Industry best practice – how do you measure up

How does your business compare to other warehouse and distribution centres? Do you know which areas need improvement to achieve industry best practice? The solution is to measure your performance in key areas and benchmark it against other businesses in your industry.

Benchmarking is a fantastic tool for understanding how a business is performing, both internally and externally. Many warehouse and distribution centres are great at measuring their own performance levels, e.g. to determine if monthly KPIs have been met, or to monitor changes over time. However, performance data can provide much more value when it’s compared against other businesses within the same industry.

By externally benchmarking, businesses can determine how they are performing within the market, and the results can be used to identify areas for improvement.

Imagine discovering through benchmarking that your on-time shipment data falls far below the industry standard. To remain competitive in the market you would need to implement a strategy to improve this metric, plans which would involve time and resources, and no doubt open-up discussions at board level – in this scenario the external benchmarking data provides a clear justification to implement improvement initiatives. Benchmarking can then be used again once the changes have been made to determine if performance has improved as a result.

On the other hand, benchmarking can also be used to identify areas which don’t need improvements – there’s no point in wasting time focussing on your on-time delivery rates if you’re already outperforming the competition in this category!

Without benchmarking it’s not easy to see activities that don’t add value, as many businesses get used to doing things a certain way. Benchmarking provides an objective view of a business and the results are often an eye opener for warehouse and DC managers. 

How do you measure up?

Find out how your performance compares to your competition. The Avery Weigh-Tronix Warehouse and Distribution Centres 2018 Best Practice whitepaper includes performance data on warehouse and DC metrics including on-time shipments, lines picked and shipped per hour and inventory count accuracy by location.*

Use the whitepaper to benchmark your performance against other warehouse and DCs, identify areas for improvement, or find out if you’re performing in the top (or bottom) 20% of the industry. All you need to know are your current performance metrics.

The whitepaper also gives advice and guidance on how to improve your key metrics, using traditional methods and emerging technologies.

Download the Warehouse and Distribution Centres 2018 Best Practice whitepaper

* The whitepaper makes use of the data from the WERC DC Measures 2018 Trends and Challenges report, as well as primary research conducted by Avery Weigh-Tronix within UK warehouse and distribution centres.