Warehouse efficiency and productivity are crucial to a company’s bottom line, especially as operational teams look to do more with less resources. We recently asked industry experts from Zion Solutions Group, Bricz and Locus Robotics to weigh in with their tips to improve productivity and labor efficiencies for better supply chain execution and warehouse management. Here are their tips.
What Are 4 Ways in Which the Efficiency of a Warehouse Can Be Improved?
Warehouse Efficiency Tip #1: Use Automation and Robotics
According to Tyler Linderman, Director Services and Alliances, Bricz, “We encourage [operators] to first look at how to use automation technologies to reduce those low value manual tasks in order to open up the workers to do more highly skilled tasks. For example, we were working with a customer this week who’s looking just to move trash from point A to point B with a robot instead of a worker. So, then that person that was moving trash can now go pick product for a customer or do value-add services for customers where there’s not a good robotic automation solution for these unique niche special areas.”
Warehouse Efficiency Tip #2: Gamify the Employee Experience
Linderman continued, “The second thing we’re seeing that’s really cool in my opinion is gamification in the warehouse. So, how do we incentivize workers to be able to compete with their teammates and build teams?
“For example, did picking team A do more productivity than picking team B today? Can we reward them with extra vacation days or flexible time off or, you know, can you get a TV if you accumulate so many points?
“Finding a way to gamify the labor management space is also going a long way to incentivize employees to show up. And in fact, we’ve even seen different retailers and distribution providers able to pay their employees more by doing these sort of incentive logics and by replacing the low-value skill work with robotic automations.”
Warehouse Efficiency Tip #3: Consider the Impact on the Overall Company
Unfortunately, labor shortages or high associate turnover has an impact on the entire company. Steve Simmerman, Head of Global Alliances, Locus Robotics, shared, “When we talk about labor shortage, most people focus on the associates on the floor. But, I like to talk about it not only at the floor level, but think about the impact it has on the supervisor, area lead, HR person, DC manager, etc. Having to deal with constant labor problems day in and out is driving people to AMR.”
Warehouse Efficiency Tip #4: Accept Wage Realities
Finally, make sure you’re paying market rate for your labor. Drew Eubank, EVP & Co-founder, Zion, explained the reality, “Understand that there’s a labor challenge. You can’t get away with paying 50 percent of market premium anymore and retain labor. What happens when you turn? You pay twice as much for labor.
“So I think labor costs are actually a huge driver, and it’s not just the U.S., it’s globally. So we’re seeing activities in places like Mexico where there’s never been a huge push for automation, and all of a sudden they’ve doubled their labor rates in the last six months to retain talent. And, now we’re seeing automation going places we didn’t normally see in order to offset some of these costs.”