Warehousing Profitably

Table of Contents

PART 1: Understanding Today’s Warehouse

  1. An industry in transition
    • The early history
    • Significant steps in the evolution of warehousing
    • The regulation experiment
    • The information revolution
    • Globalization
    • The growth of diversified logistics service providers

  2. Improving warehouse productivity
    • Metrics and visibility — what is really worth seeing?
    • Staffing
    • Cycle time
    • Quality

  3. Transportation fundamentals — what the warehouse operator needs to know
    • Making your warehouse “carrier friendly”
    • Understanding the trucking industry
    • Freight brokerage

  4. Information systems
    • Software
    • What should the system do?
    • Make or buy?
    • What to look for in a WMS
    • The half million dollar question
    • The human side of implementation

  5. Avoiding labor pains
    • A participatory environment
    • Supervision and leadership
    • Delegating properly
    • Outsourcing and staffing
    • Union organizing tactics
    • Labor disputes

  6. Reverse logistics management
    • Customer satisfaction
    • Product recall
    • Quality
    • Stock balancing
    • Rentals
    • Repair
    • Asset conservation
    • Recovery
    • Industrial packaging
    • The outsourcing of reverse logistics
    • How does the process work? The keys to success

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PART 2: Warehouse Control

  1. Quality and productivity
    • The growth of quality programs
    • Quality in and out of the warehouse
    • Quality control within the warehouse
    • Success factors for TQM
    • Quantity vs. quality
    • Improving warehouse productivity
    • Improvement targets
    • Travel distance
    • Change unit load size
    • Round-trip payloads, or task interleaving
    • Improving space utilization
    • Free labor bottlenecks
    • Reduce item handling
    • Improve the packaging
    • A different way to look at productivity
    • Achieving excellence in warehousing

  2. Outsource or do-it-yourself?
    • Selection criteria
    • Contract or transactional services?
    • Core competency and outsourcing
    • Preparing to outsource
    • The selection process
    • Selecting the best bidder
    • Defining value
    • The service contract
    • The pricing challenge
    • Success factors

  3. Planning and scheduling
    • Corporate strategy and warehousing
    • Managerial planning
    • Controlling disruption
    • From just-in-time to just-in-case
    • Operational planning is driven by data
    • Inventory planning and management
    • Layout planning
    • Planning for equipment use
    • Shift scheduling

  4. Understanding warehousing costs
    • Four categories of warehouse costs
    • The risk factors
    • Options in costing and pricing
    • Developing unit costs
    • Creating a unit cost for storage
    • Calculating a cost per unit for handling
    • Putting it all together

  5. Accountability and asset utilization
    • Liability for cargo
    • Update contracts!
    • Liability in carrier selection
    • Utilization of space
    • Controlling the materials handling fleet

  6. Reducing errors
    • The cost of an error
    • Telephone misunderstandings
    • Human frailty — dyslexia
    • Improving the order selection procedure
    • Controlling product identification
    • Improved technology
    • Receiving — locking the barn door
    • To check or not to check? Physical factors
    • People factors
    • Discovering root cause

  7. Measuring performance
    • Why measure?
    • What should we measure?
    • Measuring to control service failures
    • Productivity measures
    • Safety
    • Order cycle time
    • Flexibility
    • Efficiency and effectiveness
    • Quantifying space utilization
    • Quantifying handling productivity
    • Measuring performance by customer
    • A 60 minute warehouse evaluation

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PART 3: Warehouse Management

  1. Finding the right people
    • Increased labor requirements
    • The challenge of finding people
    • How do we define “great” people?
    • Proficiency tests
    • The interview process
    • Reference checks
    • Using contract labor
    • Nontraditional employees
    • The piecework option
    • Probation
    • The critical importance of retention

  2. Management productivity
    • Supervising on the line
    • Barriers to productivity
    • Creating a positive work environment
    • Maintaining service expectations
    • Running effective meetings
    • Management versus leadership
    • Teaching leadership
    • Developing future managers

  3. Training for excellence
    • The public education challenge
    • Learning and leadership
    • Best practices
    • Orientation
    • Learning barriers
    • Operator training
    • A changing requirement for training
    • The signs of success

  4. Motivation, discipline, and continuous improvement
    • Maintaining morale
    • Retaining your best workers
    • Flexible work schedules
    • Maintaining warehouse discipline
    • Discipline by peer review
    • New approaches to work
    • Relationship management
    • Loyalty
    • Company statements
    • What is your ownership quotient?
    • Liberating labor

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PART 4: Security

  1. Controlling the inventory
    • Elements of inventory management
    • Customer-based inventory management
    • Vendor managed inventory
    • Prompt entry and replenishment
    • Full physical inventories
    • Cycle counting
    • Tricks and traps
    • Standards of accuracy

  2. Theft and mysterious disappearance
    • Responsibilities of a bailee for hire
    • Two types of losses
    • Establishing an honest culture
    • Controlling collusion theft
    • Pre-employment testing
    • Reference checks
    • Undercover investigations
    • Physical deterrents
    • Security audits
    • Reverse logistics and customer pickups
    • Security procedures
    • It’s all about trust

