5 little speckled frogs, sitting on a speckled log...
Eating a great big juicy fly... yum yum
1 jumped into the pool
where it was nice and cool
Now there are 4 little speckled frogs... glub glub
Contracting a Warehouse...
Should have started in November, but
Too many ONLY planned for Outbound Peak
Very few plan for
Capacity Management in
Weak Season or Super Off-Peak Season
From the week of
Thanksgiving to the Day After Christmas
More goes out than comes in (Outbound Peak)
From Labor Day
The week of Thanksgiving
More comes in than goes out (Inbound Peak)
We're doing this in backwards order for a reason
Everybody understands expansion
But few understand contraction
Let's say we normally have 100 aisles
During Inbound Peak, you need 110-120 aisles
Outbound Peak empties 10 aisles a week for 5 weeks
10 x 5 = 50
110 - 50 = 60
120 - 50 = 70
That is how you end up with
needing only 60%-70% of your space
in the 1st week of the Happy New Year (box checked)
How do you empty the aisles?
You start with the furthest one away, and IN THE SYSTEM
Say, "PULL ANY ORDER FOR ANY PRODUCT FROM HERE... FIRST"
This is called "Contraction"
For the most part
The outbound volume is so great
you do NOT need to contract by the 5 sub-zones (5 Frogs)
You SHOULD
be able to contract
the entire aisle at once (All 5 Frogs)
When it gets to 20% full (1 Frog)
set the next aisle to "contraction"
repeat this until all aisles in a zone are empty
Using customer demand
Your warehouse footprint shrinks
So when sales shrink, travel time shrinks with it <-- SECRET SAUCE
What are most of you planning for in Quarter 1?
Two words that are "nails on a chalkboard"
Physical Inventory (PI)
Where you count EVERY location in the building
- There's 0 product here, the system thinks there's 1,000s
- There's actually product here, but the system thinks there's 0
When you have a CONTRACTION STRATEGY
You pre-emptively avoid the need to count an aisle
Aisle 11 is physically empty, and the system agrees with you
Imagine being able to KNOW that! 👆👆👆
For FORTY PERCENT OF YOUR WAREHOUSE! 🤔🤔🤔
You're budgeting to count 100% of your Warehouse, aren't you?
So not only do you save on travel time reduction in Operations
You save hours projected for the Physical Inventory
Anywhere from 10% to 40%
With this strategy
the customer doesn't feel it...
your warehouse workers don't feel it...
nobody feels its happening
put this strategy in one of your buildings
against another building that doesn't use this, then...
monitor the productivity and inventory accuracy of both in Q1
Born in a 1.6 million sq ft warehouse
This scales down to one the size of
a garage, if we need it to
Getting Warehouses MORE thruput using the SAME hours.
Get your complimentary 30-minute consultation today!
#strategy
#business
#creativity
#innovation
#xpandurangeamotion
Ask yourself
Who else do you know
who is talking about this in Quarter 1?
Executive General Manager I Co-Founder I Board Member I Combining a strategic perspective, enterprise mind-set & operational expertise to deliver financial performance in a winning/inclusive culture.
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