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SRJ Logistics “The quality of our performance has improved significantly, but stores continue to complain
about our deliveries,” said John Smith, general manager of the Springfield Warehousing and
Distribution Center (WDC) run by SRJ Logistics Services. Smith looked at the customer
satisfaction survey for the fourth quarter of the previous year. “At this point, it is becoming
increasingly difficult for us to make further improvements. We need a detailed plan of action
regarding what to do next. Robin, I would like to see an initial plan from you in the next couple
of months. Why don’t you begin by looking at the receiving function?” Robin Marsh, quality
manager at the WDC, nodded her head.
Background Founded in 1989, SRJ Logistics Services (SRJLS) was a wholly owned subsidiary of SRJ and
Co., a large national retail chain. Prior to 1989, SRJ handled its own logistics functions,
including warehousing and transportation. In 1989, SRJLS was spun off as a separate company
with the sole objective of providing logistics services. Initially, all of SRJLS’s business came
from SRJ. At present, only 85 percent of SRJLS’s business came from the parent company, and
SRJLS was actively seeking business outside of SRJ. Although SRJLS had plans for growth, it
wanted to stay in the business of providing logistics services to retail chains.
SRJ operated a network of seven warehousing and distribution centers for SRJ and Co. Each
WDC was assigned a region in which it served all SRJ stores. Each WDC typically stocked all
items needed by stores in the region it served. Company buyers at SRJ placed orders for
merchandise with suppliers. These orders were based on forecasted demand at retail stores and
were delivered to the WDCs where they were received and held in storage. When stores ran out
of a product, store managers placed replenishment orders for merchandise at the WDC. If the
product was available, the order was picked at the WDC and delivered to the stores. The stores
primarily cared about orders being delivered in the right quantity at the right time.
The Springfield WDC The Springfield WDC served a total of 194 stores. The 194 stores were divided into three
categories (A, B, and C) by decreasing order of size. There were 57 A stores, 75 B stores, and 62
C stores. A total of 12,539 items were stocked at Springfield. The majority of these items were
referred to as breakpack items (9,944 in total), with the rest being full-case items. For breakpack
items, such as answering machines or telephones, SRJLS received cases of a certain size from its
suppliers. Stores were allowed to place orders for quantities less than a full case because SRJLS
broke open the cases and shipped items to the stores in smaller quantities. Thus, it was not
unusual to have partial case of breakpack items in storage. For full-case items, stores were
required to order at least a case. For these items, SRJLS only needed to handle cases and did not
break them into smaller units.
The WDC at Springfield had a total area of 1.1 million square feet and was divided into six
modules (see Exhibit 1). Breakpack items were stored in Module 1, while full-case items were
stored in Module 3. The other modules were used for sorting and the staging area. On average,
Springfield had an inventory worth $46 million, which corresponded to about a one-month
demand from stores in the region.
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Smith was hired as the general manager at the Springfield WDC in January of the previous year.
A portion of his bonus was based on a quarterly survey of store managers taken by SRJLS
management. The last survey prior to Smith’s arrival indicated that store managers were very
dissatisfied with the performance of the Springfield WDC. Springfield was a poor performer and
ranked last within the SRJLS network. Customers (retail store managers) complained that orders
were late and not delivered in the right quantity.
Upon arriving, Smith focused his attention on service quality at the WDC. Smith quickly realized
that no performance data was available within the Springfield WDC. In fact, none of the process
were well defined. He had to put an entire quality program in place and appointed Robin Marsh
as Quality Manager. Marsh had spent considerable time at Springfield and was knowledgeable
about the processes and problems. As a first step, Marsh and Smith identified receiving,
inventory, storage, order filling, and shipping as the four key processes at Springfield. Receiving
referred to the process of receiving deliveries from supplier and putting them into storage at the
WDC. Inventory storage referred to the process of storing products at the WDC. Order filling
referred to the process of receiving a store order and, picking required items from storage, and
loading the delivery truck. Shipping referred to the process of transporting the store order from
the WBC and delivering it to the store. These four processes were identified as key because any
error in these processes impacted Springfield’s ability to supply a store order on time and in the
right quantity. An error in receiving or inventory storage could result in an improper quantity of
a particular product showing up in the inventory system. As a result, the WDC could promise
delivery to a store from stock, even though the item was out of stock. This error would be
detected when the WDC tried to fill the order and found they could not. This would cause the
delivery to the store to be late. Smith’s objective was to manage the four processes in the
warehouse in such a way that store orders could be delivered in the right quantity at the right
time.
