The factors likely to determine a business’s competitive edge in today’s world are vastly different than those of ten or twenty years ago. More than ever before, the logistics process underpinning sales, storage, and delivery is a primary driver of growth and development against competitors. Customers have come to expect an internet of things at their digital fingertips, where convenience and reliability is the name of the game. Those who don’t keep up get left in the dust. At DMW&H we pride ourselves on understanding these trends and providing our customers with the most innovative process improvement solutions. If you are considering an upgrade to your backend logistics, consider these four key points.
Organizing For The Future
Utilizing a streamlined process for sales, supplies, distribution, and shipping is the easiest way to prepare for success in the future. Success in today’s marketplace is less about scale and sweat than it is about speed and efficiency. Organizing a warehouse so that your workers can take full advantage of automated solutions is not just a short-term fix, it will allow for easy adoption of future process improvement down the line.
Limiting Mistakes
Using automation and human interaction where each is appropriate is the easiest way to help reduce any hiccups or errors that might occur in the logistical supply chain. Customers today have developed a lower tolerance for mistakes, as competition within the marketplace has adopted more efficient logistics. Operating shipping and receiving through a digital portal with on-site support for workers will make resolving any processing errors much faster. It is always more cost-effective to keep existing customers happy, rather than find new ones, and one of the easiest ways to do so is to limit mistakes through improved logistics.
Finding The Gaps
Sometimes it is possible to not know what you are missing out on. What process improvement does at its best is use technology to find the gaps inefficiency. Some of these, you may not have known were even there. These hidden gaps can include everything from properly allocating the tasks of workers to increase productivity, to recommendations in scheduling changes for shipping and delivery. Today’s warehouse and storage operations are mountains of data, but it takes advanced process improvement software to mine that material and deliver usable solutions. Looking for those gaps and patching them efficiently is our main goal.
Human Interaction
Oftentimes, too much can be made of the software, automation, and mechanical solutions used in process improvement. These solutions all have their place to be sure — an automated sorting and retrieving system can completely transform the efficiency of a warehouse. But what these processes end up doing, in the long run, is freeing up your human employees to do their jobs better. Humans and machines are innately well suited to different tasks, and process automation will allow workers to focus on the tasks they are well suited to while avoiding burnout and fatigue. Unique situations often require on-the-spot problem-solving. Customers want to speak to another person to know that a problem is being addressed. These tasks are the domain of humans, and automated software solutions are meant to complement, not replace them.