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....
Tackling Shipping Costs – Strategies to Save 10%
Best-in-class operations use shipping as a strategic competitive weapon to attract new customers, improve sales conversion ratios and increase profitability. You can typically reduce shipping costs by 10% or more through carrier contract negotiations and other strategies....
Blair Absorbs Two Norm Thompson Facilities
Norm Thompson's loss is Blair Corp.'s gain. That's because Norm Thompson's contact center and distribution center is moving to sister company Blair’s Warren, PA-based headquarters. ...
Amex Launches Purchasing Services
As part of its expanding S2S (source-to-settle) product suite, American Express has two new corporate purchasing offerings...
Calculating the Cost of Contact Center Turnover
What does it cost you every time you lose a valued employee? Have you considered all the factors (hard dollars, soft dollars, direct costs, indirect costs) you should include? If you haven't, it will be difficult to assess which retention strategies will be profitable for you. The following is a list of costs you may want to include in your calculation. ...
Fulfillment Doctor: The Art of Data Conversion
Question: We are in the process of planning our file conversion as we implement our new order management system. Our vendor is telling us that they normally don’t write a file conversion program for most files. What’s your recommendation?...
Common Errors in Measuring System Performance
When a warehouse manager suspects poor system performance, the first step is typically to check the real data. Unfortunately, more than 50% of the time, system performance is measured incorrectly. Data is only as good as the methods used to calculate it; if something is measured the wrong way, the results will be wrong. This may lead to the justification of system changes, or even an entirely new system, based on imprecise data....
Vendor Troubles? Request a Sit-Down
No matter the amount of planning or communication upfront, there's always going to be a problematic vendor who either ships you damaged goods or consistently ships you the wrong amount. ...
Getting Ready for Holiday, Part II
In the first part of our series on preparing for the holiday, we listed the information that should be gathered for taking your operational pulse. This week, we'll show you how to apply it....
Techoholics
Some people may fear information technology — but not multichannel marketers. More than half increased their IT budgets this year. And as Multichannel Merchant's 2007 IT benchmark survey shows, they're spending on everything from data warehouses to order management systems....
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