Peak season is over, reflections on site performance

Peak season is over, reflections on site performance

Peak season is over for another year and we have been through a few peak season reviews and I was thinking about the effectiveness of these reviews.

I get it – if you don’t review your mistakes, prepare to fail again.  But here’s the key: a peak season review will fail unless it’s taken seriously. It can’t be just a box-ticking exercise. It requires a real commitment and a bias to action.

It feels to me that in the main these are tick and flick exercises.

And the reason I think that this is the case is that there are no metrics that are driving the review?  If there is no framing of the problem that needs to be solved then you don’t have the context to choose how hard to go at the review.  The result is that the review is just something that needs to be done to satisfy corporate or the review is done based on perception.

So what’s the solution?  I think it makes a difference if peak review starts off with “impact statements”.  Statements like:

  • PB1748 was low performing with a 12% Quality Fail rate and 84% to SLA
  • Shift 3 was 14% less productive than Shift 1
  • Quality Fails were 5% higher on Fridays than on other days
  • Media efficiency was 9% less Wed-Sat than Sun-Mon

By framing the problem in this way you know the precise value that flows from solving the problem.

Effective strategies for managing profits during peak season can significantly enhance your business’s bottom line. By closely monitoring performance metrics and optimizing resource allocation, companies can navigate high demand periods with greater efficiency and maximize profitability without sacrificing quality.

So my question is, do you have the ability to see your business in this way?  If not, then that’s the first step in enabling truly effective peak season reviews. 

Go well.

Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith is the CEO of ZenSmart, a leading workflow automation platform that streamlines manufacturing in On Demand plants across the world.

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