‘Management by walking around’ is a good start; here’s what to do while walking. Getting out on the floor of the DC is a crucial management tactic. But if you walk around only once in a while, you run the risk of what Tom Tanel calls the “lip-service presentation and eyewash tour.”

1. Distribution Center
MANAGEMENT
Managing people, materials and costs in the warehouse or DC
Vol. 48 • No. 4
April 2013
In this issue
Looking for unbiased
feedback about your DC?
Consider a warehousing
certification program. . . . . . 2
Distributors score win with
change from RF picking to
voice. Impressive improvements are seen in accuracy,
productivity, and worker
retention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
E-commerce fulfillment
changes face of DCs. The
era of the “spoiled consumer”
impacts DCs, their layout and
location. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Attention to ergonomics
boosts productivity. For medical device DC, one-level picking makes a difference. . . . . 7
Herman Miller DC stays
safe. Housekeeping, communication, and ergonomics are
key. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
DC Toolbox: Minimum wage
proposal could affect DC
costs; OSHA fines DC after
temp worker dies; Robotics
not a long-term job stealer;
Plus Warehouse Watch
shows where the opportunities are.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Facilities
When installing new racks, be sure to ask the
right questions
Racks can seem like one of the
Your overall goal is to create a
simplest pieces of equipment in
rack set-up that lets you operate
the warehouse, but
efficiently and safely.
installing them properAnd, of course, you
Rack upgrade tips
ly can be more compliwant to avoid over• Talk to your lift truck
cated than you might
loading or damage
manufacturer.
expect.
that can cause racks to
• Pull a permit if you
If you’re adding
collapse.
need to.
new racks at your facilHow do you
• Check the fire code.
ity, you can avoid
achieve that goal?
delays, headaches, and safety probFor starters, talk to the manulems by following a few simple
facturer of your lift trucks to
rules, says John Krummell, presimake sure the racks you plan to
(Continued on page 5)
dent of Advance Storage Products.
Management Strategies
‘Management by walking around’ is a good start;
here’s what to do while walking
Getting out on the floor of the
DC is a crucial management tactic.
But if you walk around only once
in a while, you run the risk of what
Tom Tanel calls the “lip-service
presentation and eyewash tour.”
To make walking around an
effective and valuable exercise, you
need a clear agenda for what you
want to accomplish, and strategies
for gathering useful information.
“I always devoted a good deal
of my time to management by
walking around long before it was
in fashion,” says Tanel, head of
CATTAN Services Group. “I
worked hard to be a real and constant presence throughout my
facility or network of facilities.”
In a career that has spanned
nearly four decades, Tanel figures
he has visited more than 200 facilities as an operator and as a consultant. All of those tours taught him a
few things about using site visits to
© 2013 Alexander Communications Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
(Continued on page 9)

