Get Involved

Over the past eleven months we reviewed several low-hanging fruit process improvement concepts to help improve your warehouse performance. You can read more about these concepts here.

While there are many more ideas we could discuss for consideration in your facility, the final item on our list is Get Involved. More specifically, get involved with learning and observing. In today’s business environment seldom can anyone afford to live in isolation and not share ideas. Regardless of where you work, as vaccines are administered and social distancing norms are loosened, there should be many ways for you to get out and see how other people operate. I encourage you to routinely invest time touring other operations and/or attending networking events where you can learn about industry trends and pick up best/neat practices.  Following is a brief list of places you can seek for learning opportunities:

  • Find a local professional association with regular networking events and tours (i.e. Council of Supply Chain Management, Association for Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, etc.) and attend an event.
  • Ask one of your suppliers (either product or consumables) if you can tour their operations or if they have other customers interested in reciprocal tours.
  • If you are using technology, ask your salesperson if they have a customer advisory board you can participate on or other customers interested sharing ideas.
  • If you have a relationship with a consulting partner, ask them if they have other customers who might be interested in sharing tours and ideas.
  • Ask your neighbor if they are interested in a reciprocal tour.  Many warehouses are in industrial parks with other types of warehouses.  Call up the one next door and see if they have interest in sharing ideas.

Who do you know?  Maybe you know someone who does what you do but for a different company.  Chances are you could both benefit from sharing ideas.

On March 7th, our partner Körber will be hosting Elevate. Elevate is a week long series of supply chain user conferences held virtually worldwide.  This is a great opportunity to come together with like-minded businesses to collaborate and learn more about the technologies impacting your supply chain. Hear directly from Körber executives and industry leaders, see first-hand facility tours from businesses like yours, take deep dives into products, and meet with a network of supply chain partners. You can learn more about elevate by clicking here.

For more information on how WMS Software can transform your business, download our “Business Case Development” whitepaper here.

chris-barnes

Chris Barnes is the Supply Chain Doctor and part of the APICS Coach network. He holds a B.S., Industrial Engineering with an Economics Minor, from Bradley University, and an MBA with emphasis on Industrial Psychology with Honors from the University of West Florida. He is one of the few people in the world to hold CPIM-F, CLTD-F and CSCP-F designations from ASCM/APICS.