Case Study:
Distribution
The Bottleneck Wasn't Where We Were Hired to Look
The Challenge
This organization hired us to improve truck routing, expecting that better delivery sequencing would boost installation crew productivity. Early data collection told a different story: the real constraints were happening before a truck ever left the building, in how orders were picked, staged, and loaded.
The Approach
We shifted the project scope to the warehouse itself, mapping the pick-stage-load process from the ground up. Picking crews moved from individual to team-based picking. A single team member was assigned to scan every item crossing the truck threshold, eliminating missing parts on delivery entirely. Long-term storage was cleared out of active staging lanes to free up space for the next day's work.
The Results
The redesigned process saved $579,417 annually. Picking and staging time dropped by over 5 hours per shift, walking distance per part was cut in half, and installation crews gained 4.5 hours of usable time per day that had previously gone to unpackaging and recycling runs.
The Bigger Picture
We were hired to fix one process and found the real opportunity one step earlier, that's the same discipline behind everything we do: follow the actual work, not the assumption.