Performance up! program to accelerate the performance improvement of a central warehouse during the crisis

A fashion company started operating a central warehouse. Nine months after the go-live, the performance of the central warehouse became business-critical, which is why the company management decided to use a task force. The most important challenges were the "permanent trouble shooting", low productivity and qualifications of the newly employed employees, poor outbound performance, almost non-existent customer service, suboptimal intralogistics processes/ structures and numerous bugs and clarification cases in the IT/ WMS area.

Fig. 1: Nine months after go-live, the performance of a central warehouse is business-critical – Decision to deploy a task force

Objectives of the Performance up! Program

Miebach installed a Performance up! program with the aim of increasing outbound performance and improving the level of logistical service. Additional goals were the implementation of shop floor management at the site, the minimization of quality defects in the processed and provided goods, the increase in productivity in the end-to-end process chain of the central warehouse and the improvement of the qualification level of the employees deployed.

Program preparation and analysis of the as-is situation

After recording the "typical" planning information such as layout, throughput, capacities, personnel and organization, the Miebach task force conducted expert interviews, shop floor inspections and data analyses and used suitable benchmarks. Five prioritized fields of action were implemented, taking into account the areas of equipment and technology, space/ design, processes and IT as well as people and organization. The fields of action relate to "performance logistics center", "shop floor management (+ CIP)", "personnel management and CDC control", "customer service development" and "employee qualifications".

Implementation of fields of action to increase performance

The field of action “Performance of the logistics center” aimed to stabilize and increase performance in the short term, reduce the end-to-end throughput time within the warehouse, increase the number of parts processed per unit of time and increase outbound delivery reliability. In connection with “Shopfloor Management (+ CIP)”, shopfloor meetings/ boards were introduced, error reports and 5S were implemented, material flows were improved, workstations were redesigned as well as run and delivery times were shortened (layout optimization).

With the field of action “Personnel management and CDC control”, overstaffing was reduced, personnel planning was optimized, productivity reports were introduced and inbound transparency and outbound QA were improved. In addition, the “Customer Service” area was developed by introducing additional customer service employees, increasing management attention and implementing packages of measures for proactive customer care. The “Employee Qualification” carried out included the implementation of training courses, the installation of continuous improvement measures at employee level, increasing the availability of process and training documents as well as improving the visibility of shop floor leads.

Fig. 2: Rapid identification of target-oriented fields of action to increase performance through holistic task force deployment

With the Miebach Performance up! program, targeted areas of action to increase performance were identified very early on. This resulted in rapid stabilization and optimization of warehouse performance. According to Miebach's experience, there is potential for optimization, such as an increase in delivery reliability by around 20 - 30%, a reduction in internal warehouse throughput times by around 15 - 35%, a significant optimization of personnel deployment, a strong increase in customer satisfaction and an increase in throughput by around 25 - 40%.

Fig. 3: Task force-driven implementation of the Performance up! program leads to the rapid stabilization of warehouse performance

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