{"id":11616,"date":"2013-04-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.argonandco.com\/news-insights\/articles\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\/"},"modified":"2020-12-17T19:34:44","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T19:34:44","slug":"warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.argonandco.com\/us\/news-insights\/articles\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\/","title":{"rendered":"The high cost of not knowing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Procrastination and impatience may seem like opposite ends of the behavioral spectrum, but they have remarkably similar effects on distribution operations.<\/p>\n<p>In a seminar talk I gave a while back, I remarked that the cost of not being able to plan tomorrow&#8217;s work today makes a big difference in warehouse operating costs. &#8220;How big?&#8221; one of the students asked. I was caught without a good answer.\u00a0 Since then I have tried to accumulate examples of what things cripple our ability to plan.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, in today&#8217;s just-in-time world, same-day shipping has become a normal expectation. Certainly, there are circumstances where significant reductions in field inventories are made possible by overnight delivery. But, often the need for overnight response is a result of either procrastination or impatience.\u00a0 Of course, now overnight is becoming pass\u00e9 as Amazon, eBay and others are beginning to compete on a platform of even same day delivery, once reserved for auto parts and emergency medical products.<\/p>\n<p>Why does a body shop need next-day delivery of paint when they&#8217;ve had the car in the shop for three days? Why do I order a gift with expedited delivery when my wife\u2019s birthday is on the same day every year? Why does a back order need to be shipped by itself the same day the product is received when it&#8217;s been out-of-stock for three weeks? Why do we discover only when we call the customer for carrier routing that they want to cancel the order?<\/p>\n<p>The answer to most of these is that we&#8217;ve become so accustomed to instant response that it has become a decision, by default. The service is available. The cost is modest, or buried in somebody else&#8217;s budget. We are too busy handing someone else&#8217;s urgent need to plan proper lead time into our own.<\/p>\n<p>In the name of customer service, we have offered instant response at a low cost to the customer, but at a high cost to ourselves. That&#8217;s OK when only the few who really need it, ask for it. We are always willing to jump through hoops a few times a day. But, when it becomes the norm, then our daily workload is not only unpredictable but unplannable too.<\/p>\n<p>What does it cost? Not just the premium shipping cost. Not just the extra cost to walk one order through the process. But, the cost of not being able to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Schedule staffing to meet a workplan<\/li>\n<li>Level activity over an 8-hour shift<\/li>\n<li>Spread flow over multiple shifts to reduce capital investment<\/li>\n<li>Create efficient order batches for picking, and<\/li>\n<li>Know when the day will end.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Employees are prepared to work unexpected overtime every once in a while. But, when the end of every day is a mystery, it keeps their families from being able to plan on them.<\/p>\n<p>How many hours do we lose waiting for the orders to come in? How many times do we search for fill-in work to use the guaranteed hours? How many employees leave because they can&#8217;t plan their lives around our erratic schedules? These are the costs that we absorb in our DCs because we&#8217;ve made instant response the norm. It doesn&#8217;t have to be that way to the degree that it now is, but in fact it is getting worse.\u00a0 The staffing companies don\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n<p>And by the way, I will be ordering my wife\u2019s birthday present early this year!<\/p>\n<div style=\"mso-element: para-border-div; border: none; border-top: solid #000066 2.25pt; padding: 1.0pt 0in 0in 0in;\">\n<p><span class=\"intro--medium\"><strong>As of September 8, 2020, Crimson &amp; Co (formerly The Progress Group\/TPG) has rebranded as Argon &amp; Co following the successful merger with Argon Consulting in April 2018.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11617,"template":"","categories":[145],"class_list":["post-11616","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-supply-chain-planning"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The high cost of not knowing - Argon &amp; Co<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.argonandco.com\/us\/news-insights\/articles\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The high cost of not knowing - Argon &amp; Co\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Procrastination and impatience may seem like opposite ends of the behavioral spectrum, but they have remarkably similar effects on distribution operations. In a seminar talk I gave a while back, I remarked that the cost of not being able to plan tomorrow&#8217;s work today makes a big difference in warehouse operating costs. &#8220;How big?&#8221; one [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.argonandco.com\/us\/news-insights\/articles\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Argon &amp; Co\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-12-17T19:34:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.argonandco.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/logistics-consulting-worldwide-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/news-insights\\\/articles\\\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/news-insights\\\/articles\\\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\\\/\",\"name\":\"The high cost of not knowing - Argon &amp; Co\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/news-insights\\\/articles\\\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/news-insights\\\/articles\\\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/06\\\/logistics-consulting-worldwide-2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-04-04T23:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-12-17T19:34:44+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/news-insights\\\/articles\\\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/news-insights\\\/articles\\\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/news-insights\\\/articles\\\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/06\\\/logistics-consulting-worldwide-2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/06\\\/logistics-consulting-worldwide-2.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":640},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/news-insights\\\/articles\\\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Articles\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/news-insights\\\/articles\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"The high cost of not knowing\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/\",\"name\":\"Argon &amp; Co\",\"description\":\"We help clients achieve their strategic and operational objectives, working together to transform their businesses and generate real change.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.argonandco.com\\\/us\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The high cost of not knowing - Argon &amp; Co","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.argonandco.com\/us\/news-insights\/articles\/warehouse-work-planning-sandy-springs-atlanta-ga\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The high cost of not knowing - Argon &amp; Co","og_description":"Procrastination and impatience may seem like opposite ends of the behavioral spectrum, but they have remarkably similar effects on distribution operations. 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