The Cola Wars between Coke and Pepsi, as well as the Burger Wars between McDonald’s and Burger King, fueled aggressive marketing campaigns and product innovations in the 1980s. For much of modern business history, winning over customers relied on either superior products or brand power. Those tactics haven’t lost their
Whether you need a warehouse expansion is a question of both current site processes and business-level management. At the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the camera pans as the Ark slowly rolls across an endless warehouse known as Hangar 51, with mysterious inventory stacked to the ceiling. But
Making the decision to do a warehouse expansion or move is tricky. Most of us don’t notice we’ve outgrown something until the evidence is undeniable. Like when your stretchy jeans stop stretching—and now they’re just jeans. Or when you punch a new hole in your belt that’s so close to
Managing a project is like managing an operational processes. Like operational processes, projects are subject to variation and quality standards. And, similar to how an operation may audit its processes to ensure a high level of accuracy, projects may also be audited or given a “project health assessment” to ensure
While a warehouse improvement project like a new site startup or automation addition offers significant opportunities, many fail to ask the right questions before jumping in. Failure to ask questions can cause these projects to quickly spiral out of control or fail to deliver intended benefits. When that happens, you’ll
Why is it that nearly 40% of major warehouse projects exceed budget or schedule targets? In a recent episode of The Warehouse Underground Podcast, our very own Paul Lukehart, founder of PL Programs, sat down with host Ben Hopkins to discuss what it truly takes to execute complex warehouse projects
From Operations to Optimization: How Adam Murphy Helps Clients Move with Confidence Adam Murphy didn’t set out to become a warehouse automation consultant. Like many professionals in the supply chain world, he began his career in operations, managing the chaos of high-volume distribution centers, leading teams, and solving problems where
One of my favorite charts shows how the cost of fixing bugs goes up exponentially through stages of software deployment: Fixing problems in a warehouse is very similar. Fixing something downstream takes orders of magnitude more effort than doing it right the first time. But quality errors are a ‘sleeper’
Warehouse project problems are common and increase risk across critical supply chain projects. These problems result in failure modes such as inability to operate a facility at all; decreased throughput or storage capacity; labor retention problems; higher startup or operating costs than expected; and last, but certainly not least, safety
In this post we’ll cover creating a project plan for new warehouse implementations or startups. This post will cover the definition of a warehouse project plan and schedule, why it’s important, what makes a good one, and what specific work should be included. It will also include our observations about
