Leadership Lessions
Autumn is always a good time to take stock of your professional role, priorities and influence in your organization. How have you become more effective, what challenges do you face, what kind of adjustments have you made in your leadership style and what new skills have you added this year. What have been your most significant challenges, and what levels of success were you able to achieve.
Your attitude has a significant impact on your staffs perception of you as a “good boss”. Be genuinely happy to see people at work, set the tone early in the day by being upbeat about the future. Remember peoples name and understand their interests, make sure they know you are glad to see them if you pass them in the hallway. Demonstrate that you genuinely want to get to know them, and develop a journal of their interests and hobbies. I once worked for a new president of a company who tasked HR with assembling a book with a short BIO and a picture of every employee, he would study the book every night and when he walked through the facilities he cheerfully greeted everyone by name. Everyone appreciated the interest and importance he demonstrated in their lives.
Work on building a reputation for being friendly and fair that extends beyond your direct reports; often this creates opportunities for you within the organization. Take a genuine interest in what people do and offer a personal interest in their future.
Keep from being reactive and look at the longer term consequences of every action. Insure that you are asking why and if an employee shares a situation with you, make a point of asking if they would like you to take action or if they are just seeking empathy. Be a listen leader and actively and give them the encouragement they seek.
If action is being requested, make a conscious decision whether you want to get involved, or if it is better for them to try on their own. Resist the urge to get involved in everything often holding back will help your employees grow in new ways.
Work for consensus where ever possible, by doing this you demonstrate your interest in others, but sometimes you need to make the call. It is common management knowledge that your results will be better if your team owns their part of the plan, project or decision that it is faced with. Authentic collaboration is important, however, sometimes you can’t spend the time and energy it might take to get to consensus.
Give the team members the opportunity to get involved with a solution, but if it doesn’t happen, don’t over discuss the topic. Put it to rest. You are the boss, and sometimes it makes the most sense to get the team moving on a plan or solution more than it does to get their vote of approval.
Dr. Edward F. Knab
Productivity Constructs, Inc.
800 660 8718 office
949 413 7333 mobile
ed@edwardknab.com
www.productivityconstructs.com
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Dr. Knab is an academic practitioner and seasoned leadership expert whose company, Productivity Constructs, Inc., is focused improving global leadership and thereby creating more effective organizations and higher levels of supply chain efficiency. Dr. Knab can be contacted for speaking engagements, coaching, or consultation at ed@productivityconstructs.com, mailto:ed@ewardknab.com or www.edwardknab.com
Top 10 Success Elements for an Automated Distribution Project
August 14, 2011
By: Dr. Edward F. Knab
Planning is foundational to any successful distribution center project, understanding exactly what outcomes are expected is the essence of successful distribution automation project managment. Steven Covey, taught us to “begin with the end in mind”; this goal driven approach provides clarity of purpose and serves as a guide to every successful distribution design project.
Proper planning and flawless execution are essential elements of project management. There is no shortage of defunct companies and ruined reputations as result of unsuccessful material handling projects. Great planning and flawless execution are foundational elements to any successful project. Dr. Edward Knab of Productivity Constructs, Inc has identified the top 10 most common success criteria for automated distribution projects..
1. Vision: Create a clear and compelling vision of exactly what the project will accomplish.
• Articulate the advantages the project will bring to the organization.
• Define how the project will affect other areas of the business.
• Identify the benefits and their impact on customers and clients
• Ensure the vision is consistent with the long-term goals and objections
2. Strategy: You should take a step back from day-to-day operations and plot out the direction of your strategy, consultants can give you a perspective you can’t get on your own.
• Ensure your strategy is consistent with a long-term goals and objectives of your organization.
• Establish process guidelines and clear objectives for the project
• Conduct internal and external analysis of what others are doing in your industry
• Develop a budget and clarify ROI requirements.
3. Planning: Proper planning and strategy is essential to any successful project.
• Define exactly what the successful project will look like.
• Spend more time on the forecast and contingency planning to ensure the design can address a variety of potential futures.
• Detail the performance criteria for every element of the system and clearly define how the performance criteria will be achieved
• Ensure that the design includes the ability to handle peak activity volumes.
Often systems are designed to handle average volumes and ignore both low and peak activity levels
• Build exceptions into the design and ensure the end design covers 98% of all activity, avoid work-arounds.