  3. Protecting your people
    • The historical and global perspective
    • Safety in the warehouse
    • Controlling the risk of accidents
    • Ergonomics in the warehouse
    • Housekeeping and personal appearance
    • Training and coaching
    • Substance abuse
    • Ethics and professionalism

  4. Protecting the property
    • Listing the threats
    • Power failure
    • Windstorm
    • Casualty losses
    • Fire
    • Flood
    • Earthquake
    • Structural failure
    • Vandalism
    • Cargo damage
    • Mass theft
    • The critical role of insurance inspections
    • Reviewing protection procedures

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PART 5: Handling of Cargo

  1. Receiving, put-away, and storage
    • Developing a storage strategy
    • Thoughts on warehouse layout
    • Layout for pallet storage
    • Storage vehicle options
    • Layout for case picking or piece picking
    • Selecting the pick path

  2. Order selection and cross docking
    • Size of unit shipped
    • Options in piece picking
    • Four varieties of order picking
    • Integration with transportation
    • Controlling axle load limits
    • Warehousing without storage
    • Five varieties of cross docking
    • Cross docking best practices
    • A fresh look at cross docking
    • Preparing for technology improvement

  3. The search for a perfect unit load
    • A short history
    • Pallet pools
    • Options to pallets
    • The magic of inversion
    • Non-wood pallets
    • Research from Michigan State University
    • Repair and recycling
    • Rainbow unit loads
    • Where do we go from here?

  4. Specialized warehousing
    • Fulfillment
    • Household goods (HHG)
    • Temperature controlled warehousing
    • Hazmat

  5. Warehouse technology
    • When does mechanization make sense?
    • Tools to save space
    • Live storage
    • Other order picking tools
    • Carousels
    • Automatic guided vehicle systems (AGVs)
    • Choosing and using lift trucks
    • Controlling highway truck turnaround time
    • Identifying the labor-intensive tasks
    • Mechanizing the picking process
    • The neglected topic of vertical handling
    • Voice recognition
    • Eliminating battery changing
    • Tools or toys?

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PART 6: Information Systems

  1. Information technology in the warehouse
    • Choosing warehousing software
    • Weighing the options
    • Sources of advice
    • Success and failure factors
    • Justifying the system
    • Systems and service
    • Choosing a WMS
    • The half million dollar question

  2. Scanning and voice recognition
    • Bar code scanning and the railroads
    • Scanning in the warehouse
    • Justifying the expense
    • Avoiding the pitfalls
    • Controlling the picking process
    • What happened to RFID?
    • The magic of voice recognition systems
    • How does voice work?
    • Justifying the investment
    • The competitive options
    • The vendors

  3. Approaching warehouse automation
    • Future shock
    • It’s all about innovation
    • Factors to justify automation
    • Living with costly space
    • RFID in tomorrow’s warehouse
    • Robots in the warehouse
    • Some robotic sources
    • Putting it all together

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PART 7: Starting a New Warehouse Operation

  1. Finding the right location
    • Art or science?
    • Defining your needs
    • Is there a small town advantage?
    • Climate and risk of disaster
    • Utilities and the energy efficient supply chain
    • Community attitudes and financing
    • Flexibility and the exit strategy
    • The selection process-from macro to micro
    • Sources of advice
    • Summing up

  2. Warehousing is real estate
    • Flexibility vs. control
    • The decline of cookie cutters
    • Build, buy or lease?
    • Understanding real estate costs
    • Rehabilitation
    • The miracle of white paint
    • Warehouse roofs
    • Maintaining an excellent floor
    • Fixing broken floors
    • Wear and tear
    • Upgrading warehouse lighting
    • Temporary warehouse buildings
    • Exterior and grounds

  3. Warehouse construction
    • Layout design
    • Economies of scale
    • Understanding total development costs
    • Better ideas for construction
    • Staying lean and green
    • Parking lots, truck docks and the yard
    • Building an excellent floor
    • Structural system and roof
    • Heating and lighting
    • Fire protection systems
    • Walls and interior finish
    • Looking ahead

  4. Warehouse start-ups
    • The importance of a smooth start
    • How much can your warehouse hold?
    • Preparing an operations manual
    • Building on experience
    • Inaugurating the operation

  5. Moving a warehouse
    • Avoiding the moving process
    • Communicating with the customers
    • Components of change
    • Moving by attrition
    • Creating a move plan
    • Developing a target cost
    • Minimizing delays
    • Moving the support functions
    • How long will it take?
    • Establishing a move date

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PART 8: The future

  1. Warehousing in a global economy
    • A world market for service providers
    • Receiving and shipping across the globe
    • Using foreign trade zones
    • Improving the flow of replacement parts
    • Are you easy to do business with?
    • Postponement
    • Summing up

  2. Warehousing today and tomorrow
    • In praise of agility
    • Leadership
    • From push to pull
    • Innovation

Index

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