Highly Competitive Warehouse Management: An Action Plan for Best-in-Class Performance

An Action Plan for Best-in-Class Performance

This ground-breaking new book presents an action plan for moving the distribution center from the typical fire-fighting mode to best-in-class performance.

For decades managers have been improving distribution centers in a piece-meal and haphazard way. This type of progress is difficult and slow. Now, author Jeroen van den Berg proposes a systematic approach to improvement — with benefits and savings for the DC and the entire supply chain.

Called Highly Competitive Warehouse Management, this unique approach defines four distinct stages of warehouse maturity. Advancing from one stage to the next, the manager can realize a 10 percent savings in operating costs at each level.

At the heart of the book is the Warehouse Maturity Scan. By answering a series of questions, you will determine the current state of your facility. Over 500 DCs have completed the scan with 38 percent identified as having the potential for 10 to 20 percent savings and 55 percent for 20 to 30 percent savings.

Next, the author turns his attention to the Warehouse Action Plan, a systematic yet flexible plan for improvement. The action plan focuses on improvements in workforce culture, process redesign, information technology, and supply chain alignment.

The Warehouse Maturity Scan and the Warehouse Action Plan work together to help DCs of every size and type to identify areas for improvement, implement current best practices, and move to the next level of warehouse maturity.

It’s a highly effective approach that will appeal to warehouse and DC managers who are ready to take their facilities to the next level.

Table of Contents (partial)

Foreword

How To Read This Book

1. Highly Competitive Warehouse Management
2. The Challenge Of Change
3. Warehousing Best Practices
4. Warehouse Management Systems Best Practices
5. Stage 1: Effective Warehouse Management
6. Process Efficiency
7. Stage 2: Responsive Warehouse Management
8. Resource Utilization
9. Stage 3: Collaborative Warehouse Management
10. Service

Appendix A: Maturity Scan

Appendix B: Standard Operating Procedures

Appendix C: Create Your Own Action Plan

References

Index

He has a unique talent for giving structure to complex issues so that they become easy to understand.

Dr. van den Berg earned a Ph.D. from the University of Twente in The Netherlands with his thesis Planning and Control of Warehousing Systems. He holds a master s degree in Applied Mathematics from the same university.