Services
Distribution and Warehousing and WMS implementation
An efficient warehouse is critical for customer satisfaction or operational reliability because it helps ensure quick, accurate shipments. Improving warehouse efficiency is as much about common sense and the right storage equipment as it is about fancy picking algorithms. Below are our considerations regarding improved velocity, visibility and costs . .
Our services include:
- Warehouse throughput efficiency programs
- Cycle Counting / Physical inventory
- Facilities Management
- WMS Selection / Functional Design / Training
- Service Parts inventory management programs
- Warehouse physical layout / design
- Equipment selection and business case
Recent qualification - US Major Airline - Design and Build for aviation service parts distribution including: WMS Selection, Solution / Functional Design, Facility Design and Workflow; Training, and Work Station Design.
Some of our recent considerations:
- Use of Automation - to offset labor shortages - A most pressing concern in Warehouse Management is the increasing workforce shortages, and use of emerging automation can enhance your talent and help improve velocity. Examples include : Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGVs): Transporting, retrieving products throughout the warehouse; Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs): Used for transportation, sortation, and order picking; Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS): System for storing and retrieving materials on demand.
- Inventory Management - Manage Safety and Cycle Stocks in line with your inbound supply capabilities. Given the changes in the supply chain environment (post pandemic), adopting lean inventory for your warehouse is just as important as it is in manufacturing. The basic premise of lean is only what you need, and nothing more. Optimize the use of safety stocks and try to get suppliers to deliver smaller quantities more frequently.
- Layout / Design - Get the most out of your existing available space. In some cases, rather than expanding the footprint of your warehouse, consider better use of vertical space. Adding elevated racking or storage capabilities and the right equipment to pick and store material can help you keep more in the same square footage, rather than adding expansion costs. In addition, think about the type and variety of shelving used
- Technology Usage - Adopt and make the most of your enabling technology. Within the four walls of a warehouse, use of a warehouse WMS (or an ERP system with a strong WMS module) can improve efficiency through the determination of improved routes and methods for picking or put-away. In examples for service parts management, a tight integration with P2P and CMMS will provide improved service levels in line with keeping you operations running smoothly.
- Ergonomics - Organize Layout for workstations. During design, strong consideration must be provided for organizing workstations to improve efficiency and productivity. This supports “5S” methodologies and workers will not have to search for tools or equipment.
- Labor / Talent - Optimize labor efficiency. If your WMS doesn’t have the ability to generate efficient picking plans, create them manually. Analyze your material usage patterns, and store high-volume items together near the front of the warehouse to eliminate travel time. Also, store items that are frequently sold together near one another. Basically, you will streamline operations if you try to keep the items you pick most often in the most accessible locations to eliminate picking delays.
Improving warehouse efficiency is as much about common sense and the right storage equipment as it is about complex technology implementations. Call us for a discussion in these topics
Strategic Supply Management
Regardless of the industry, CPOs and CSCO’s look to effectively apply effective strategic sourcing approaches to new challenges in a modern era. In a post pandemic environment, conventional sourcing methods (for both goods or services) such as “three bids and a buy” can work to support a near-term fix but may not be the strategic approach to resolve enterprise concerns of supplier talent shortages, stock outs, long lead times or volatile delivery capabilities. Hills Advisory Services uses trusted / proven approaches to balance cost reduction needs with comprehensive quality of service providers. Supply Management must balance costs with supply chain resiliency.
Let us sit down with you to review either an enterprise-wide approach to category management, or individual category strategies to get the best from your supply partners.
- Strategic Sourcing programs
- Procurement Organization design
- P2P Technology Selection / Implementation support
- Program Management / Change Management
- Supplier Joint Process Improvement Programs
- Supplier Evaluation / Quality Programs
Here are six considerations we recommend being applied for Strategic Sourcing and Supply Management:
- Total Cost Approach: It seems simple enough to say take a wholistic approach, but many large organizations look myopically at ‘last invoice price paid’ as a proxy for enterprise value, while ignoring many other aspects of the end – end value chain. Elements of the acquisition of goods and services, operating / quality and even exit costs are often not considered as part of the analysis for supplier selection.
