Profiling Your Inventory

Slotting Analysis is Available at Trommer and Associates, Inc., a Full Service Facility Planning Firm. They Can be Contacted at www.trommerinc.com
Profiling your inventory should be given top priority. Profiling your inventory should not be considered a one-time process, but an ongoing inventory control operation. Make sure that all of your project team members understand the need to properly profile your inventory and the rules to follow.

Understanding all of the factors related to slotting will increase your opportunity to implement a successful project. The purpose of profiling (Slotting) the inventory is more than just making sure that heavy items are not located in the back of the warehouse or on the highest shelf, but to evaluate the size, storage media, mix and velocity of product being stored in the facility. Profiling will evaluate product size, weight, cube, storage media, pick media, case picks, piece picks and pick frequency.

Sizing

Obtaining the accurate cube and weight of each product is critical. Many companies do not maintain an accurate data base that includes dimensional information and product weight.

If you have this information, you are already ahead of the game. This information may be obtained manually, at receiving, by checking inbound product.

Storage

Now that the cube and weight of the product has been acquired, you need to determine the storage media. This discussion is based on the more common storage media found in a typical operation, such as Shelving, Pallet Racking, Decked Rack and Pallet and Carton Flow Modules.

When selecting storage media and types of product to be stored within, there are simple rules that apply. When utilizing shelving with your facility, locate fast movers closer to the main aisle or conveyor systems and slower items further away or on second levels of mezzanines. Pallet flow is utilized for high cube fast movers of case pick quantities. Carton Flow modules are well used for fast to medium inner pack picks or each picks from cartons. For medium movers of high cube product, Decked racking is a good candidate.

Velocity

By looking at the inventory over a 3-month 6-month, or even better a 12-month period of time, develop the inventory movement analysis. If your business has a large seasonal impact, we recommend evaluating the inventory based on those seasonal times of change in inventory. Spend time evaluating the movement analysis to better define family groupings and how product is ordered and picked within your facility. A review of order history may also be required to better understand the movement of product through the facility.

Product Mix

Your operation may require keeping like family groups together, allowing for ease of picking for those items that are often sold together. Some items may need to be grouped in a particular storage area because of a kitting operation.

There are many combinations of solutions for product mix and storage rules. Many times working along side a picker for the day provides insight into how product is moved through the facility. Understand the order filling requirements of the product to reduce problems of incorrect product mixing.

Completing Your Work

Once you have established the cube of the inventory, you can determine the amount of space the inventory will occupy within the storage media. For an example by calculating the depth of lane(s) available in carton flow and using the minimum carton width size you can determine the amount of product stored in a location. These steps will ensure your facility is maximizing its potential as an efficient warehouse.

US Chamber of Commerce Lobbying Efforts

Vocational Education
The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act funds programs in high schools and community colleges to enhance skills necessary for participation in the workforce.

The main reason for continued support of career and technical education is economic. The United States needs, and will continue to need, a highly skilled workforce, with strong academic, occupational, and technical abilities. Individuals with greater skills and education have higher standards of living. Career and technical education helps students develop occupational and technical skills and achieve success in the labor market.

The following list of economic and labor market trends outlines the value of career and technical education.

• The changing nature of work requires higher literacy, numeracy, and technical skill levels. Nearly half (46%) of all employers reported difficulty in hiring qualified workers in the past year and close to a third (29%) believe they will experience difficulty in hiring in the year ahead despite the slowing economy and increasing unemployment rate.
• Approximately 36% of adults receive a bachelor's degree; the other 64% need other pathways to gain the technical skills and additional education to be successful in the workforce.
• The skills needed for work and postsecondary education are converging, and increasingly, the academic skills needed to be successful in the workplace are the same ones needed in postsecondary education.

You Do That?

Package Handling Conveyor Systems
Moving items through a busy warehouse just got easier. Adding to their capability, Morrison Company has expanded its capabilities by expanding their partnership with South Shore Controls, Inc.

The enhanced partnership enables Morrison Company to offer design capabilities for small to intermediate sized conveyor projects.

What is the ideal application? If your operation has packaging handling processes involving a moderate level of diversions, then contacting Morrison Company to devise a solution should be your next move. Adding on to an existing FKI Logistex (Bushman) conveyor or adding efficiency to your operation using a packaging conveyor will go smoothly with our experienced team.

You benefit from the partnership as the capability for mastering more advanced conveyor projects can now be realized. Morrison Company’s expertise designing and implementing conveyor projects in warehouses for retail, mail-order, e-commerce, technology, and pharmaceutical clients, all of which share a common need for dependable, productive and efficient product distribution, is available to meet your needs.

Do you have a project to discuss? If so, contact Morrison Company today.

Operations Manager Issues

Mentoring Employees
Your employees are among your business's biggest assets. If you want to make sure that they play a major role in your company's future success, the time to prepare them for greater responsibility is now.

Mentorship, the act of educating someone in a business or trade, is one of the most effective ways to teach key employees about the inner workings of the business.

Not only does mentorship provide new information to employees, but it also makes them feel more valued by the company. Employees who feel valued are more likely to stick around.

"If companies are to grow and develop, often you find everybody has to come along and move to a new level," says Libby Bakken, a manager in Corporate Services for Rochester, N.Y.-based career development firm Career Development Services Inc.

To ensure that that happens, companies should put mentoring systems in place.

"The best mentoring happens informally," says Bakken.

Employees will gravitate toward people they find helpful and can learn from. You can foster a teaching and learning environment in your workplace by publicly recognizing employees who take the time to share skills and information with others.

