Reducing Lead Time 1 – Inventory

Supermarket CheckoutLead time is a key factor for customer satisfaction, especially with make-to-order production. Hence, many companies want to reduce this lead time. In this blog post I show you the basic levers that influence your lead time, and a few more that may also apply to some cases. You have to find the combination of these levers that works best for you. This is the first post in a series of four posts on how to reduce lead time. Most of the series focuses on production, but the last post looks into reduction of lead time in development.

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Storage Strategies – Random Chaotic and ABC

Amazon Manual StorageIn my last post I looked at the disadvantages of fixed location storage. Usually much better is random chaotic storage. This is, for example, the preferred method of Amazon. This approach makes best use of the available space and generates less mistakes. When Amazon started using this, they reportedly were able to store twice as many items in the same space as as before.

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Storage Strategies – Stacking Options

Warehouse worker checking the inventoryIf you are in production, you have material. You probably have too much, except for the one thing that’s missing. In this blog post I will give an overview of the options for storing material. Hopefully this will give some inspiration. Please note that this is not on how to manage the material, merely on how to store it. This is the start of a small series on how to store material.

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The Inner Workings of Amazon Fulfillment Centers – Part 6

This is the sixth and last post on my series on the inner workings of the Amazon Fulfillment Center. Here I will look at some supporting processes as well as the all-important employee satisfaction. I will look at the process of taking inventory, security, their interesting office locations on the warehouse floor, Amazon Go stores, and Employee Satisfaction.

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