system only after conducting an evaluation of
Raymond’s offering along with competitive products. The result was a decision to go with the
i Warehouse system to improve safety and utilization of the facility’s lift truck fleet.
SUM GREATER THAN THE PARTS
That proved a success. The iWarehouse system
provided managers with better insight into the
way the fleet was being used, opening the door to
changes that would boost productivity.
“The biggest thing was visibility—what was
happening on the floor,” says Melinda Laake,
manager of enterprise solutions for The
Raymond Corp. “The management team knew
they had opportunities for improvement, but
they did not have the measurements or the visi-
bility to make informed decisions.”
She cites equipment use as an example.
Managers had suspected that pickers weren’t
always using the right vehicles for specific jobs,
Laake says. “After turning on iWarehouse, they
found that to be the case.” For instance, workers
were using high reach trucks—one of the more
expensive pieces of equipment in the fleet—for
case picking on lower levels, an inefficient use of
the equipment.
Once the lift truck management system was
installed, managers were able to run the fleet
more efficiently. But that was just the start. What
made the project stand out was the successful
effort to link the i Warehouse system with a labor
management system. That is, by combining management of the lift truck fleet with management
of the lift truck drivers—and other employees in
the DC—Genco achieved even greater efficiencies.
For its labor management software, Genco selected a
cloud-based LMS provided by Easy Metrics Inc., a division
of Integrated Management Systems. (Integrated
Management Systems originally developed Easy Metrics for
its own use as a third-party provider of DC labor management services, but later commercialized the product and
spun it off as a separate division.)
The integration of Easy Metrics and iWarehouse proved
challenging at first, says Easy Metrics CEO Dean Dorcas,
requiring the partners to solve problems that might seem
simple on the surface, such as aligning clocks in the two systems and ensuring accuracy even if an employee forgot to
sign off from one scanning device before picking up another.
“We had a lot of different issues we had to work through,” he
says. But the basic components were pretty straightforward.
Jezior concurs. “Like anything new, the two systems did
have some issues,” he says. But he applauds the efforts of the
two providers to make it work. “We had exceptional project
management,” he says. “After the initial start-up problems,
the systems showed they had great potential to provide us
with a 360-degree view of everything going on in the facility,
not just the material handling equipment, but everybody.”
STRONG RESULTS
As for how the initiative is working out, Jezior reports that the
Groveport site has seen marked performance improvements
since the introduction of i Warehouse and Easy Metrics. “We
have seen a significant increase in productivity,” he says.
For example, one key measure of lift truck productivity
tracked by Genco—travel with load (the percentage of time lift
trucks are carrying a load)—has risen by 8 percent since the
implementation of the software systems. In addition, in the
first three months after i Warehouse was installed, labor hours
dropped by 18 percent. After the two systems were linked, the
results got even better, with labor hours falling by 27 percent
from the original level. Another important metric for Genco—
labor cost per case handled—dropped by about 10 cents.
In addition, as a result of closer monitoring of driver
activity, accidents have fallen sharply. Medium- and low-impact accidents fell by 80 percent, and severe impacts
dropped to zero. The last is important financially: Jezior
says a single severe impact incident could cost as much as
$16,000. (Damage largely resulted from truck impacts with
racks, damaging both.) The i Warehouse system reports any
impacts, which are then confirmed by supervisors. As drivers have become aware of those reports, their safety record
has improved. And the system flags underperforming drivers for retraining and operating restrictions until the
retraining is completed.
Overall, the changes have led to more efficient and productive operations within the DC. Jezior reports that compared with 2011, the facility processed a higher monthly
volume in 2012 with 15 fewer teammates on average.
Laake adds that the project was the first time that
Raymond had merged i Warehouse data with an LMS, but it
proved an excellent test. “We have quite an opportunity to
expand this offering to other customers,” she says.
Jezior is already taking the idea to other Genco sites. “We
looked at the Xerox facility as a proving ground,” he says.
“The facility was performing well. If we can show significant improvement in a facility that is working to requirement, what impact will it have on a facility that is underperforming? We have several facilities that we are targeting
for implementation.” ;