By June, detailed process flow maps were constructed for each of the four processes (See
Exhibit 2 for receiving) and key objectives were identified for each process. To identify the
objectives, Marsh and Smith took into account store requirements in terms of delivery accuracy.
The process mapping and objective identification was done in coordination with the personnel
involved with each process. The operators were expected to follow procedures as describe in the
process flow maps. The hope was that with more clearly defined processes, performance would
improve. To further motivate personnel, custom survey results for all WDCs were posted all over
the warehouse. Smith hoped that employees would be motivated to avoid being at the bottom of
the list and encouraged to follow the process more carefully, resulting in better performance.
These actions bore fruit, and Springfield moved up to third place by the fourth quarter.
Unfortunately, on an absolute scale, performance was still quite bad with several dissatisfied
store managers.
Smith needed an approach to take quality to the next level. He had heard of Statistical Process
Control (SPC) and wanted to use the methodology to improve process performance at
Springfield. SPC had traditionally been used in manufacturing settings for measurable variables
such as the thickness of a plate. In a warehouse setting, it was hard to define how wrong a
process had been but easy to classify the outcome as being defective or not. Therefore, Smith and
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Marsh decided to measure whether the different stages of a process had been defective or not.
The initial focus was on the receiving process.
The Receiving Process The receiving flowchart (see Exhibit 2) is an overview of all the tasks necessary to receive a
vendor shipment into the WDC. The members were:
➢ A guard who began the receiving process by checking trailer loads into the WDC yard ➢ A receiving officer who prepared the receiving packet and keyed received quantities into
the inventory system
➢ A yard driver who positioned drop trailers in the proper dock door and removed released trailers to the carrier pickup area
➢ An unloader who removed the trailer and palletized the product ➢ A slotter who performed detailed receiving duties (to ensure proper PO, quantity count,
etc.), assigned inbound pallets to stocking locations, and also performed vendor
compliance audits.
➢ A putaway driver who moved received palletized product from the receiving area to the assigned stocking location.
Detailed Data Collection The Springfield warehouse performed about 8,000 transactions in receiving on a daily basis. To
prepare SPC charts, Marsh decided to analyze 800 transactions daily for the next 45 days. A
sample size of 800 transactions was selected to ensure that most days had at least three or more
transactions that were defective. It would be impossible to construct SPC charts if most samples
had no defective transaction.
After talking to experienced people involved in the receiving process, Marsh used fishbone
diagrams to identify the following five sources of error that were likely to occur:
➢ Slotter: Errors in any of the slotter functions ➢ Keying: Errors in receiving officer keying quantities into the inventory system ➢ Letdown: Errors in any of the unloader functions ➢ ITR ADJ: Errors in receiving packet prepared by receiving officer ➢ Putaway: Errors in putting the pallet/stack in the wrong location
All errors that could not be assigned one of these five categories were group as “other.” Marsh
also decided to separate the performance data for Modules 1 (breakpack) and 3 (full case).
After 45 days, Marsh had plenty of data to look at (See Exhibits 3, 4, and 5). She still was not
sure how to best organize it and prepare a plan for action.
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Discussion Questions 1) Help Marsh organize the data by preparing a run chart. 2) Prepare appropriate process control charts to see if the process is in control. Is the
receiving process in or out of control?
a. Process control charts should reflect the control limits as well as the spec limits. b. Question 3 helps you identify the spec limits
3) Customer service requirements determine that receiving process errors should never exceed 2 percent on any given day. What percentage of the days is likely to exceed 2
percent error, given the current performance of receiving? Assume a total of 8,000
transactions per day, 4,000 in each module.
