Cutting Costs & Maximizing Results: Understand Your Operation

Cutting Costs & Maximizing Results: Understand Your Operation

by | Dec 16, 2019 | Supply Chain Consulting

Have you ever heard the saying, “You can’t see through the woods, when you are in the forest”? This is exactly what happens when you spend 40,50, or 60 hours a week executing your daily tasks. It is not until you look at your operations through different lenses, that you might be able to indentify the low hanging fruit. Sometimes just having a consultant come in and spend a day with you understanding your operations can provide you a punch list of 10 items that you can implement on your own that require very little captial to help reduce costs and maximize results in your operation.

Alpine Supply Chain Solutions offers Warehouse Consulting Services to maximize your facilities space, equipment, labor & control. We start with the data and end with a justifiable solution.

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Warehouse E-Commerce Capabilities

Warehouse E-Commerce Capabilities

by | Dec 11, 2019 | Warehouse Management

Adding ecommerce capabilities to a traditional retailer’s warehouse – If your warehouse is designed for Put-to-Store, Flow through, or Batch Pick & Sort by Store strategies, new capabilities to fulfill online orders include picking eaches, processing orders with very few lines, parcel shipping, and managing tight cutoff times.

In Your Warehouse:

Consider new options to leverage your facility, like put walls, unit sorters, or separate ecommerce waves. Conduct a storage-type analysis to identify the ideal size and quantity of pick locations and evaluate distribution networks to increase next-day service and store pick up.
If you need help, give us a call at Alpine Supply Chain Solutions!

Greg is a seasoned Supply Chain Technology and Operations Professional focused on driving revenue through value engineering (ROI Analysis), and business development. He has spent his entire career as an innovative leader in Supply Chain Sales, Consulting and Implementation and now joins us at Alpine. Greg possesses over 30 years of progressive hands-on experience with a broad range of mission-critical supply chain technologies including on-premise, cloud-based, and SaaS solutions. He has deep domain expertise across a variety of solutions sets including supply chain execution, supply chain planning, labor management solutions, and supply chain advanced analytics. Greg has extensive experience evaluating, selling and implementing advanced technologies related to big data, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence. Greg is considered an expert in roles related to “C – Level” strategic sales, business growth and expansion, value engineering and business case development. He has leadership experience in Pre-Sales Consulting, Account Executive mentoring, product strategy, training/mentoring and management consulting. Greg spent the first 10 years of his Supply Chain career at Fleming Foods, a $40B Grocery Wholesaler, and he was responsible for rolling out WMS and Labor solutions to over 30 Distribution Centers within the Fleming network. Greg then transitioned to Dallas Systems/EXE Technologies where, for almost 10 years, he served in various Supply Chain leadership roles. Prior to joining Alpine, Greg spent 15 years at Manhattan Associates, the leading global provider of Supply Chain Software and Services. While at Manhattan, Greg had a proven track record of providing clear, timely and focused solutions to a variety of Fortune 500 Companies in all key vertical markets.

Free Business Intelligence: WMS Systems White Paper!

Free Business Intelligence: WMS Systems White Paper!

by | Dec 11, 2019 | Warehouse Management

Business Intelligence is all the rage these days, and Alpine now offers a WMS Advanced Reporting solution that can give you data for days, including:

 
-Key Performance Indicator (KPI) analysis
-Trend analysis
-Financial performance tracking
-On-time and In-Full performance
-Function-specific cycle times
-Dock-to-Stock
-Capacity
-Labor Management
-Fill rate
-Inventory on hand
-Cycle counts

To determine if your operation could benefit from an advanced reporting solution, reflecton these questions:

  • Do I rely on base GUI screens for business insights into my WMS?
  • Do I have to export data from my WMS into Excel and run macros and pivot tables in order to get the information I need?
  • Are my supervisors spending unnecessary time after every shift calculating UPH metrics or other necessary KPIs?
  • Can I quickly provide my team with easy-to-read visuals that quickly show how effectively each team member is performing?
  • Are there parts of your operation that fall into the “black box” category, leaving you guessing why the WMS is behaving in a given manner?

