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Case Service Best International

Service Best International, a wholesaler and market leader in car and bicycle accessories, has grown strongly over the past ten years. This continuing growth and the company’s wish for greater professionalism were reasons for migrating to a new WMS.

Customer challenge

Service Best International, a wholesaler and market leader in car and bicycle accessories, has grown strongly over the past ten years. This continuing growth and the company’s wish for greater professionalism were reasons for migrating to a new WMS. This and an unfortunate combination of circumstances put additional pressure on the company’s operational organisation and prompted a request for direct management support from UC Group just before Christmas. The main objectives were to restore warehouse performance to Service Best’s desired level within the very near future, and to provide interim management for two temporarily vacant positions.

Approach

To help Service Best achieve its objectives, we opted to deploy a logistics interim manager with consultancy experience. The approach that the interim manager chose in dialogue with Service Best can best be seen as one producing direct results in the short term, but also taking account of Service Best’s long-term needs. The work comprised results in four areas:

 

Results

  • Within 3 weeks (including the busy Christmas and New Year period), warehouse performance rose by almost 20% to above 95% OTIF (On Time In Full);
  • Translating long-term strategic planning into the concrete operational changes needed for long-term success;
  • Reinforcing ownership on the workfloor by introducing a system of ‘cooperating foremen’ with zone responsibilities;
  • Organisational clarity about who to contact for which questions and which tasks, and so reinforcing the foremen’s focus;
  • Real-time insight into the warehouse and offices on ‘latest departure times’ for orders

Our solution

  1. Advice and coaching line managers – gaining Service Best’s management’s acceptance of the need for change, both in the short term and in the strategic agenda. Based on Service Best’s strategy, coaching the first-line management in personal development aligning with strategic requirements;
  2. Operational stability – temporarily providing extra capacity made it possible to maintain sufficient organisational calm in the short term. This was combined with adapting and formalising the organisational structure so as to recalibrate the organisation and establish clear responsibilities, roles and tasks. In each warehouse zone, only 2 – 3 distinct tasks were defined for each supervisor;
  3. Providing clear management information – producing visual reporting on large screens on the workfloor to show how many order picks were needed in each zone for each day (past, present and future), each flow and each ‘latest departure time’;
  4. Introducing operational alignment – a daily platform involving, informing and activating relevant internal stakeholders clearly and uniformly.

 

UC Group was able to provide us with an experienced professional who had specific warehouse knowledge and was able to engage us in the operational and organisational changes needed for our long-term success, without losing sight of the need for short-term stability.

Eric Husen, Managing Director, Service Best