4) Prioritize the set of actions you would take to ensure that more than 99 percent of the days have less than 2 percent receiving process error.
5) Can you think of a continuous improvement framework that Marsh can use as an engine to improve performance in the receiving process and other processes at Springfield?
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Exhibit 1: Layout of Springfield WDC (1728’ x 576’)
Office
Area
Module
3
Module
1
Exhibit 2: Process Flowchart: SJR Logistics Services, Receiving
Guard Receiving
Office Yard Driver Unloader Slotter Putaway
Truck arrives
at gate
Check in
trailer
Assign trailer
to receiving location
Deliver papers
to office
Prepare receiving
packet
Enter completed
receipt to system
Enter slotting
reassignments to
system
File receiving
packet
Position trailer
to dock door
Unload
trailer
Sort cartons
by item
Build Pallets
by item
Stage pallets
in receiving apron
Match items
received to PO
Count quantity
received
Compare quantity to delivery manifest
Assign pallet to
stocking location
Put pallet/stack in
assigned location
Return unslotted pallets to
manager
Shipping Area
Receiving Area
Return empty
pallets to unloading area
Live Load? Floor Stack?
Y Y
N N
Complete
receiving packet
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Exhibit 3: Overall Performance of Receiving process
Date Slotter Errors
Keying Errors
Letdown Errors
ITR ADJ Errors
Putaway Errors
Other Errors
Total Errors
Total Slots Checked
6/1 4 1 1 1 0 3 10 800
6/2 11 2 1 2 2 7 25 800
6/3 11 2 0 2 4 4 23 800
6/4 6 6 0 0 2 11 25 800
6/5 6 0 0 1 3 4 14 800
6/6 19 0 0 0 1 5 25 800
6/7 11 0 0 0 2 2 15 800
6/8 3 1 2 0 1 16 23 800
6/9 3 0 3 0 1 3 10 800
6/10 3 0 3 0 0 5 11 800
6/11 5 0 3 0 0 7 15 800
6/12 0 1 1 0 1 22 25 800
6/13 4 1 3 0 4 5 17 800
6/14 2 0 2 0 0 19 23 800
6/15 0 2 2 0 0 1 5 800
6/16 2 2 0 0 1 0 5 800
6/17 4 0 1 0 2 0 7 800
6/18 3 1 4 2 0 0 10 800
6/19 4 0 3 0 2 1 10 800
6/20 7 2 2 0 3 3 17 800
6/21 13 0 2 0 1 9 25 800
6/22 7 0 2 0 2 5 16 800
6/23 4 0 4 0 1 6 15 800
6/24 7 0 0 0 2 7 16 800
6/25 2 0 1 0 4 2 9 800
6/26 2 0 1 0 4 1 8 800
6/27 2 0 2 0 0 8 12 800
6/28 8 1 1 0 0 6 16 800
6/29 7 1 1 0 0 7 16 800
6/30 1 1 1 0 1 4 8 800
7/1 10 0 2 0 1 8 21 800
7/2 7 0 2 0 2 4 15 800
7/3 4 0 1 0 6 1 12 800
7/4 6 0 2 0 1 1 10 800
7/5 3 0 1 0 0 2 6 800
7/6 0 2 2 0 0 1 5 800
7/7 1 0 5 0 0 19 25 800
7/8 5 0 2 0 0 3 10 800
7/9 5 2 2 0 1 6 16 800
7/10 6 0 0 0 1 2 9 800
7/11 9 0 3 0 0 8 20 800
7/12 9 0 3 0 0 8 20 800
7/13 4 0 2 0 5 0 11 800
7/14 0 0 3 0 8 1 12 800
7/15 0 0 2 0 0 5 7 800
Total 230 28 78 8 69 242 655 36000
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Exhibit 4: Module 1 Performance
Date Slotter Errors
Keying Errors
Letdown Errors
ITR ADJ Errors
Putaway Errors
Other Errors
Total Errors
Total Slots Checked
6/1 1 0 1 0 0 0 2 400
6/2 10 2 1 2 1 1 17 400
6/3 9 1 0 2 4 2 18 400
6/4 6 6 0 0 2 7 21 400
6/5 3 0 0 1 3 0 7 400
6/6 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 400
6/7 7 0 0 0 1 2 10 400
6/8 1 1 2 0 1 16 21 400
6/9 3 0 3 0 1 1 8 400
6/10 3 0 3 0 0 3 9 400
6/11 5 0 3 0 0 3 11 400
6/12 0 1 1 0 1 21 24 400
6/13 4 1 3 0 3 5 16 400
6/14 2 0 2 0 0 0 4 400
6/15 0 2 2 0 0 1 5 400
6/16 2 2 0 0 0 0 4 400