If you answered any of the above questions with a less-than-favorable response, it maybe time to step up your business intelligence (BI) game!

If you want more in-depth, actionable data from your JDA, see our white paper, “Operational Efficiencies Realized Through Business Intelligence” to learn how need-based reporting can breathe life into a stagnant WMS.
Free WMS WhitePaper Download!

Free WMS WhitePaper Download!

by | Nov 21, 2019 | Supply Chain Consulting

Do you have difficulty selecting a warehouse management system?

Ready, Set, Delay! The Pitfalls and Gotcha’s of a New WMS Software Selection and Implementation Project.

Selecting and installing a WMS is an expensive and long-term decision that can often make or break a career. Choosing the right system for your current and future needs takes a lot of work, and you need to take into consideration your resource constraints, industry knowledge and overall strategies and put together an end-to-end plan that will accomplish your goals. 
Download our free white paper to walk through the steps:
-Determining what type of warehouse solution you need
-Creating an RFP
-Assessing, comparing and selecting the right vendor
-Negotiating contracts
-Making a solid plan for implementation. 
Do you need help navigating the perils of a 7-15-year WMS decision? Give us a call – we’ve been doing it for many years and we’re happy to help. 
Download the Warehouse Management Systems White Paper today! Also, check out our white paper on business intelligence!
Excerpt from “Ready – Set – Delay!: The Pitfalls and Gotcha’s of a new WMS Vendor Software Selection
and Implementation Project”:
Much has been written and showcased on the topic of selecting and implementing a new Warehouse
Management System (WMS), pronounced in my part of the country as “Dubya-M-S”. You can Google the
topic and you will get ~ 99,700 results, varying in detail from supply chain vendor websites, published
articles and topics totally unrelated to what you were looking for.
If you filter your results into a more manageable set of results, you will find varying opinions on the Top
“X” number of Factors/Successes/Steps/Benefits on how to successfully choose the right software
vendor to satisfy your business goals. Good luck weeding through the reams of documented “what and
what not to do’s.” For many people, selecting and installing a WMS is a once, maybe twice in a career
decision. Unless of course you move companies often. Even then, the average lifespan of an installed
WMS is about 7-15 years, and longer in some vertical markets. Not to spook you, but this is an
expensive, long-term decision that can often make or break a career.
First, let’s decide what is a Warehouse Management System. In the 80’s, 90’s and even the early 2000’s,
it was a pretty simple and straightforward explanation. Today, however, the topic can be and is often
heavily debated…
“Software that eases labor pains”

“Software that eases labor pains”

by | Nov 21, 2019 | Supply Chain Consulting

Alpine was featured in an article from Ben Ames of DC Velocity on the benefits of Labor Management Software and the evolution of LMS solutions to meet the demands of the shifting labor landscape.

On shifting labor landscape:

“The recent shift marks the latest stage in labor management systems’ ongoing evolution to meet changing business challenges, says Michael Wohlwend, managing principal with Alpine Supply Chain Solutions, a Chicago-based consulting firm.

In the early ’90s, many companies used their LMS platforms to track workers’ performance against ‘engineered labor standards’ in an effort to gain leverage against unions that were pushing for less-stringent metrics, he says. Then in the late ’90s, managers started using LMS software more strategically, implementing “pay for performance” programs that offered workers incentives to meet specific performance goals.

Today, warehouses are using their LMS systems—often in conjunction with their warehouse management systems (WMS)—to respond to a new challenge: meeting strict order-shipping deadlines. Many e-retailers now promise same-day shipping for all orders placed by, say, 5 p.m. However, fulfilling those promises often results in a last-minute scramble to get orders out the door, forcing managers to shift worker assignments on the fly. During these crunches, performance data from an LMS can help managers quickly identify the workers best suited to the tasks at hand,” said Michael Wohlwend, Managing Principal of Alpine Supply Chain Solutions.

Read the full article here!

Read full article