Another way to develop a mentor-friendly workplace is to give extra points on employee performance reviews to those who teach others, as well as to those who increase their knowledge about different aspects of the company.

Mentoring can work across your whole organization. Any time an employee is taught additional skills by peers or managers mentoring is taking place.

By setting up a mentoring program, you can match more seasoned employees with less experienced workers with the hopes that they will develop a professional relationship that is beneficial to both of them.

Even the more experienced employee can benefit from being a mentor. Not only does he or she gain experience with training and teaching someone, but mentoring also provides an opportunity for more senior employees to stay aware of the concerns further down the employee chain.

"I would think especially in small businesses where people have to wear a lot of hats that you are looking for people who are comfortable doing that," says Bakken. Small-business owners want to train "people who will continue to learn and grow in different ways and try different things," she says.

You also want to consider your company's main objectives and focus on employees who contribute the most to those areas.

Mentoring can also help your employees get their jobs done faster and more effectively. If different employees are already comfortable with one another, they're likely able to communicate more effectively. For example, two workers who've discussed problems and work issues will likely perform better together if they both happen to be taking part in the same office project.

The only thing mentoring will cost you and your employees is time. But once effective networks have been developed, you and your employees will likely find that it was time well spent.

Business School Book Review

George Washington University
Are you a reader? If so this article will feature book reviews by some the county’s best and brightest business school professors. While they’re recommendations may not always be about business, the books do have something to say about perseverance and integrity. This month’s featured professor is Aseem Prakash Assistant Professor of Strategic Management and Public Policy at the School of Business and Public Management, The George Washington University.

INSTITUTIONS, INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE, AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE by Douglass C. North

"An outstanding exposition of how and why "institutions" impact economic performance. North takes an expansive view of institutions and explains many puzzles that traditional economic theory cannot."

GOVERNING THE COMMONS by Elinor Ostrom

"A very thorough book on how and under what conditions communities can organize to manage their common environmental resources. Drawing insights from game theory, this empirically rich book argues that reliance on governments and/or markets may not always be the best option to solve collective problems."

MANAGERIAL DILEMMAS by Gary J. Miller

"Drawing insights from organizational theory and organizational economics, Miller demonstrates that simplistic efficiency-based arguments cannot explain key propositions of organizational theory literature."

NATIONAL DIVERSITY AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM by Suzanne Berger and Ronald Dore, eds.

"An excellent compendium of articles on whether economic globalization will cause national systems of governance to converge to a single model. Theoretically insightful and empirically rich."

Biographical Info:

Aseem Prakash is Assistant Professor of Strategic Management and Public Policy at the School of Business and Public Management, The George Washington University. He also serves on the faculty of the Department of Political Science and The Elliott School of International Affairs. Professor Prakash received a Joint Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), Indiana University, Bloomington. Prior to his Ph.D., he completed his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and then worked as a manager in the marketing department of Procter and Gamble for three years.

Industry Trends

Ergonomics vs Productivity
Can you have your cake and eat it to? This expression refers to a “truism” in life, that most people experience. When looking at the potential trade-off between productivity and an ergonomic work environment, you may ask, can you have both?

What is Ergonomics? The term ergonomics is derived from the Greek word ergos meaning "work" and nomos meaning "natural laws of" or "study of." The profession has two major branches with considerable overlap. One discipline sometimes referred to as "industrial ergonomics," or "occupational biomechanics," concentrates on the physical aspects of work and human capabilities such as force, posture, and repetition. A second branch, sometimes referred to as "human factors," is oriented to the psychological aspects of work such as mental loading and decision making.

The profession is comprised of practicing and academic engineers, safety professionals, industrial hygienists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, nurse practitioners, chiropractors, and occupational medicine physicians.

The following points are among the purpose/goals of ergonomics:

• occupational injury and illness reduction
• workers' compensation costs containment
• productivity improvement
• work quality improvement
• absenteeism reduction
• government regulation compliance

The methods by which these goals are obtained involve:

• evaluation and control of work site risk factors
• identification and quantification of existing work site risk conditions
• recommendation of engineering and administrative controls to reduce the identified risk conditions
• education of management and workers to risk conditions

The work setting is characterized by an interaction between the following parameters:

• a worker with attributes of size, strength, range of motion, intellect, education, expectations, and other physical/mental capacities.
• a work setting comprised of parts, tools, furniture, control/display panels and other physical objects.
• a work environment created by climate, lighting, noise, vibration, and other atmospheric qualities.

The interaction of these parameters determines the manner by which a task is performed and the physical demands of the task. For example, a 5' 10", 160-pound, male worker lifts a 35-pound cabinet from the floor by generating 600 pounds of force from the low back muscles.

As the physical demands of a task increase, the risk of injury increases. When the physical demands of a task exceed the physiological capabilities of a worker, an injury will likely occur.

What are potential work risk factors that influence productivity and ergonomics? They include physical and environmental characteristics.

Task Physical Characteristics (primarily interaction between the worker and the work setting)

• Posture
• Force
• Velocity/acceleration
• Repetition
• Duration
• Recovery time
• Heavy dynamic exertion
• Segmental vibration

• Heat stress
• Cold stress
• Whole body vibration
• Lighting
• Noise

What can be done to provide a worker with an effective and ergonomically safe work environment? Morrison Company has several lines of ergonomic assistance products to fit almost every circumstance. An experienced Territory Manager conducting a facility assessment can provide you with options to consider. Want to learn more? Request a white paper on Ergonomics today.