6/17 1 0 1 0 1 0 3 400
6/18 3 1 4 2 0 0 10 400
6/19 3 0 3 0 2 1 9 400
6/20 7 2 2 0 2 2 15 400
6/21 13 0 2 0 0 8 23 400
6/22 7 0 2 0 2 1 12 400
6/23 4 0 4 0 1 4 13 400
6/24 5 0 0 0 1 5 11 400
6/25 2 0 1 0 4 2 9 400
6/26 1 0 1 0 3 1 6 400
6/27 2 0 2 0 0 5 9 400
6/28 6 0 1 0 0 4 11 400
6/29 5 0 1 0 0 5 11 400
6/30 1 0 1 0 0 4 6 400
7/1 8 0 2 0 1 7 18 400
7/2 7 0 2 0 2 4 15 400
7/3 2 0 1 0 6 1 10 400
7/4 4 0 2 0 1 1 8 400
7/5 2 0 1 0 0 1 4 400
7/6 0 2 2 0 0 0 4 400
7/7 0 0 5 0 0 15 20 400
7/8 2 0 2 0 0 3 7 400
7/9 3 2 1 0 0 2 8 400
7/10 3 0 0 0 1 2 6 400
7/11 7 0 3 0 0 8 18 400
7/12 7 0 3 0 0 8 18 400
7/13 2 0 2 0 5 0 9 400
7/14 0 0 3 0 8 0 11 400
7/15 0 0 2 0 0 1 3 400
Total 164 23 77 7 57 158 486 18000
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Exhibit 5: Module 3 Performance
Date Slotter Errors
Keying Errors
Letdown Errors
ITR ADJ Errors
Putaway Errors
Other Errors
Total Errors
Total Slots Checked
6/1 3 1 0 1 0 3 8 400
6/2 1 0 0 0 1 6 8 400
6/3 2 1 0 0 0 2 5 400
6/4 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 400
6/5 3 0 0 0 0 4 7 400
6/6 18 0 0 0 1 4 23 400
6/7 4 0 0 0 1 0 5 400
6/8 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 400
6/9 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 400
6/10 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 400
6/11 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 400
6/12 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 400
6/13 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 400
6/14 0 0 0 0 0 19 19 400
6/15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 400
6/16 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 400
6/17 3 0 0 0 1 0 4 400
6/18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 400
6/19 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 400
6/20 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 400
6/21 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 400
6/22 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 400
6/23 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 400
6/24 2 0 0 0 1 2 5 400
6/25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 400
6/26 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 400
6/27 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 400
6/28 2 1 0 0 0 2 5 400
6/29 2 1 0 0 0 2 5 400
6/30 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 400
7/1 2 0 0 0 0 1 3 400
7/2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 400
7/3 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 400
7/4 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 400
7/5 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 400
7/6 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 400
7/7 1 0 0 0 0 4 5 400
7/8 3 0 0 0 0 0 3 400
7/9 2 0 1 0 1 4 8 400
7/10 3 0 0 0 0 0 3 400
7/11 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 400
7/12 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 400
7/13 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 400
7/14 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 400
7/15 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 400
Total 66 5 1 1 12 84 169 18000
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