The Skinny on Put-to-light

| Sam Flanders

Put to light is a way to direct activities such as single item distribution and order consolidation via light directed devices. Put to light uses the same hardware as a pick-to- light system, but it reverses the process.

10 Ways to Improve Vendor Quality Control

| Curt Barry

If you want to improve your vendor quality control without having to dive headlong into a new way of doing business, take heart. There is an option that relies on the basics of upholding merchandise quality. These ten strategies can improve your vendor quality control program or help you design such a program if you do not have one in place today.

Identifying Challenges and Opportunities

| Sam Flanders

If you are like most distribution center managers, you know that your existing operation has a number of unsolved challenges and problems that your people grapple with on a daily, weekly, and seasonal basis.

Rounding the Final Holiday Heat

| MCM staff

With less than two weeks to go before Christmas, many marketers are gearing up for what they hope will be some of their busiest days of the year. But how are we doing so far?

The Benefits and Perils of Team Scheduling

| Penny Reynolds

Although these self-directed work teams are most often implemented in manufacturing environments to turn out a better-quality product more efficiently, many customer service organizations have also embraced this concept. But while some of the concepts of work teams have resulted in delivery of better, more efficient service to the customer, other components have created service problems.

Is Your Website Talking to Your Call Center?

| John Federman

Most multichannel merchants do a fine job of branding across channels. But few are leveraging the information gathered across business units to enhance their multichannel strategy. For too long, companies have separated their online channels from their contact centers without realizing that the two units can work in unison to boost overall sales and improve customer experience.

Survey: WMS’ Underutilized

| MCM staff

A recent Supply Chain Consortium benchmarking and best practices survey of 100 top retail and related companies from Raleigh, NC-based consultancy Tompkins Associates reveals that too many organizations underutilize their warehouse management system (WMS) investment or do not make sound upgrade and replacement decisions.