Hello all, Marty and the Warehouse and Operations as a Career Podcast back with you this week! I\u2019m sure it\u2019s been a busy week for all of us & we appreciate your visit today! I was out on the road last week, attending a few meetings and hitting up a couple of industrial parks, I enjoy seeing the different warehouse configurations, the history of the buildings and how you can see the different building designs, many times built to accommodate the shifts in the transportation world and the movement of freight efficiencies. I guess those thoughts could be an episode all on its own one week! I find it really interesting how we\u2019ve came from straight line buildings, to rail dock facilities, to the L Shaped designs and even the Inbound In on one side with Outbound going right out on the other side.
\nAnyway, the question came up of Best Practices and where did the phrase come from and what does it really mean? I first started hearing of Best Practices in the mid to late 90\u2019s. Before we get into what Best Practices means to me lets look it up, some of that self-education stuff I\u2019m always talking about:
\nOK, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_practice first sentence states: A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to any alternatives because it produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing things
\nhttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/best%20practice say\u2019s : a procedure that has been shown by research and experience to produce optimal results and that is established or proposed as a standard suitable for widespread adoption
\nAnd I found like 50 sites explaining or selling Best Warehousing Practices online, one https://www.thebalance.com/warehouse-best-practices-2221401 had a pretty good article called 5 Warehouse Best Practices to Lower Picking Time, it\u2019s informative and worth a look. I\u2019ll add each of these links to our website for you to check out if you\u2019d be interested.
\nSo, let\u2019s talk about what Best Practices may mean to us as associates. Like I was saying earlier I first started hearing the phrase Best Practices from my Manager in the mid 90\u2019s, we were installing a Warehouse Management System, a full-blown system with inbound inventory scanning, directed putaway and Selection scanning. Of course, with such systems every step has to be completed correctly as to keep the inventory levels, slot quantities and selection to flow smoothly. At the time I guess it looked more like a check list to me. These steps if you will were the best practices or steps that had been learned as the most efficient in past rollouts. I learned pretty quickly a best practices list needs to be fluid or as additional efficiencies are found they should be included. I think our industry started recognizing the importance of best practices as Warehousing and Transportation costs grew and we went from the wild west mentality to a more structured and efficient movement of freight model. I believe all the systems have helped us as employees, structure and disciplines can only help us succeed, our positions are documented and defined right?
\nWe all use best practices every day, I mean we all have routines that we\u2019ve honed over the years that work for us. My morning routine is efficient and gets me started each day, Laundry is pretty much on a schedule, when we\u2019re cooking we follow a recipe etc. Here in Texas we do quite a bit of grilling or smoking meats and we take our patio time seriously. That means we marinate or dry rub the meat, let it sit as we go out and start the charcoal. Of course, any beverages are already on ice and conveniently placed at arm\u2019s reach. We place the meats on the grill and prepare the side dishes and time everything to be done at the same time right. We just followed the best practices of barbequing!
\nSeriously though,