Flextime

Employees want more benefits, but as an employer, you are plagued by the high cost that additional benefits may add to the already increasing cost of healthcare benefits. So what can you do? Sometimes you do not have to spend additional funds to make employees feel content within their occupations. You may want to consider offering an alternative to the nine to five workweeks. Whether man or woman, many laborers have family and children with which to contend and having the flexibility to work around handling family matters can be just as important or more so to an employee than money.

An individual that needs to take care of an ailing family member, elderly parent, or children that are still in school, who have the flexibility in their work life to handle family matters can typically concentrate better on work if they are not worrying about taking care of matters at home.

Flextime can come in a variety of forms such as ten hour day, four days a week, split shifts where the employee can work morning and evening, but are able to be home in the afternoons to care for their children. Another method includes splitting a shift with another worker that needs to work afternoons while the other has a need to work mornings. Laborers often find that the flexibility in the workday has the equivalent or more value than money.

If this is an option that you may want to consider but do not know if it of importance to your work force, consider taking a survey to determine the validity of whether or not this is a value within your organization. Your Human Resources department can be of great help in helping you to determine the feasibility of such a program.

The Importance of Professionalism

Professionalism seems to be lacking by employees in all levels of organizations. Whether working in a financial industry such as banking or within a third party logistics company, standards of professionalism vary, but all should have a certain level. According to the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of Professional is “exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the work place.”

Unfortunately, professionalism seems to have gone the way of the horse and carriage. Whether working in a warehouse facility picking and packing or middle and upper management, professionalism should be expected from each individual within your organization. Professionalism is simply the use of manners when dealing with co-workers, customers, and vendors. Actions such as not interrupting or correcting colleagues, rummaging or taking items from an associate’s work area, knocking before entering an office, minding your “P’s and Q’s”, or maintaining an excellent sense of integrity.

Employees come from a variety of familial and cultural backgrounds, so may be unaware of the standards of professionalism within your company. It is up to management within the company to expect and enforce a certain standard of behavior in courtesy and should be expected and enforced. It is possible to learn or change certain behavior, so if you have issues within your organization consider creating a workshop to assist employees with this concept. Your human resources department may be a good area with which to begin.

Foam-in Place

Styrofoam packaging that breaks easily, peanut packaging that end up all over the place, and bubble wrap that works well but requires a lot to fill a box work well but are not always ideal to protect the product departing from the warehouse and ship across the nation or world. An alternative method of warehouse packing is foam-in place protective packaging.

The foam-in place is a cushioning method that filled voids in packages to protect items in transit. The polyurethane foam is in liquid form that expands up to 200% of its original size and solidifies.

One method of the foam-in place method includes the following steps.
· Line the box with a strong film suited for the process
· Using a hand held dispenser with the use of a compression air system, spray the liquid
· The liquid expands
· Fold over the film, then place the product firmly in place
· Place lining over the items
· Spray foam and fold sheet over
The foam expands to fill space around the product to keep expensive and/or delicate items in place, in order to prevent damage during transit.

A similar method includes pre-packaged liquid foam that expands once activated by rubbing or pressing. Place the pack in the box, press the product in, and then repeat the process again.

There are various manufacturers and systems and the method you choose depend upon size and volume.

Intermodelism

It was only sixty years ago that inter-modalism was just a concept. Cargo moving internationally traveled inefficiently and took far longer than it does today to arrive to its destination. The movement of goods was slow, unorganized, and goods typically sat until the next step on the route was scheduled. The transfer of cargo from ship to dock to train to truck to warehouse to truck and finally to its final destination was at best inefficient. Logistics has come far with a world-wide intermodal network that makes use of water, air, and land in the most efficient and cost-effective way.

The movement of containerized goods transferred internationally has become seamless. The transport of thousands of cases, boxes, raw goods, even produce has become an integrated system of transportation networks. This concept of inter-related transport has even led to new logistics terminology such as load centers, which is the port that cargo is off loaded, and LOLO, which means the lifting on and lifting off of cargo via the use of cranes to load and unload cargo.

Logistics management involves strong organizational skills, project management skills, training, negotiations ability, appropriate software, excellent computer skills, and a great deal of strategic planning.

Warehouses Be Aware of Company Branding

Brand management is an effective marketing tool that helps companies increases the perceived value of their products. A company’s trademark helps increase its competitive edge. Customers buy products that he or she trust and believe provides them with the best value.

Warehouses provide services such as packaging for clients that fit within the needs of the manufacturer and client. Secure packaging is important, but just as essential to your success is maintaining the company’s brand management on all packages that leave the manufacturer’s docking areas. You should consider hiring a third party distributer that provides a packaging and distribution service all the while being careful to be awareness of the client’s branding standards.

Package branding must encompass the internal packaging and forms as well as outer labels on that are immediately apparent on the box. Inconsistent branding can lead to confusion and detract from the product and company’s value.

Branding also includes the quality of the product as well as the outside container. A third party Logistics Company that produces inferior product for the company will inevitably ruin a company’s brand. Important to the success of your organization is consistent oversight of the manufacturing and packaging process.

Video Conferencing Magic

Individuals working in the warehousing and manufacturing industry work with organizations around the world. There was a time that there was no alternative than to travel physically to meet with clients or manufacturers in order to conduct business. Even with today’s technological advances, managers and business owners travel thousands of miles by plane, train, and car every year to conduct important business.

Although meeting associates provides a personal touch, it does cost thousands of dollars each year and puts a hefty dent in profits, often adversely affecting the financial health of an organization. Fortunately, there is an effective alternative to travel. Teleconferencing and video conferencing has come a long way. The combination use of computer technology, video conferencing, and telephone has provided a viable alternative to travel. Even though the initial investment may require several thousand dollars, the savings in travel cost is immediately visible. Cost savings include rental cars, hotels, airline tickets, non-refundable tickets if travel is cancelled, internal administrative costs, airline tickets, overtime, lower turnover rates, and most significantly, time.

Needless to say that if travel is already kept at a minimum within your organization, a video conferencing system may not be ideal, but it can make an enormous impact if travel is a large component of your expenses each year.

Inventory Accuracy

An enormous concern regarding warehousing is inventory control, which is, to say the least, not easy. With the influx and outgoing parts moving through the warehouse quickly, it becomes difficult to get an accurate count. For most 24/7 environments, it is not feasible to close down operations once a year in order to get an accurate count.

The alternative options is to use the cycle counting method, which entails using counting a subset of the inventory rather than your entire inventory. This tends to be a better method, because you are able to remain current on inventory discrepancies. Start with your problem areas and conduct a cycle count more often in these areas. You may even consider doing a cycle count every day until you get the problem under control.

Important to conducting a cycle count is taking into account incoming and outgoing product within the specific time that inventory is audited. Compare variances to determine accuracy. Keep in mind that the number of parts within an inventory will affect the variance percentage; the greater the number of parts, the higher the accuracy rate. Do provide adequate training in order to ensure accurate measures, otherwise all the work was in vain.

Inventory audits ensures success for your organization, so it is vital to your organization to establish defined processes and to document in detail location, part, and when the inventory count what conducted.