BY BEN AMES, SENIOR EDITOR
ARC WAREHOUSE IMPROVEMENT STUDY
Strategy
DISTRIBUTION CENTER MANAGERS OFTEN FEEL LIKE THEY’RE CAUGHT
between two inexorable forces: rising demand for fast, accurate order fulfillment and a
shrinking labor pool that makes it hard to find employees to do the work.
While there’s no shortage of vendors who claim to have the perfect solution to the
problem—whether it’s smartphone apps, mobile robots, or the Internet of Things—
those fixes are still a ways off. In the meantime, DCs must rely on human employees
to provide the lightning-fast fulfillment services that e-tailers like Amazon.com have
conditioned consumers to expect.
As any DC manager can attest, finding, keeping, and getting the most from those
workers can be a serious challenge. So to uncover the best practices in warehouse labor
management, DC VELOCITY teamed up with the Dedham, Mass.-based consultancy
ARC Advisory Group to conduct a survey that tracks which labor management strategies are the most popular with DC managers and how they’re being applied in day-to-day operations.
The study, which is part of an ongoing series of research projects by DCV and ARC,
follows a similar survey we conducted last year [see “Nine ways to boost warehouse per-
Studies show that
DCs with the lowest
turnover rates tend to
follow the same
four management
principles. But they
sometimes stumble in
the execution.
management strategies
for retaining labor 4
