Building a Better Business Case and ROI

Why You Need a Unique Selling Proposition

People are bombarded with messages all the time. You are competing with these messages as you prepare to describe the positive notions your project will deliver if adopted. If you can't cut through the clutter immediately to offer your decision-makers something that has obvious value to them, they'll be long gone to some other project that can.

Nowadays a lot of people have very short attention spans and even shorter memories, and they are jaded. You must make your unique selling proposition [USP] strong, simple, quick, and clear. If you don't have a strong USP and don't state it clearly right upfront, you're sending your audience elsewhere instead of drawing them deeper into your project.

What simple statement about your project -- just a quick, clear sentence or two at most -- tells your listeners that you are the only alternative for them? Sounds like a response should just jump out at you. Yet most businesses cannot provide an answer that simply rolls off their tongues.

By USP, or unique selling proposition, I mean the concise and memorable phrase that answers your listener's always-implicit question, "Why should I do business [approve your project] with you and not somebody else?"

Helping You Identify Your USP

Write down every possible reason you can find why someone should want to approve your project. Some quick guidelines:

1. What is unique about your project versus other company initiatives?
   
   
2. Which of these factors are most important to your decision-makers?
   
   
3. Which of these factors can be most easily understood by your decision-makers?
   
   

Now create a memorable message out of these unique, meaningful qualities about your project. And make sure it's a message that speaks to the need your decision-maker feels.

If you've been in business for a while, you may have created a USP without realizing it. Good service, good selection, fair prices, and honest dealing are not relevant factors for creating your USP. Now you must be tempted to ask me why. Simply stated, these are factors your decision-makers already have in mind; they expect and demand them. So telling them to your project gives them the same expectations are wasting their time.

You Do That? - Wildeck Mezzanines

Horizontally Challenged Storage Solutions
Now you can fully utilize existing overhead space and gain valuable working, office, storage or manufacturing areas at a lower cost than new construction. Also, you are able to put this space to work fast, with minimal interruption to your working floor area.

Wildeck custom-designed mezzanines assemble quickly with the simplicity of "erector set" construction to form rugged, high-load-bearing overhead levels. Special steel components engineered for mezzanines lock together to form a strong, unitized structure. Heavy-duty columns provide rigid support, eliminating obstructing bracing and providing maximum flexibility of movement and utilization of the lower level.

Versatility of Wildeck mezzanines offers a choice of optional accessories to match your needs-railings, stairs, landings, swing gates, sliding gates, types of decking and more. And the structure can be expanded to meet future requirements.

Wildeck has been a pioneer in the development of custom mezzanines with a solid reputation for products that have been engineered to the highest standards. Thousands of custom mezzanines are in use today-in warehouses, industrial plants, institutions, retail stores and government facilities. This is an assurance that your Wildeck custom mezzanine will give you extra space at a moderate cost, with superior quality throughout.

A Wildeck system provides the most cost-effective mezzanine based on load, size, span or height requirements. Rugged steel construction provides all the strength and rigidity needed for more efficient office, production or storage needs.

Not sure about an application? Contact Morrison Company for a no-obligation facility assessment to best determine if a Wildeck mezzanine will solve your horizontal storage headaches!

Ergonomics Best Practices

High Location Storage - Picking Product Above the Shoulder Level
Most goods in the warehouse are stored for a period of time. Racking is used to expand the amount of storage that is possible. Metal racks are used for storage and the area created within the racking is called a pick bin or slot. Slots range in size, depending on the products stored.

Potential Hazards:

Reaching is an ergonomic danger. Employees often reach above shoulder height to access products on upper shelves. This causes stress to the shoulders and back. Additionally, lifts above shoulder height often require awkward hand and wrist postures.

Potential Solutions:

Store it higher on your racking—out of hand’s reach: Use elevated rack locations as the overstock storage area. Pallets of product should be lowered to more appropriate heights prior to being selected. Selections should be performed with arms close to the body. This way, employees cannot over-reach for a product. They must use a forklift to access it at all, and best lifting practices are more likely to occur.

Use a Pick Stick: Provide employees with "Pick Sticks" or "Bow Peep" hooks to pull small, light-weight product closer to the edge prior to lifting.

Interested in having an ergonimc assessment at your organization's warehouse or manufacturing facility? Download a lifting guide then contact Morrison Company for a no-obligation facility assessment.

Continuous Improvement Best Practices

Where the Software Solutions Fit

To achieve specific improvements identified though the benchmarking activities and DMAIC process [discussed in previous articles], companies can leverage the traditional supply chain software that has been available for some time. This software differs from the supply chain process management solutions in several important respects. While the newer supply chain solutions play a role in every step of the DMAIC process, the traditional software, such as supply chain planning and execution suites, focus largely on the model's improve and control components. Further, these software packages can be implemented independently of one another.

Traditional software typically improves and controls supply chain performance on one of four key characteristics: average performance, variability in performance, synchronization, and responsiveness to change.

Justifying Software Solutions

While the very concept of the supply chain assumes an integrated systems approach, many companies still evaluate supply chain improvement programs with a silo perspective. They seek to optimize the source, make, and deliver operations individually in the belief that achieving superior local performance will naturally generate the best overall performance. Under this strategy, improvement programs are measured only on return on investment (ROI) for the specific activity, not for their system impact. Measuring returns across the system is not easy. But it's the key to justifying many improvement programs that might otherwise be considered marginal if viewed solely from a local perspective.

Inventories are a good example of how local improvements have ripple effects throughout the supply chain. Inventory levels reflect the fact that there are real lead times in the source and make processes. Companies typically ship products to customers as soon as an order is received so as to avoid lost orders and maintain customer satisfaction. Inventories enable sales operations to do this despite the real lead times involved in producing and shipping products. But the longer the production lead time, the more inventory required to satisfy customer orders. If there is variability in lead times, additional safety stock is required to achieve the target service levels.

Companies also often underestimate the impact of improvements that focus on supply chain synchronization. A late shipment of raw materials to a factory, for example, clearly affects the adjacent manufacturing process. But it also may affect the efficiency and cost effectiveness of several downstream processes such as warehousing and outbound transportation. Lack of synchronization, in particular, results in a need for larger safety stocks to maintain a given service level. When lack of synchronization is coupled with poor responsiveness, the problem is magnified.

Supply chain operational excellence is a long-term strategy that brings important business benefits. But if those benefits are to be realized—and the journey is to be successful—you need constant vigilance, an openness to new ideas, and a true dedication to continuous improvement.