Why Would Warehouse Software Reduce a Warehouse’s OSHA Incident Rate?

I’ve completed a survey on what factors are most important when it comes to improving warehouse performance.  Are people, process or technology drivers most important? An executive overview will be published in DC Velocity in May.  I will speak on what 3PLs report being most important for them to improve warehouse performance at eft ’s 3PL Summit in June.  And ARC will send out the full Strategic Report in the same time period. I’m beginning to analyze the data, and as questions arise I reach out and try to get answers to what I am seeing in the data.   21 percent of our valid respondents reported that it was software technology in the form of warehouse management (WMS), labor management (LMS), or Voice systems that most improved their warehouse’s performance over the past five years. And those that implemented warehouse software also reported a variety of other benefits in addition to the core benefit I was analyzing – improvement in costs per unit shipped.  Many of these benefits are not surprising.  Strong majorities reported that performance on the perfect order metric, order cycle time, average warehouse capacity used. WHAT OTHER AREAS DID THIS SOFTWARE IMPACT? Got Better Stayed the Same Got Worse Perfect Order Metric 75.9% 20.7% 3.4% Average Warehouse Capacity Used 63.3% 30.0% 6.7% Order Cycle Time 60.0% 36.7% 3.3% Far more respondents also reported that their annual workforce turnover rate and the OSHA incident rate got better, rather than worse, as a result of warehouse software. It was no surprise to me that performance on the perfect order metric would improve.  The RF scans or Voice instructions make picking errors far, far less common. It was also easy for me to see why order cycle time improves.  The payback on WMS, LMS and Voice mainly comes from […]