BY TOBY GOOLEY, MANAGING EDITOR
LABOR MANAGEMENT
strategicinsight
productivity gains
without (labor) pain
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A DOUBLE-DIGIT INCREASE
in productivity in your warehouse or distribution center?
That’s what you can expect if you implement engineered
labor standards in those facilities. Engineered standards establish the most efficient way to perform individual tasks, and
they provide a basis for measuring productivity and identifying inefficiencies.
Sounds great, you say, but there’s just one problem: The
employees in your facilities are unionized, and they’re not about
to let management tell them exactly how to do their jobs or measure their individual performance.
That’s the conventional wisdom, but it isn’t necessarily true.
Engineered labor standards have in fact been successfully implemented
in many unionized warehouses and DCs. The key to getting labor on
board with engineered standards, experts say, is to be consistent,
maintain clear and honest communication, and respect both rules and people.
BYO engineer
Engineered labor standards specify productivity expectations for specific tasks. Typically developed by
industrial engineers, they are based on a combination of on-site observations, software calculations,
benchmarking, and validations through actual practice. The most common standards are for order picking and selection, followed by fork-truck operations, putaway and replenishment, and receiving and loading, says Charles Zosel, vice president, optimized labor performance for the consulting firm TZA.
The first consideration for anyone who plans to implement engineered standards in a union warehouse is what, if anything, the union contract says on the subject, says Zosel. Some contracts prohibit the
use of engineered standards, while others allow them but contain provisions regarding how standards
may be implemented and what rights the union has to contest or influence them.
Many times, unions will want to send their own industrial engineers to monitor an implementation.
“Typically, union engineers communicate with local union representatives and companies during the
development of labor standards,” said Denny Toland, lead industrial engineer for the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters Warehouse Division, in an e-mail. When requested by a local union representative, union engineers will perform an audit of a labor standard to determine whether the measured
requirement is reasonable, he said.
If your business is specialized, you may need to explain what’s unique or different about it to union engi-
