Archive for Warehousing

Amazon.com’s acquisition of Kiva Systems keeps coming up in my conversations with industry peers and colleagues. Kiva is a provider of advanced robotic material handling systems — or looked at in an alternative way, the company brought to market much more intelligent Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs) than we had seen before. Adrian wrote about the acquisition shortly after it occurred. Now I’d like to add my two cents… Continue reading

I had never watched an episode of the popular television show “Undercover Boss,” but when I saw in a commercial that they were taking their cameras inside a warehouse, I decided to tune in. Sam Taylor, the CEO of Oriental Trading Company (OTC), posed as a new warehouse employee. OTC is the nation’s largest direct-to-consumer retailer of party supplies. Direct-to-consumer distribution centers (DCs) require a high volume of… Continue reading

Categories : Labor, Warehousing
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Today, more than ever before, companies are looking for ways to implement Lean manufacturing concepts into their distribution and warehousing network as a way to control costs and improve operational performance. This research often leads to the purchase of new technology or equipment. But while investment in these tools might create incremental savings, there’s a far more effective resource that’s often overlooked: employees.

The successful implementation of Lean in… Continue reading

Categories : Guest Commentary, Labor, Warehousing
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On August 30th, O’Reilly Auto Parts gave a presentation to financial analysts from one of its distribution centers (DCs) in Kansas City, Missouri. This signaled that the company considers distribution excellence to be a core differentiator, a message that comes out loud and clear when you look through the presentation the company gave.

O’Reilly Auto Parts is an auto parts retailer with $5.6 billion in sales over… Continue reading

Last year, I wrote about how DSC Logistics implemented a labor management system (LMS) and how it helped the company improve labor productivity at its warehouses. Regular readers of Logistics Viewpoints know that I am a big fan of LMS because of its robust ROI. DSC Logistics got a 20 percent improvement in warehouse labor productivity, which is not uncommon. But at RedPrairie’s RedShift 2011 User Conference (DSC… Continue reading

Categories : Labor, Warehousing
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