That can lead to difficult decisions, like
having to cut loose a star player—
someone who’s well thought of in the industry—for the sake of the team. Sometimes
that has to be done, and a lot of things
happen as a result of that. For one thing,
it sends a message about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable no matter
who you are. For another, people see that
you’re serious about your philosophies
and they start to fall into line.
QYou’ve spent 40 years in the logistics profession. What are some of the
biggest changes you’ve seen in that time?
AThe biggest one is the increased availability of data. Take advance
ship notices, for example. We’re now at
about 93 percent advance ship notice utilization. An advance ship notice is basically like an electronic packing slip for every
carton that comes across. With that information, you can do a better job of
staffing, and the receiving process is more
efficient because instead of having to do
the old count and sort and stack, you just
scan a carton. On top of that, it allows us
to make store allocation decisions based
on up-to-the-minute information, rather
than having to decide as much as six
weeks out where merchandise is going to
go. When you do that, of course, by the
time it gets there, that’s not where you
need it.
It’s the same thing for transportation.
We have a transportation management
system that helps us optimize our loads.
When we first installed the system back in
2002, we compared the routes it developed with those created by our people
and questioned some of the decisions. We
said, “Why are we sending that truck
there?” But when we went back and did
the math on the miles and the costs, it was
right.
QWhat do you see coming down the road in terms of logistics technology?
AI’d say RFID has a great deal of potential. We are not a part of that
right now—mainly because the price has
not come down enough that it has been
totally embraced by the vendor community—but I think it is coming.
I remember a day when just scanning a
bar code seemed like a huge win. But
now I’m hearing complaints from
store personnel about the amount of
time they have to spend at the back
door to receive freight because they
have to scan a bar code. With RFID,
they could just wave a wand over a
pallet load of cartons and get back to
their primary job of selling. I think
we will get there.
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Farmington, Utah 84025 USA · (801) 451-7000 · Fax: (801) 451-0502
