May 2020 - 32

MANAGEMENT
NOW MORE THAN EVER
Is the Time to Be Lean
What was predicted to be a great year for growers has become quite the opposite for many,
but there is hope we can salvage the 2020 season ... if we think lean.
BY GERSON CORTÉS
s we entered into 2020 the outlook for the green industry looked
very promising. It was supposed to be a good year for growers;
the economy was strong, the unemployment rate in February was
3.5%, and the outlook was good. Many of our customers were looking
forward to a 2020 that was going to be better than 2019 (mind you 2019
was a good year for most growers).
Then, in a matter of weeks, the world as we knew it changed
dramatically - the coronavirus took over the world and basically shut the
entire global economy down. For the green industry, the pandemic could
not have had worse timing - right before spring shipping.
AmericanHort, doing what they do best - helping the industry
navigate through these trying times - put on a webinar to help growers
understand how the industry would be impacted. One of the speakers,
economist Charlie Hall from Texas A&M, discussed the economic impact to
industry. If you know Charlie, you know he is always preaching efficiency
and lean. During the webinar he pointed out where growers should be
focusing to reduce their cost and what they should be doing, or should
have already done.
One of the slides he presented focused on growers' cost categories; the
two highest were labor, and freight and trucking. These two categories
are directly impacted through the implementation of lean flow. For those
growers who have already implemented lean flow, they have seen a
reduction in these costs. For growers that haven't implemented lean flow,
they need to start thinking about implementing lean methodologies that
will help them reduce costs, specifically in labor and freight and trucking.
IMPROVING LABOR EFFICIENCY IN SHIPPING
One of lean flow's biggest benefits is labor efficiency. One of the areas
that FlowVision has helped growers in improving labor efficiency is in the
shipping process; the focus is to eliminate/reduce non-value-added work
(waste). We've developed a supermarket methodology that reduces labor
requirements, reduces credits/claims and optimizes rack and loads. This
methodology starts in the harvesting/pulling process and goes all the
way through loading trucks.
MASTER PULLING
The most efficient way to pull products is using a master pull report that
combines several loads into one pull. Typically, we take a day's worth of
orders, assign them to loads, and then divide the loads into two master
pulls - a morning pull and an afternoon pull.
Let's assume you are shipping 10 trucks out; we put five loads on
the morning pull and five loads on the afternoon pull. The loads on the
32 MAY 2020 GPNMAG.COM
The most efficient way to pull products is utilizing a master pull report that
combines several loads into one pull.
morning pull will be shipped out that afternoon, and the loads pulled in
the afternoon are shipped out the following morning.
The advantage of the master pull is that you go to a location one time to
pull the item for all the orders on the master pull. This reduces the number
of trips to the same location thereby improving productivity.
SUPERMARKET
The supermarket is a physical location on the dock where racks
are staged so they can later be shopped. The master pull assigns
a supermarket rack sequence where the rack will be staged in the
supermarket. Rack sequence 8 means that rack goes in location number
8 in the supermarket. This location will facilitate the shopping/picking of
During his webinar, Charlie Hall discussed growers' cost categories; the two
highest were labor and freight/trucking.
A
http://www.GPNMAG.COM
May 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May 2020