2. ‘Management by walking around’ is a good start;
here’s what to do while walking (Continued from page 1)
glean information — how a process is
translated into practice, how standard
operating procedures work in the real
world, and whether a facility is plagued by
waste and inefficiency.
“The visible presence of distribution
executives on the facility floor is now
routinely accepted as a defining characteristic found in organizations with a
high-performance culture,” Tanel says.
How do you make the most of this
hands-on management style? For starters,
Tanel says, you should have a basic checklist that covers the important facets of your
operation. Among the items on the list:
• Safety conditions.
• Worker demeanor.
• Condition of your storage and
material handling and equipment.
• Regular maintenance schedules.
• Facility flow and layout — is it busy,
crowded, or congested?
• Functional process chokepoints that
affect the ebb and flow of facility.
• Stockpiles of material, product,
finished goods, and parts.
• Receiving and/or shipping docks
that are busy.
• Ease of material flow.
• Travel distances and travel time.
• Congested dock, staging areas,
aisles, and processing operations.
• Lift truck maneuverability and lift
heights.
• Sufficient DC doors to handle
volume.
• Aisle widths and number of aisles.
• Space (cube) utilization.
The checklist is a good starting point,
but it is the actual interaction with associates that often provides the greatest
insights. Keep the following advice in
mind as you walk around:
April 2013
Trust but verify. As you walk
around, conduct your own spot checks to
verify the statistics that make it to your
desk. Check the inventory management
system’s ‘physical to book’ accuracy by
counting randomly selected SKUs and
crosschecking the information contained
in the inventory system with the actual
SKU count in the slot. Next, check the
locator system accuracy by randomly
selecting storage lots and crosschecking
the information contained in the locator
system with the actual location of the
SKU in the DC.
Meet the people. Meet your workers and see what you think. Read their
body language, gauge their facial expressions, and engage in small talk, which
can lead to more candid conversations.
You might also find some easy ways to
make improvements by chatting with the
people who actually do the work.
Use all five senses. Use your eyes
to observe and scan your surroundings
(docks, picking area, cafeteria) and people’s behavior. Don’t forget to look up
and notice the lighting and ventilation in
the facility. You could use touch to study
the mood of your people. Is that worker’s handshake firm or flimsy? Use smell
to sense anything out of the ordinary,
like a nasty aroma in the maintenance
area or a foul odor coming from the
employee restroom. These observations
should lead you to ask pointed questions
about your operations.
Listen closely. Asking the right
questions is pointless if you don’t listen.
Slow down and listen to responses
without thinking about your next question. By being patient, you can probe
deeply and ask the right follow up
questions.
Distribution Center Management • www.DistributionGroup.com
9

3. Don’t talk too much. “God gave you
two eyes and two ears and one mouth,”
Tanel says. “You are there to observe and
listen.” You should do only 25 percent of
the talking, and let your people do 75 percent of the talking. Ask questions, listen to
the answers, and then ask follow-up questions. These queries can yield clues and
insights. This is how you get clues to
things that are not so obvious and amazing insights begin to pop up.
Use open-ended questions. An openended question is designed to encourage a
full, meaningful answer using the person’s
knowledge and feelings. It is the opposite
of a closed-ended question, which encourages a short or single-word answer. Openended questions typically begin with words
such as “Why” and “How,” or phrases such
as “Tell me about....” Here are some ways
to ask probing, open-ended questions:
1. Information gathering
• How do you see this happening?
• Can you help me understand that a
little better?
• What does that mean?
• How does that process work now?
2. Qualifying
• What are your thoughts?
• What’s changed since my last visit?
• What concerns do you have?
3. Establishing rapport, trust and credibility
• How did you get involved in…?
• What kind of challenges are you
facing?
• What’s the most important priority
to you with this? Why?
• What would you like to see improved?
• How do you check that?
Contact: Thomas Tanel, CATTAN Services Group,
979-212-8200.
DCM
Safety and Security
How the Herman Miller DC stays safe
Accident rates at Herman Miller’s
distribution center in Holland, MI, are
well below industry averages, a track
record that earned the furniture manufacturer special recognition from the
Michigan Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (MIOSHA).
“Herman Miller’s long-time commitment to workplace safety and health sends
a strong message to other Michigan companies,” says MIOSHA Director Martha
Yoder. “They have created a corporate
culture where workplace safety and health
is consistently held as a top priority.”
How does Herman Miller do it?
MIOSHA points to several ways that the
180-person DC stays safe:
Housekeeping. Organizing the DC
is part of Herman Miller’s lean manufac-
10
turing process that follows the sort-labelidentify rule. Workers conduct monthly
zone audits of the facility.
Communication. A communications
team provides information to employees
about the company’s performance on
topics such as behavior-based safety statistics. The team produces a newsletter
and disseminates information about environmental, safety, and health issues.
Ergonomics. An ergonomics program is used to spot risks and offer staff
training. When workers raise ergonomic
issues, Herman Miller develops an action
plan that is tracked until the issue is
resolved. Employees at all levels of the
company are actively involved.
Contact: Martha Yoder, Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 517-373-9280. DCM
Distribution Center Management • www.DistributionGroup.com
April 2013