The landscape of warehouse labor has transformed dramatically over the past decade, with robots and advanced technologies streamlining operations while human workers remain essential to achieving productivity and safety goals. Here’s how to balance culture and technology to optimize your warehouse.
The warehouse looks a lot different today than it did even a decade ago – and nowhere can those differences be felt more than in the role of labor. Gone are the days of warehouse workers manually navigating the aisles in search of the good they need to pick. Robots have replaced much of this work, bringing goods directly to a packer. And in the event pickers still need to locate a good, voice and vision technology can guide their path.
Yet with all this new technology, warehouse workers aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. They’ll continue to play a key role in helping the facility meet its productivity and efficiency goals, and it’s important that leadership keep these workers’ best interests in mind. Automation alone won’t meet their needs, and neither will better management practices – these approaches must work in tandem to truly optimize warehouse labor. Here’s how.
Building a culture of support
On the surface, there’s real value in building a people-first culture – one where employees are incentivized to meet their daily goals, where there’s open communication and employees feel they have a say in the company’s direction. It’s found in better daily metrics and fewer safety incidents. But look a little deeper, and see there are also huge costs involved in eschewing a people-first culture. Valued employees leave and take institutional knowledge with them, and replacing them requires resources that already lean warehouses simply can’t spare.
To avoid these costs, warehouse leaders must implement programs that prioritize employee health and happiness. Lean Six Sigma principles are a tried-and-true approach, but other approaches such as Continuous Improvement (CI) are also tremendously beneficial. CI staff at each warehouse monitor all operations across the facility to identify efficiency improvements. This includes looking for ways to eliminate unnecessary steps in the workflow and ensure all frontline staff have their necessary tools close to their workstations. These reconfigurations don’t require major automation overhauls, and they can significantly impact safety and productivity metrics for the better.
At Kenco, we build a culture of support through our Kenco Operating System, a set of six criteria – including safety and employee morale – we use to regularly evaluate warehouse leadership. We found that sites rigorously measured on these criteria have significantly better outcomes. Specifically, they have 48% lower turnover and perform 42% better in recordable injuries than industry standards, saving nearly $375,000 per site annually (Learn more about Kenco O/S here).
Leveraging technology to improve safety
While warehouse leadership sets the tone for a more efficient, safer warehouse, technology brings safety goals into reach. That doesn’t mean automation will be an easy sell among frontline staff. Predictions of robots completely replacing pickers and packers, while greatly exaggerated, can still create unease among those unfamiliar with a robot’s capabilities. There’s also the new automation learning curve to consider, especially for employees who already know the workflows like the back of their hand. So as warehouse leaders look to implement automation technologies, it’s important the team feels empowered by the new solution rather than subjected to it.
To that end, it’s worth focusing initial efforts on automation that offers immediate value for the frontline’s day-to-day activities. For example, the AI-powered SoterSpine wearable monitors for several of the most common injury-inducing back movements – such as lifting large objects from the floor using the lower back muscles – and gently alerts the wearer. Likewise, newer warehouse PIVs often come equipped with sensors that limit machine movement when motion is detected nearby, reducing the risk of an accident, and Intel’s RealSense 3D cameras offer the same functionality for robots.
On the horizon, new applications for augmented reality and virtual reality show real promise from improving warehouse safety – and they’re easily adaptable by a younger generation familiar with video games. These headsets can already help guide employees to the right picking location, but future use cases could be as varied as allowing employees to see their co-workers or PIVs around corners, allowing users to visualize the most efficient placement of products on pallets and in shipping containers, and/or displaying product attributes as employees pick a good.
Culture & technology: A winning combination
Warehouse jobs often conjure a vision of tough, backbreaking work. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Warehouse leadership has the power to drive efficiency without putting employee well-being on the line. When managers implement programs that build a culture of openness, respect and safety – and invest in technology to reinforce that culture – they can make the frontline feel valued, increasing productivity and efficiency along the way.