One could reflect on our logistics teams’ challenges over the past 24+ months and ask himself or herself this: Haven’t these guys been through enough already?
Even so, these oft-unsung heroes in our warehouses and shop rooms have battled one disruption after another, yet somehow wiggled together ways for customers to avoid supply chain-related pains and subsequent downtime. First, it was product shortages due to COVID. Then there weren’t enough truck drivers to deliver equipment, or enough people to put product from the boats to the trucks. This included parts, supplies, and the devices themselves, and it forced our logistics team to get all kinds of creative over the past two years.
In 2023, for Texas Logistics Mark Mansell, the biggest challenge will be stabilizing what has been anything but stable the past two years.
“Now that the trucking industry and shipping industry has started to get back to what could be called the ‘new normal,’ now, our biggest challenge is to get our inventory back to its normal state,” Mark said.
Back to its normal state means the right number of parts, the right number of devices, and normalized purchasing routines, but more than anything, keeping a closer eye than ever before on all of the above. Now that the seas have calmed, it’s time to right the ship. Here’s a few ways Mark’s team plans to ‘stabilize’ in 2023.
Taking Inventory: A new system.
Mark’s team has introduced a new inventory scanning software called ScanIt. This tool, which fully integrates with eAutomate, utilizes barcode scanning via a smartphone app to enable the team to better mark bins via barcode.
“This will allow us to have more rapid inventories, more accurate inventories, and will help us min/max our warehousing of equipment,” Mark said.
Taking Inventory: Regular checks.
The team will continue to do a full inventory every Monday after the end of the period. In addition, the team will do a cycle count (a short look at a certain number of inventory) every single day. Within a month, everything in the warehouse will be counted.
“That will stay the same. It will just be marked better so there will be less time spent on supplies, fewer issues pulling the wrong part, etc.,” Mark said.
Taking Inventory: Our people.
“Not unlike anyone else, we’ve had challenges finding people as well over the past year,” Mark said. “We’ve had one position or another that we’ve had to compensate for, and now we’ve finally gotten to where we are fully staffed.”
But that doesn’t mean Mark is resting easy. It still comes down to right person, right job, right relationship.
“If you have somebody in a position that doesn’t have the right mindset, let’s say they’re driving a truck but they’d rather be doing IT, they won’t last long,” Mark said. “I think one of the things that David (Rhodes) has allowed us to do is team-building events outside of the office. That enables us to spend a few minutes, not just thinking about work, feeling more like a team and a family – not just a number that’s here to drive a truck.”
Taking Inventory: results.
Speaking of being fully staffed, and with back order issues seemingly slowing down, Mark’s ready to deliver results customers have come to expect.
“We’re going to get back to when an order is turned in, our goal is to be delivering it within five or six days. We’re shifting our focus from back orders, to processing and delivering our orders as efficiently as possible.”
All the while, as the team stabilizes the ship, it means, never, ever giving up!
