Last chance to prepare for Peak: expert’s checklist
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just behind us and the Christmas trading period really starting to hot up, Roger Platt, Senior Manager at LCP Consulting, a BearingPoint company provides his checklist for dealing with peak trading periods.
It’s never too late to plan and with the seasonal peak upon us it’s time to check the latest information and ensure everything is in place.
Detailed planning will be business specific, but there are some common points to consider and each must be focused to deliver great service to your customers. As our recent report, Integrating the retail supply chain highlighted, over three quarters of UK retailers believe the most successful businesses focus on delighting the customers first to drive profitability, but during peak this can become a greater challenge as a result of unplanned events and bad weather conditions.
If a reminder were necessary, Black Friday was 24th Nov 2017. This day in 2010 saw the onset of heavy snow and by 1st December, 750mm had fallen in the Peak District and around Sheffield!
Developing your plan
Peak planning should determine the scope and scale of the challenge and the daily demands this has on facilities and infrastructure.
Warehouse forecasts should consider storage requirements as well as throughput. Calculating how much stock and consumables to hold against uncertain demand can be difficult and many operations carry too much stock ‘just to be safe’!
Reviewing recent peak trading periods provides valuable insight into ordering patterns; identifying fast moving lines, peak sales days etc, and helps define the requirements. Behaviour of new products can be difficult to predict but previous performance of similar groups or categories may prove useful.
Businesses offering seasonal merchandise must also consider the added inbound volumes in preparation for the next season’s launch.
Transport, parcel, and courier operations supporting B2B and B2C networks need to predict and manage volumes. Very close communications with customers provides insight into forecasts, but maintaining sufficient headroom to respond to variations is critical. Difficult decisions will need to be considered, and the plan should identify the capability limits and what to do if an excess is threatened. Few businesses would choose to turn customers away, but better that than fail a promise!
Kit
Making the best use of existing facilities and equipment is a great place to start.
Review limitations, bottlenecks and single points of failure and develop mitigations. If single points of failure are identified then check spares are available, and located near the equipment to minimise downtime, and develop manual workarounds.
Check that hand held, mobile equipment and forklift trucks are in good condition with adequate batteries and chargers.
Bring forward routine services to ensure maximum availability over the peak period.
Review and replenish all spares stored for critical items.
Ensure IT capacity exists for the peak data requirements, and that backups and any planned downtime are scheduled at non-disruptive times. Avoid making last minute changes and upgrades to IT systems.
Process
Productivity is increased by having the right product in the right place, e.g. identify potential fast movers and bring them towards the front of operations (at the expense of slow movers) where they can be accessed quickly and easily and avoid double handling.
Duplicate busy operations and areas, spread out to avoid congestion. Consolidate low stock items to free up space.
If additional space/capacity needs to be established review existing sites in the network before moving workload to a 3rd party operation.
Site
Review business continuity / disaster recovery plans and update support and contact numbers. Re-check that planned provisions are adequate to support peak volumes.
Functional and support areas should be fully briefed and contingency and escalation procedures are put in place and tested.
Protect against power disruptions by testing back-up systems work, check that batteries function, and generators are in position with fuel tanks filled – or available locally.
Check provision for clearing ice and snow to keep access routes clear and safe for staff and goods. Emergency gritting and snow clearing services can be called upon, and if you have a contract you’ll be at the front of any queue!
Pull forward vehicle servicing to ensure high availability at peak times. Fitting winter tyres could prove invaluable and give you that edge when things get tough.
Check vehicle fuel arrangements in event of any shortages or disruption to supplies and review route planning to establish alternatives in the event of closures or other disruptions.
Resource
Permanent staff who are engaged and motivated will ensure the highest levels of availability.
• Focus key staff on supervisor, complex and critical processes, this will minimise temporary staff training time
• Many operations will need to augment Mechanised systems capacity with manual processes to meet peak requirements. These processes work best when established all year round providing backup for any unplanned downtime
• Technical and support staff should cover each operational shift
• Annual hours contracts ensure staff can be available to cover more hours at peak, and also enjoy time off in the warmer summer months
Recruit temporary labour early to meet the excess demand:
• Keep a log of successful temporary labour to provide a pool for future permanent roles or next seasons peak
• Brief temporary staff agencies early to give them the best chance to meet your requirements
• Overrecruiting will allow for a reasonable churn as temporary labour drifts to wherever the pay rate is highest.
• Make it easy for staff to get to work, check that shift changes are aligned with public transport and support arrangements to transport labour from more outlying locations.
Summary