• Identify system integration issues up front and clearly articulate performance criteria for different systems.
4. Accountability. Clearly delineated lines of authority are essential to establish accountability for the project. Leadership and vision are essential elements of any successful distribution project. There is no substitute for experiences if it’s not available within your organization, go out and get it.
• Identify an experienced leader and provide the authority necessary for success.
• Ensure that the project has sufficient resources to be successful.
• Create project performance metrics that include timelines and performance criteria.
5. Systems and Process: Clearly defined how each system will operate and its impact on other systems.
• Address system integration issues.
• Identify critical processes
• Creates swim-lane diagrams that identify each systems impact on people, process flow, and data. identification
6. Test Criteria: A critical element of automated distribution projects that is often discounted or overlooked is defining the system test criteria
• Develop critical path that includes well defined system test criteria.
• Ensure rigorous testing occurs in the operational environments.
• If the project falls behind schedule do not reduce the project test requirements
7. Training: Proper user training is critical to all successful distribution automation projects. Too often this critical element is neglected or the users are told what to do rather than being educated in the operations of the system.
• Insured users are part of the system planning process.
• Provide continual education and system design.
• Share goals and objectives with the staff.
• Share the benefits of the new system with the staff
• Create detailed operation manuals.
8. Management Expectations: Establish realistic expectations and timelines up front. Ensure that the senior management team is acutely aware of what the system will do and what limitations that may have.
• Develop a detailed contingency plan.
• Establish realistic performance criteria and the associated metrics for measuring performance.
• Identify ongoing reporting requirements for systems and requirements.
9. System Cost and Budget: Establish a realistic budget that includes all related subprojects and building modifications.
• Budget money for contingencies
• Ensure adequate funding for IT requirements and system integration
• Include all new equipment and the liquidation of the old equipment
• Cost of permits and related engineering expenses.
• An understanding of the lifecycle cost of the system.
10. Implementation and Operations: Meeting schedule criteria is important, however,. Each of these projects is unique and has hundreds of elements that are contingent on each other. The overall implementation plan should address delays and schedule and define how they will be handled.
• Develop a detailed schedule.
• Define how the operation department will function during the installation.
• Create contingency plans.
Supply Chain Experts can help your organizations distribution network through improved planning and automation.
Dr. Edward F. Knab
Productivity Constructs, Inc.
800 660 8718 office
949 413 7333 mobile
ed@edwardknab.com
www.productivityconstructs.com
Dr. Knab is an academic practitioner and seasoned distribution design expert whose company, Productivity Constructs, is focused on driving cost and inefficiency out of the distribution process and global supply chain. Dr. Knab can be contacted for speaking engagements, coaching, or consultation at efk@productivityconstructs.com, ed@ewardknab.com or www.edwardknab.com.
Seven Keys for a Successful Warehouse Management System (WMS) Implementation
Business has spent a great deal of time trying to make their company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and supply chain management (SCM) systems responsive to business needs.
All too often, though, the real reason a shipment to a customer arrived late, or a customer received the wrong or incomplete shipment, can be traced to operational processes in the warehouse that are poorly designed, lack of adequate training, systems that are not executed well, and Warehouse Management Software (WMS) that is incapable of supporting operations and the way the company wants to do business, not to ERP, CRM, or SCM software. Execution problems associated with picking orders, packing shipments, or cross-docking of receipts, can quickly lead to customer dissatisfaction.
Many organizations often pay too little attention or commit too little resources to this critical tool (WMS) and concentrate their time in the ERP, SCM, and CRM arenas according to Sandy Vosk of ATS (Advantage Technology Solutions, Inc.). In supply chain management the saying; “you are only as good as your weakest link” is not only true but is also the basis for everything else working correctly.
Getting WMS selection and implementation right the first time can go a long way toward ensuring a company has satisfied customers that are receiving accurate orders delivered on time. It is key that the WMS not only support business functions but in a way that supports how the company wants to run their business. Sandy Vosk refers to a survey that found that only about 40 percent of warehouse management systems result in satisfied customers. Sandy has determined and defined operational and business requirements for and helped numerous companies select and implement WMS systems over a wide range of business requirements and levels of sophistication.
