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The Magic of Metrics: Warehouse Metrics Are Crucial To Your Business. Here’s Why!

By June 27, 2019 December 14th, 2023 No Comments
Warehouse Metrics

The Magic of Metrics: Warehouse Metrics Are Crucial To Your Business. Here’s Why!

A Warehouse Management System (WMS) runs most efficiently when the data matches the physical. And if your business relies on warehousing, you know what a challenge that can be. Fortunately, the solution is quite simple. The best way to keep your virtual house clean is by monitoring a range of fundamental metrics. Warehouse Metrics are simply measurements regularly captured over time. Once collected, the data can be used to establish trends, identify potential issues, and to coach and motivate associates.

You too can utilize success metrics to power on your warehouse transformation! To get started, you’ll want to consider all the possible areas within your warehouse operations that are:

  1. Critical to maintaining a steady workflow &
  2. Known areas of concern.

Maintaining a Steady Workflow

Most process flows in a warehouse supply chain are labeled as push-pull processes. This means that each step in the flow requires something from a flow-point either directly before or after it.

For example, the product put-away team cannot be efficient if the receiving group hasn’t staged the product at a speed or accuracy level that supports efficient put-away. In turn, the receiving team cannot continue the receiving process if the put-away team is not clearing products from the dock on time. They exist in a symbiotic relationship.

A similar relationship will exist between the put-away team and the order fulfillment group. If the product is not put away in the timeframe expected, the fulfillment team cannot process the outbound orders. Fulfillment delays will further affect the shipping department from shipping orders on time.

Metrics to help maintain a stable workflow include:

  • Aging inbound shipments not received by the due date
  • Cases received but not put away
  • Cases aging in drop zones or staging lanes
  • Inventory shortages
  • Orders due to ship today but the minimum status is not met, or there is no recent timestamp update
  • Orders overdue to ship

Monitoring Known Areas of Concern

Metrics can also be used to check for events or conditions which are known to cause issues with the warehouse supply chain flow. System inefficiencies or even repeated associate errors are likely causes of unproductive flows. Metrics that reveal such data are critical for understanding system shortcomings, identifying possible systems improvements, and developing associate training opportunities.

Once you’ve identified the issue, it is possible to maintain integrity and accuracy by establishing operational standards and raising expectations amongst associates. However, sometimes a slight system modification can quickly fix the problem by either a minor tweak to the system or by merely disallowing some specific user actions.

Metrics to identify the known pain points include:

  • New products received but missing critical info such as dimensions, volume, pricing, etc.
  • Products received out of their standard case/pallet size
  • Cases aging in transitional statuses
  • Inventory adjustments out of tolerance
  • Non-standard transactions which may indicate users are taking ‘workarounds’
  • Poor user-performance based on productivity goals and labor standards

Every operation has different needs, and these examples above may not directly correlate to your current situation, but our WM analyst can help you navigate through your journey and determine the best way to use your data as a tool for improvement.  After all, your data may be the most valuable asset in making your Warehouse Metrics operation run much more smoothly and efficiently.

To take full advantage of WMS, contact a Katalyst supply chain expert to learn more. 

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