Change in the Warehouse

To be successful with any change initiative – such as a warehouse reconfiguration, a change in processes or in ways of working – getting the direct input of the warehouse team to your work at all stages is of paramount importance. These are the people who will be most affected by the change and involving them early and at all stages enables them to:

• actively contribute with their own unique perspective and experience to the work of developing an improved future state (layout, equipment, skills, processes, ways of working, performance measurement and so on) for their workplace
• have the opportunity to voice any concerns and issues that they may have in relation to the viability and practicality of the proposals so that these can be addressed satisfactorily
• have the opportunity to voice any concerns about how the change may affect them professionally and personally and thus give provide a clear understanding of what support, retraining, coaching and mentoring that may need to be provided as the changes are implemented
• have the opportunity to influence the decision-making process
• begin to take on a sense of shared ownership of the improvements and changes that will be required to reach the future state and a sense of commitment and urgency about their own role in that change
• give them the opportunity to expand their involvement in the process as it moves forward and they gain in confidence and commitment and in their ability to carry other colleagues forward

Warehouse Team Involvement

In successful change initiatives in warehousing contexts, the warehouse team will typically be included at the outset of the work, becoming involved in tasks such as work activity sampling, work diagnostic and process mapping exercises. This enables them to get direct feedback on how their operation ranks against industry benchmarks and provides an objective assessment of how they are organized and go about their work in relation to industry best practices.

This is very beneficial both from the perspective of those driving the change, in terms of what the warehouse teams can add and contribute to the process itself and to the understanding of real operational challenges, and it is to be hoped from the perspective of the warehouse team itself by providing the opportunity to contribute and to get clear cut feedback on the current state of the operation.

This involvement should continue through all the detailed work in relation to changes in selecting and prioritizing the change initiatives, planning, implementing and through to the stabilization and control of the future state.

The Pitfalls to Avoid

Unfortunately, I see too many examples in which warehouse teams were consistently live-down to the poor expectations of them by their managers in terms of initiative and contribution to the nature and structure of their work and their ability to solve problems. To break this cycle, having the active involvement of these team members at all stages through this type of improvement work will entitle the business to expect more of them and enable and empower them to respond positively to the higher expectations – a win-win all around.

Whether the input from the team is positive or negative, creative or unimaginative, it is valuable because it is real information that shows clearly what tasks, challenges and obstacles lie ahead in order to move from where you are to where you want to be.

The Real Challenge

I have always said that the real challenge in warehouse change initiatives is not the physical reconfigurations of racking and stock but rather the ability to mange and sustain the change in organization and practice so that you the best return on the investment in time, money and disruption is obtained.

The sad statistic is that 60% to 70% of business change initiatives do not deliver their expected results and the reason is because of a lack of attention to the real needs and requirements of managing change successfully.

Role of the Project Sponsor

A final note, the project sponsor, that is, the person with the ultimate authority to deploy the resources of time, money and people in the organization, needs to be fully aware of what the implications of the proposed changes are in terms of communication, commitment, urgency, resource and vision and they must be consistent and coherent at all times in what they say and what they do in alignment with the objectives and goals of the change initiative to in order to ensure every chance of success.