An Education in Ops
Adam Schwartz is vice president/general counsel for Colchester, CT-based S&S Worldwide, which sells education and recreation products to schools and institutions....
First Person: Managing an “Essential” Website Overhaul
As a principal consultant with Latitude Associates, I was the project manager for the recent upgrade of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) Website. Certainly Website upgrades are nothing new, nor are they always newsworthy. But I thought this case study was worth sharing in part because of the dramatic increase in orders received by the ACC online store ...
Despite Fewer Cardholders, SmartPay Spending Grows
Although the number of government workers with SmartPay credit cards has declined, workers spent 2% more with the cards during fiscal 2006 than they had the previous year....
Protect Your Product: The art and science of void fill
Interior protective packaging helps products survive shipment from their point of manufacture to their ultimate point of use, we generally consider that these protective materials or systems will be designed to perform one or more of the following functions: cushioning, surface protection and void fill. ...
HoneyBaked Foods Issues Massive Recall
It wasn’t a very happy Thanksgiving for HoneyBaked Foods. The cataloger/retailer on Nov. 22 began recalling about 24 tons of hams and sliced and glazed turkeys....
Getting a Grip on Agent Time Utilization—Part 1
Time-utilization measurement is a bane of most contact center managers and definitely a pain for contact center agents. But without it, we might as well close up shop and go home....
A Crash Course in VoIP
Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) has quickly infiltrated the telecommunications industry, helping small and midsize businesses to save money and increase productivity. Once a business decides to implement VoIP technology, however, it has additional decisions to make regarding the type of VoIP solution that will best meet its needs...
Teaching Supervisors Self-Management
If self-management is so important, though, what can a manager do to help develop an inexperienced supervisor? In other words, can you help others learn to manage themselves so that they can go on to manage others? Remarkably, you can. The techniques you’ll find here are presented in the context of a manager working to develop a subordinate supervisor ...
The Skinny on Small-Item Sorters
A small item sorter can dramatically increase your pick rates by allowing you to select requirements for many orders all at the same time....
10 Steps to Smoother System Selection and Implementation
Systems selection and implementation is serious business, and no one wants to make an already complex process more difficult or more costly. Over the years, we've determined some principles to follow during an implementation project that will significantly improve the chances of success for all parties concerned. ...
Merchant Service Processing: What You Must Know!
Most merchants need to accept credit cards in one form or another to survive in the current payment environment. Here are some tips to achieve the best merchant service relationship possible. ...
Brookstone Launches Invitation-Only Loyalty Program
Cataloger/retailer Brookstone has launched a cross-channel loyalty program that will be offered to customers by invite only....
Chelsey Moves to Take Firm Command of Hanover Direct
In a move that all but ensures a going-private transaction, the board of directors at $407 million Hanover Direct unanimously approved a cash merger agreement with Chelsey Direct, its largest shareholder. ...
UPS, FedEx Ready Rate Hikes
‘Tis the season--not only for gift-giving but also for rate-raising by the parcel carriers. ...
Training Champions
One of the most difficult jobs in the world today is that of a front-line supervisor. Front-line supervisors face considerable challenges each and every day—identifying and resolving critical business issues as well as tackling difficult human resource issues....
Three Solutions to Help You Think Vertically
If your warehouse is out of space for your smaller items, such as parts, vendor boxes, and totes, here are three relatively inexpensive vertical storage solutions. ...
Getting Ready for Post-Holiday Returns
If you’re a fourth-quarter business, you’ve no doubt already inspected your warehouse systems, double-checked demand forecasts, stocked your shelves, reevaluate labor processes to optimize order fulfillment. But in addition to preparing for the holiday season’s spike in output, you also have to get ready for the inevitable return of products....
Good Planning and Solid Technology for a Happy Holiday
If you’re hoping to reap the revenue rewards of the holiday season, you need to do more than simply retrofit your Website with commonplace features and launch marketing programs with conventional messaging...
Moving the Contact Center from a Cost Burden to a Strategic Asset
It’s remarkable that in today’s high-tech customer service environment, one company has managed to turn “press zero to talk to a human” into not just a selling point, but a major advertising campaign. ...
Buy Smart and Avoid Excess Inventory
Many companies are surprised when they find excess stock of fast moving items during a physical inventory. After getting over the initial surprise, they shrug their shoulders and say: “these are fast-moving items and they should sell.” What they fail to realize is that even though fast-moving items will sell, they carry unnecessary storage costs that affect their bottom line profit. ...
The Ins and Outs of World Class Order Selection
You don't always have to spend a lot of money on a new piece of automaton or software to save significantly in your order selection operation. In fact, many costly systems rely on one or more of the very same process changes we'll discuss here. By deploying one or more of these ideas, you can sometimes dramatically increase your labor efficiency (by 50% or more) and do it without any substantial risk or expense....
R.R. Donnelley to Buy Banta for $1.3 Billion
Chicago-based R.R. Donnelley & Sons, the largest printer in North America, agreed on Oct. 31 to buy Menasha, WI-based printer Banta Corp. for $1.3 billion in cash. ...
Now Listen to This
For the past three years Corporate Express, a $4.6 billion supplier of office products, has relied on voice-directed technology to drive its unit-picking...
Micro Managing
Since the late '90s, multichannel merchants have had seared into their brains the phrase The competition is just a click away. Fair enough, but more and...
One-Page Checkout
Online merchants have been kicking around the idea of single-screen checkout as a better, faster process for years now, and many marketers have in fact...
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