Speed and Accountability, can they co-exist?

By Ed Sweeney, Information Technology Manager

In the fulfillment industry, if you’re not fast and accurate, you’ll struggle to compete. We live in a “now” world and when a consumer places an order for something, they want it now, and expect no less. To be competitive in your order turnaround time, you’ve got to speed up the process, reduce touches, and eliminate manual processes, all without losing precision. With precision comes accountability, and with accountability comes a more efficient workforce. If team members know they are accountable for their actions and that their name is attached to their part of the process, they are more likely to buy into the overall process. This is where you must be careful eliminating manual processes and reducing touches, because you can easily remove accountability at the same time. Technology can help create an efficient process without threatening accountability, all the while increasing order turnaround speed. One specific way that Fulfillment Concepts, Inc. has increased speed and accountability is by incorporating barcodes on employee badges that identify each employee. With this in place, an order can be tracked from the time it arrives into our system until the time it leaves the building. Each step an order takes is tied to a timestamp and a person, leaving little question about an order status and who is responsible for its care. This is just one of many ways that you can increase speed without accountability and accuracy suffering. We’d like to hear from you in the field as to what you’ve done similar to increase turnaround speed, accuracy, and accountability. Use the comments below to respond. We’d love for you to share some experience.