Best Director

I like to watch the movie awards shows and saw the Golden Globes the other night. I respect the art that actors bring to the screen and the dia­logue that flows from the screenwriter’s pen. But it’s the director’s vision that moves me the most. He is respon­si­ble for the entire pro­duc­tion from wardrobe to sets, sound­track to light­ing and action, action, action, using clap boards, cam­eras and kliegs. And he does it for every scene, every take. Too much like work for me.

As a ware­house man­ager I am also respon­si­ble for the pro­duc­tion, less on the wardrobe more on the action, but I use a dif­fer­ent set of tools. Instead of direct­ing the action from a can­vas chair, I drive it with Directed Labor. Admit­tedly it isn’t great Art, but it frees me up from fol­low­ing every­one, everywhere.

For some tasks, like Replen­ish­ment, we build a set of rules that gov­ern how we fill each kind of slot (case flow, drive in or pal­let rack) and at what point we should fill them (min­i­mum count, max­i­mum cube, etc). The media for this is usu­ally a pri­or­i­tized list on a forklift’s mobile com­puter and a laser scan for the con­fir­ma­tion of right prod­uct in right pick. Sim­ple, log­i­cal rules drive the work forward.

In receiv­ing we might use a sim­i­lar pat­tern of screen instruc­tions and scanned responses or a speech dri­ven appli­ca­tion may be more suit­able. This allows the checker to keep a closer eye on the inbound prod­uct, since he is the first line of defense for accu­racy. In either case we elim­i­nate hand entries by using bar codes and scan­ners, fur­ther­ing our Qual­ity goals.

In both the receiv­ing and replen­ish­ment func­tions I rely on sim­ple rules to direct the some­times com­plex actions of our play­ers. Although each rule is quite sim­ple, there are a num­ber of them. But once in place, they work every time with­out my hand in every scene. This brings the great­est reward in Selection.

In most ware­houses Selec­tion has the largest num­ber of work­ers and total labor hours. Gains in pick­ing pro­duc­tiv­ity are mul­ti­plied by head count and show the best invest­ment return. In Directed Labor, speech is the medium of choice. Select­ing is a very repet­i­tive func­tion. Old style paper based pick­ing doesn’t pro­mote item or quan­tity ver­i­fi­ca­tion. Qual­ity and accu­racy slip, as does Cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion. Voice Directed pick­ing adds a qual­ity layer by pro­vid­ing real time feed­back to the host sys­tem for loca­tion (spo­ken or scanned) and case quan­tity (spo­ken count backs).

Selec­tors use a micro­phone head­set and a mobile com­puter, worn on the wrist or a belt, to carry on a con­ver­sa­tion with the host. A few com­mands and the count­ing of num­bers are all they need to get the job done. And since it’s tracked in real time, their work is vis­i­ble from the Director’s chair, whether he’s on the dock in the office or pool­side. He can give advice on moti­va­tion with­out leav­ing his spot.

The Golden Globes gave this year’s Direc­tor award to Mr Scors­ese. I give mine to the sys­tem; this year and every year.