- Supply Chain Diversification: In the new era of supply management, parts and goods shortages as well as suppliers’ struggles with talent deficiencies suggest award strategies consider avoiding reliance on a single supplier or a single country for their supplies. Instead, they should diversify their supply chain by sourcing from multiple suppliers and countries. This can help reduce the risk of disruptions due to geopolitical or natural disasters.
- Encourage redundancy: Similarly, Businesses should build redundancy into their supply chains by having alternative suppliers, backup inventory, and redundant logistics capacity. This can help ensure continuity of operations in the event of disruptions.
- Use your digital technology: So many of our clients have invested in (for example P2P) technologies, but don’t fully use the full capabilities of the system. At a minimum, streamline the purchasing experience for professionals and casual users with a non-encumbering / intuitive system, improve the reporting of the category and hold your suppliers accountable through Quarterly Business Reviews, add real time visibility using technologies such as IoT, blockchain, and lastly begin the use IoT sensors can track the location and condition of goods, while AI can analyze data to identify potential risks and predict demand.
- Continuously monitor and evaluate: Businesses should continuously monitor and evaluate their supply chain performance to identify areas for improvement. This can help them stay ahead of potential risks and improve their resiliency over time.
- Collaborate and share information: Technologies today support collaboration capabilities with suppliers, customers, and logistics partners to share information and identify potential risks in the supply chain. This can help mitigate risks and enable businesses to respond quickly to disruptions.
- Contact us today for a consultation on supply management for your business
Supplier Assessment Programs
For most companies, supplier performance assessments is a proactive part of its Procurement organization. Moreover, there are cases in which companies can only prioritize time to assess small number of suppliers; and some cases no assessment at all.
Our services include:
- Suppliers Audits (on site or virtual)
- Supplier Performance Program set up
- KPI and Metrics Development
- Quarterly Business Reviews Reporting
A strong supplier assessment system will regularly evaluate suppliers,, using the categories and scoring system to provide insights and early warning measures, highlighting where strong and weak supply areas are. Even for programs that require a small set of single sourced suppliers, with a handful of sub – tier suppliers, evaluations help to distinguish which of the suppliers should be prioritized, as well as to map out potential risk areas.
Vendor performance should include metrics and KPI’s developed to assess the “in the moment” capabilities but also trends over time, all tied to your organization’s priorities. Hills Advisory Services has developed a specific approach for evaluation of a particular vendor or set of vendors participating in a program. Quality, Design, Logistics, Management, Environment and Costs (QDLMEC) is the list of attributes we’ve developed to support program-based assessments and determine the Vendors’ ability to support your business needs. The end goal of the system is to track the consistency of vendor performance in a way that’s incorporated into the purchasing process.
Give us a call to see how our assessment capabilities fit your business or program needs
Program Management
Across all our offering, we provide on site or virtual program management. services (PMO). Programs with multiple parties involved, complex work threads, high costs such as a >seven figure budgets, and specialize resources require more than just a long list of task to track and manage, but must have capabilities to include critical path analytics to help prioritization, strong control of scope creep all while letting programs shifts take place when necessary to ensure the quality delivery of a program. This requires management and leadership from practitioners who have done it all before. Our senior level staff of Program Managers have a deep understanding of how to successfully deliver the project work, including management and remediation of dependencies, risks, and issues that threaten delivery daily. More important than a well-groomed methodology, we bring relevant industry experience with a proven record of success that will be backed by multiple examples of similarly implemented programs. Clients must take into consideration model scaling, iterative delivery, integrated planning, cross-departmental partnerships, benefits realization, and governance. Gaps must be identified across the program and cost estimation and education is a critical component for your leadership to take into consideration.
Give us a call to see how our practitioners are well equipped to manage and advise your program, large or small.