When stepping into a new role or company, it’s crucial to quickly grasp how the supply chain functions. This week’s focus is on the physical side, and how products flow from receipt to delivery. Observing these processes firsthand not only helps you get up to speed but also uncovers opportunities for improvement. While this discussion highlights logistics, the next session will dive into performance tracking and systems.
I’ve seen plenty of people come into supply chain roles with impressive qualifications and big ideas, only to struggle because they skipped this foundational step. They wanted to jump straight into strategy and systems without understanding what actually happens on the floor. Honestly, the physical processes are where supply chain management lives or dies. Everything else is just commentary.
Examining How Products Move
Begin at the warehouse, starting with the receiving dock. Ask essential questions like: Where do products originate? Are they manufactured locally or imported? How are they delivered—containerised, palletised, or as loose items? Observe how goods are unloaded, whether manually or with machinery, and note any bottlenecks or scheduling issues.
Next, look at how items move into storage. Are they placed into picking areas right away, or do they go into bulk storage first? Delays or extra handling can hint at inefficiencies. Avoid offering solutions at this stage; focus on understanding the “why” behind the processes. Often, seemingly odd practices are rooted in practical reasons you’ll uncover as you dig deeper.
This last point is worth dwelling on. I worked with a distribution centre once where they had what looked like an absurdly convoluted put-away process. New stock would go to one zone, sit there for a day, then get moved to another location. Made no sense on paper. Turns out there was a quality hold requirement from a major customer that nobody had thought to mention during my initial briefings. The “inefficiency” was actually compliance. You don’t want to be the person who streamlines away a contractual obligation in your first month.
Breaking Down Picking and Packing
Shift your attention to how orders are picked. Are employees handling full pallets, cases, or single items? Does the picking method—batch, wave, or individual order picking—fit the operation? Evaluate whether tools like voice-picking systems, specialised racks, or carton live storage are effectively utilised.
After picking, examine how items are packed and dispatched. Are orders processed efficiently, or do delays occur? Inefficiencies here might signal inventory inaccuracies, packing constraints, or issues with dispatch planning. Ensuring smooth transitions from picking to packing is vital for maintaining delivery timelines.
The thing is, picking and packing often get treated as separate functions when they’re really two halves of the same operation. A guy running a third-party logistics operation for a homewares company told me his biggest improvement came from simply relocating the packing stations. They’d been positioned based on where space was available when the warehouse was first set up, not based on where pickers actually finished their routes. Moving them saved something like 40 minutes of walking per shift across the team. Not glamorous, but that’s real money.
Understanding Deliveries and Feedback
Follow the journey beyond the warehouse. Accompany delivery drivers to observe how goods are loaded and delivered. This hands-on approach can reveal challenges, like poor delivery route planning or difficulties unloading at customer sites. Engage with customer service teams to complete the loop. They can provide valuable insights into recurring customer issues, service gaps, or bottlenecks further upstream in the process.
I can’t stress enough how valuable it is to actually go out on deliveries. Sitting in a truck for a day will teach you things that months of reviewing KPIs won’t. You’ll see how load sequencing affects delivery times, how customer receiving practices create delays, how drivers make judgment calls that never get captured in any system. Some of the best operational improvements I’ve seen came directly from conversations with drivers who’d been doing the job for years and had never been asked their opinion.
Connecting Physical Processes to Performance
Once you’ve mapped out the physical flow, you’re in a much stronger position to understand why certain metrics look the way they do. High damage rates might trace back to handling at the dock. Slow order turnaround might be a symptom of storage layouts that don’t match picking demand. Customer complaints about wrong items might point to problems at the packing stage.
The physical processes are the foundation. Get them right, and a lot of other problems become easier to solve. Get them wrong, and no amount of sophisticated planning software will save you.
