Bringing Fairness & Reward to the Workplace
Understanding how and where employees are spending their time in the warehouse is essential to the bottom-line.
Dave Morris, Operations Director at Vitesse, explains the revolutionary approach of its cloud-based productivity software to define these parameters in a way that recognises and rewards employees.
Measuring warehouse output by units per hour (UPH) is an age-old concept and a useful indicator, but it isn’t a fair way to assess individual performance when the profile of the work being carried out can vary significantly.
Added to which, labour is one of the most costly resources in the supply chain and often comes under close scrutiny, yet effective tools to explain warehouse costs and variances are not readily available.
Real Time Data
Enter Vitesse, which produces two meaningful and actionable pieces of information, in real time – the efficiency and utilisation of the workforce.
Vitesse creates an X Y and Z map of the warehouse, taking into account one-way systems and approved short cuts. The Z element measures height – an important dimension.
Physical Observations
Before implementing Vitesse, we study each customer’s Standard Operating Procedures to ensure we fully understand the task to be measured and observe how it is performed in the physical operation to address any gaps or interpretations that need to be ironed out.
This involves being present while the task is carried out, while noting its complexity. If a timing exercise is needed, we engage an industrial engineer. Whether single pick or multi pick, box pick or pallet pick, location, distance travelled – all this data is utilised by Vitesse so when implemented, it is tailored to each specific warehouse.
Building the task by each element also means nuances between operations can be captured. If one warehouse is doing something a little different to another, this can be reflected in the software.
Involving Managers
Industrial Engineering standards are applied to compute target times for each task being performed.
This is the point to engage with operational managers to educate them on the value of using efficiency calculations to measure each employee’s performance.
Measuring efficiency means being fair to everyone and guided by the data. This presents an important opportunity to reduce the risk of bias in the workplace by treating everyone equitably.
Measuring utilisation helps managers to see where time is being lost across the operation, so they can put steps in place to reallocate that time and put it to more productive use.
Staff Retention
A real advantage of Vitesse is it can be used to recognise consistent performers and high achievers to ensure they know they’re valued, essentially becoming part of a staff retention strategy.
It can also operate at the core of performance related pay programmes to further reward those wanting to earn more and prepared to work for it. Best of all, incentive schemes are funded by the efficiency savings delivered by Vitesse.
With Vitesse on board, you have a powerful tool to improve efficiencies and reduce operational expenses while maximising and motivating your workforce.