Sandy Vosk cites seven key areas which, if overlooked or discounted, have the potential to negatively impact a WMS project and full benefits to be derived from the software. Many of these factors may also be critical to other types of systems such as ERP, SCM, and CRM because of the data passed on to them and cannot be ignored when implementing a WMS.
1. Ensure a good design
The objectives of a WMS must be clearly laid out and synchronized with all other systems to insure continuity and completeness. The stakeholders must agree in advance how the different systems will be configured and blended together to ensure seamless functionality and to maximize customer satisfaction. The goals of the project must be clearly stated in writing, incorporated into requests for proposals from vendors, and act as a guide to keep the project on track. There should be one implementation team that coordinates the efforts of the vendors, company, and implementation. Design continuity is paramount.
2. Ensure the project design team includes all of the stakeholders
The project design team should include representatives from every part of the organization including, finance, sales, marketing, customer service, operations, and most important the top executive’s and with their full support. Only by including everyone who is effected by the results can the organization ensure that the establish success criteria will meet the needs of the entire organization.
3. Clearly Articulate the Performance Criteria
The company must have a strong project manager, (often this can be an experienced consultant with a track record of successful implementations), that is able to articulate the performance criteria keeping the vendors and other stakeholders on track, and ensure that the request for proposal is complete and accurate in every aspect. The company must be cautious not to let unrelated “scope creep” change the goals and objectives that were articulated in the performance criteria. The company project manager must take the lead role in keeping the project on track. Vosk says selecting the proper project manager is one of the most important decisions made throughout the entire project.
4. Build Clear Performance Metrics into the System Design
Performance metrics are critical to a successful selection, acquisition, and implementation, The project manager should ensure that each area of the WMS implementation is is done in the context of an appropriate set of metrics. These should include the areas of unloading, receiving and put away, replenishment, order processing, order picking, order packing, outbound staging, data flow, and other critical operational areas. Vosk says that these operational metrics are critical to ensuring the software has provided the appropriate functionality and performance to the organization.
5. Create a detailed Data Map
These are automated tools that let you map one type of data to another. This is essential for companies trying to deal with different shipping data formats, such as advanced ship notices that can come in XML, EDI, spreadsheets, or other formats. Companies should leverage these to the max, using them in dealing with suppliers, customers, shipping carriers, banks, etc.
6. Design sufficient Stress tests into the system
Sufficient testing is the best way to avoid a meltdown when you go live with a new WMS. As part of implementation, one should run simulated tests with non-live data and do parallel testing. Strauss has observed that often testing is the first thing to go if the project is delayed or has incurred financial overruns. “It has to be right every time”, says Vosk. Warehouses need to process-test each work flow, including inbound, outbound, cross-dock, cycle count, etc. and the resulting data flow to all key departments.
7. Senior level support is a critical Success Factor
“You must have “C” level project support from executives that buy into and demonstrate support for the project, including the software selection process,” Vosk suggests. Additionally, too often, companies purchase software with little input from the employees who are the ultimate users as opposed to making them part of the team. Involve warehouse managers, key workers and supervisors in the software selection process, once they’ve sat through four or five software company presentations, they can identify which package best supports their operational requirements, says Vosk. Getting staff to participate is critical and why senior requirements. It helps to dissipate any fear that staff may have over whether they may lose their jobs. Instead, they can see how the system is designed to make them more efficient and their jobs smarter and easier. Mr Vosk recommends training workers to use the new system at least four weeks before the go-live date, so they get used to the system and become part of the implementation team.
If your company is considering the implementation of a WMS system, I would suggest you contact Sandy Vosk of ATS or the Supply Chain Experts can help you with present and future needs analysis, writing request for proposal, software design and/or selection, and an implementation program that will optimize operational performance and satisfy the requirements of your customers.
Dr. Edward F. Knab
Productivity Constructs, Inc.
800 660 8718 office
949 413 7333 mobile
ed@edwardknab.com
www.productivityconstructs.com
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Dr. Knab is an academic practitioner and seasoned Global Supply Chain expert whose company,Productivity Constructs, is focused on driving cost and inefficiency out of the Global Supply Chain. Dr. Knab can be contacted for speaking engagements, coaching, or consultation at ed@productivityconstructs.com, ed@ewardknab.com or www.edwardknab.com.
