sales Engineers like me love a new distribution center and maybe it is time to move to a bigger place. But before you do, let’s point out a few areas that deserve some consideration. 

Cubic Space vs. Lateral Space

You are spread out to the max but do you have clear areas above your current distribution operation to use vertically instead of laterally.  There are many ways to use this space that often goes ignored.  Shelf supported platforms, mezzanines, pick modules and sorters can often be elevated to use the vertical space available.   Additionally, in distribution operations with small parts or many slower moving SKUs, vertical lift modules are a good means of condensing storage of items while suing the full clear height of your facility. 

Manifesting Consolidation

You ship with the typical providers UPS, FEDEX and USPS and you keep adding manifesting stations to keep up with the throughput requirements.  However, many distribution centers are automating this function in a condensed space with a picking operation that features:

·         Picked case LPN – License Plate Number bar codes that contain order data.

·         Cases that are bar coded by the case manufacturer with dimensional data contained.

·         Central shipping label print and apply lines

o   Case LPN is scanned

o   Case dimensional data code is scanned

o   Case is weighed in line on the fly

o   Shipping label (FEDEX, UPS or USPS) is applied automatically

o   Case is sorted automatically to their respective line by shipping type

Imagine one central shipping area instead of multiple manifesting lines with all the redundant equipment and space that comes with it. 

Picking Consolidation

You have an army of pickers that pick up their paper pick lists, pick orders one at a time with carts, taking them up to a central packing area.  I know it was never meant to be this way but it just came with the great success of your business.    With all this travelling and movement come the inevitable reduction of throughput and the expansion of picking areas required to hold all this traffic, never-mind the social activity that goes together with pushing picking carts around the distribution center. 

Many distribution centers centralize picking, using batch picking with a suitable technology which may include RF scanners, pick to light, or voice picking.  The picking may be done out of carousels (horizontal and vertical) depending on the velocity of the individual SKU or out of pick modules which are slotted by velocity of pallet picks (full pallet, carton flow or shelving).  The right type is a function of the speed of the pick, dimensional qualities of the SKU and the density of product pick faces.

There are also “Goods to You” applications that make great use of the vertical space often available in many warehouses.  These “Goods to You” systems bring the product to the picker and are versatile in form and function. 

Before you consider moving, spend some time looking up and consolidating where you can, using proven technologies.  It’s much cheaper than taking on a new lease. 

Examine First Diagnosis Later

Seldom can you walk into a doctor’s office and get a diagnosis for what ails you.  Rather the doctor asks you a series of questions runs tests and even sends you to get blood drawn to understand what’s happening on the inside.  Yet when important automation decisions are made at distribution centers and manufacturing facilities, solutions are often provided as a result of a diagnosis based on what the customer specifically asks for or some technology that is applied based on some other company’s operation.  Important questions are not asked, and the customers end up only with what they asked for. 

So some may say “Give the customer what they asked for” and “The customer is always right”.  Both are wise statements if you wish to stay in business, but don’t we owe a deeper responsibility to people who entrust us with large financial investments and sometimes their careers? 

If the answer is yes, then it is necessary to understand our customers more and further examination is required before we diagnose.  Beyond the identification of product dimensions, cartons or pallets per minute or lines picked per hour lay important questions.

·    What are the most critical aspects of any potential transition to automation? These answers are often different depending on who you speak with.

·    Are there any future growth anticipated through acquisitions or through e-commerce business growth?

·    Is the primary goal to reduce labor, increase throughput, increase productivity, reduce operational footprint, extend stay at existing facilities, increase accuracy, improve safety or reduce theft?

·    Are there parallel software initiatives such as transitions to a new Warehouse Management System or Warehouse Control System that will require interfacing with and automation initiatives?

As we get the answer to these questions we must also be aware of a great degree of customization that has been increasing over the last 5 years.  Customization is increasingly difficult issue for distribution centers and manufacturers to plan for and adapt to.  Big box retailers expect their product in specific pallet configurations, labeled and wrapped uniquely, with various product staging times corresponding to transportation scheduling.  Particularly in low SKU high volume operations, users want mixed pallets that have layers of different products and sometimes cases of different products that allow them to only stock what they need.  Couple this increase in customization with an increasing consumer appetite to purchase items online with options available for shipping speed, specific carrier selection and special packaging and you have system requirements that must be versatile and modular to keep up with changing customer market dynamics.

If we don’t ask enough right questions the examination will not be thorough enough to properly diagnose what type of system is best for your customer.  Even if you provide exactly what your customer asked for it is not good enough.  Uncomfortable discussions based on challenging the status quo can open details that will result in good quality systems that are built for growth, flexibility and responsive customer service.  

Welcome! Meet Greg Tuohy of TriFactor

Distribution Center Planning and Industry News has been created to deliver current distribution industry news from Greg Tuohy of TriFactor.  TriFactor is a FL-based material handling systems integrator that serves the warehousing and distribution industry worldwide.  Feel free to follow this blog, get in touch with Greg, and/or check out TriFactor's website www.trifactor.com

About Greg:

Greg Tuohy earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University.  Greg has been a System Sales Engineer with TriFactor for nine years.  Greg’s professional career includes over six years of management experience as a Production and Service Manager in the textile industry. Over the course of his professional and military career he has served in numerous logistical positions in Europe and the United to include service as a Company Commander in the 101^st Airborne Division.

Today, Greg works with industry leading companies to find efficient material handling solutions for their warehousing and distribution facilities.  TriFactor delivers integrated material handling systems to unique businesses across the United States.