Most warehouses will be conducting post peak reviews and look positively at things that went well.
The good operations will conduct a thorough review at things that could have been done better, a critical self appraisal.
Thereafter, cost containment is the order of the day.
Getting costs out of warehouses post peak is a traditional activity where overtime will be limited to pre approval only and agency resources will be trimmed to only essential people.
Then in a matter of a couple of months the next peak is upon the team and plans are laid to resource for that too – it is a never ending cycle of short blasts of high energy, high pressure.
Accounting for operational performance when it comes to service levels is fairly straight forward – visibility of performance in warehouses has dramatically increased in the last decade. Service Desks, customer service and retail colleagues will sometimes know more than the warehouse when it comes to customer satisfaction or disappointment.
Accounting for cost is not so straight forward – it can be but only really if the operation has a Labour Management tool in situ.
Being able to talk at a granular level about operational performance, not using round numbers like Units per Hour (UPH) highlighting where targets were hit, where they were missed and where excess hours (capacity) is carried is very useful data for the business to have, not just the operations team.
Managers reading this who have delivered retail peaks will know the pressure that comes to bear on reducing capacity to actual demand – but once the investment has been made to train new short term recruits it is a fools errand to release them and hope they will return for other shifts in the coming days, chances are some will and some won’t making things difficult for managers already stretched – having the actual names of the individuals and the times in the day those resources were carried as a result of lower than expected volumes is very valuable information for operations to share with their colleagues in finance.
Having an informed review of service levels and cost is vital in all businesses, regardless of it being peak or off peak.
Vitesse is not just for peak trading.
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