Tale of the Tape: Drawer Storage Cabinets vs Traditional Shelving
Opening arguments: The time has come to make a decision about your storage equipment. You have many options, but one over-riding important decision you need to make is whether to go with drawer storage cabinets or traditional shelving. ...
3 Ways E-learning Pays
Once thought to be too expensive for the call center, e-learning is hot. Through the Web, E-learning allows your customer service reps to brush up on customer service skills or training between calls and shifts. This is the first in a three-part series on the value of e-learning....
Avoiding One Bounce Too Many
In prior columns, I’ve discussed the importance of recognizing e-mail deliverability for what it is and mastering it with a smart bounce management system. Let’s now look at what you do with the data from such a system to improve your marketing effectiveness....
Why Continuous Slotting Is So Critical
Anyone would agree that slotting--the ideal placement of products in a warehouse--has an enormous effect on the productivity of a distribution center. In a typical picking system, it can mean the difference between 60 and 200 lines per man hour pick rates. ...
How Receiving Affects the Supply Chain
This series investigates what might happen if you think outside of the warehouse box and consider how changes made outside your distribution center may end up benefiting your operation and saving you money. Here are three tips to improve receiving....
Shopping for a 3PL
Timeliness of deliveries, product condition, order accuracy and vendor compliance all affect customer satisfaction and ongoing profitability. When a company begins underperforming, improvements need to be made. The choices include making distribution improvements through process, technology and/or management modifications, or contracting with a third party logistics provider....
Expanding Existing Warehouse Capacity
Here are the top 15 elements we review when assessing a current warehouse layout....
Harry & David DC a Big Deal in Ohio
Harry & David's largest distribution center is about to get a little bigger: The multichannel retailer best known for its Moose Munch candy mix and its Royal Riviera pears is adding 45,000 sq.-ft. to its Hebron, OH-based facility. The $16 million expansion will be completed in fall 2008. ...
It's August. Are You DPV-Compliant?
So, what is delivery point validation, how is it affecting mailers, and what can they do to keep their mailstream costs down? This is info you need to know, since the regulatory chance went into affect today....
Dousing the Flames: Fire Issues Move to the Front Burner, Part II
This is the second in a two-part series. This week, we'll address fire protection issues....
Batching Orders Can Cut Down on Travel
As your operation grows, the type of order selection vehicles that will work best for you may change. Growth often means increasing numbers of SKUs, and larger on-hand quantities. It is not uncommon for shelving storage requirements to grow to cases on pallet rack shelving, and then to full pallet loads of a single SKU. In a business where items are constantly added and changing, you may find that SKUs will proliferate. All of these factors can combine to create extra travel that can place a growing burden on your order picking staff. Fortunately, there are some powered vehicle options that can help....
The Fulfillment Doctor On: Scripted Demos and the OMS
Question: We have been investigating replacing our order management system, and we have had vendors in to demonstrate their systems. While we have spent a lot of time, we don’t ever seem to see the whole system or the particular features that are critical to our business. Answer: Two words: scripted demos. ...
TAKING STOCK
If you waited until now to buy paper for your catalog, you might be in trouble. Prices have gone up, thanks mostly to mill closures and consolidation in the industry....
Incoming Traffic
Receiving is the Rodney Dangerfield of operations, says consultant Wayne Teres: Few companies give it any respect. But it is the most complicated function in the warehouse. One error can have a ripple effect....
Setting S&H fees
When it comes to shipping and handling fees, one thing is clear: Consumers expect to pay a fair price for the delivery of their purchases. But they don't want to do any work....
Pump Up Performance
Want to improve the look — and performance — of your catalog? Of course you do, but you probably think you don't have the time, talent, or resources for a design overall. If you take a good look at your catalog, however, you may find several creative tweaks you can make here and there that can really help your results. Here are 10 ways to build a better book....
Lean, mean merch machine
What does this mean to you? It's time to create a leaner, meaner merchandise machine that will not only allow you to make wiser product choices, but also help you develop a more desirable brand. The following four suggestions will help you do both:...
Desperately seeking CRM
Managing customer relationship management used to be pretty simple. Most shopkeepers knew their patrons personally. They lived in the same community,...
Hardly current service
A Multichannel Merchant staffer placed an order for personalized labels on the Website of stationery marketer Current on June 3. She received an e-mail...
5 Steps to Disaster-Proofing your Contact Center
Contact centers have become the arteries of organizations, enabling customer care, retention, inbound and outbound sales, fundraising and donations, and direct response. So before a disaster threatens or strikes, take effective measures to protect your centers and the services they provide. ...
10 Secrets to Optimizing Your Workforce
Everyone is struggling to do more with less – to make the most of the resources they have in place before making new investments in implementing technology or adding additional staff. So where do you begin in optimizing your call center workforce? Here we'll outline some of the best kept secrets of making the most of your precious resources. These strategies will help position your call center for both today’s lean times and the better ones that will surely follow. ...
Customer Care and Employee Care Go Hand-in-Hand
Without creating an environment where your employees feel valued and good about coming to work, you can't hope to deliver a level of service that will build true customer loyalty. ...
19 Ways to Reduce Employee Turnover
Employee turnover is a fact of life in the contact center. The better armed you are with strategies the more effective you'll be at managing it. ...
Dousing the Flames: Fire issues move to the front burner.
This is the first in a two-part series on fire safety. This week we'll discuss what potentially causes a fire in the DC. Next week, we’ll address fire prevention. ...
The Skinny on Order Completion Analysis
"Data analysis" is a name given to the process of evaluating and interpreting historical electronic data. In distribution environments, we most commonly look at historical product and order data, to look for patterns and opportunities that are not apparent from observation alone. This month I look at a specific type of analysis which can be done for operations that have a small number of SKUs common to many orders....
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