Warehouse resource planning and optimization has become an important topic in the logistics industry. Uncertain demand and market dynamics make workload planning in warehouses truly a balancing act, especially when finding the right people to do the job is not as evident as it used to be. Poor planning results in either capacity shortages or overstaffing, with its negative effects on performance and costs.
With the holiday season just around the corner, many companies struggle even more with resource planning and are looking for solutions to make their processes more efficient. A solid foundation for planning workload, and the ability to quickly react to changes, is therefore extremely important.
Create the right focus
An important step towards improving the workload planning is by having a good view on the expected workload on at least a daily level. Many companies in the logistics industry experience strong day of the week seasonality. So rather than having a total forecasted workload for the week, you should opt for a daily granularity that captures these patterns. Companies might also experience end of the month and end of the quarter seasonality that can be taken into account as well using daily granularity.
These patterns are not the same for the entire warehouse, but they can be – and probably are – different per product or customer group. One product group may have a relatively constant workload each day of the week, whereas another group experiences a peak in workload on Wednesday and a dip on Friday. With an effective planning process you will be able to anticipate these dynamics.
Warehouse planning: dealing with various market dynamics
Moreover, there are several holiday dynamics in the logistics industry to consider. For example, warehouses may be closed on public holidays and workload peak is therefor expected right before or after this closure depending on the day of the week . To take these events into account you need more advanced forecasting models, like machine learning models. These techniques are generally not available to companies ’out-of-the-box’, especially when taking additional workload drivers into account, like weather or order book information. EyeOn Planning Services has the capabilities to build and customize fit-for-purpose advanced models based on business requirements. This way logistics companies can fully leverage the value hidden in the data that is available to them, to steer their operations in the most effective way.
In a dynamic market your planning needs to be responsive to changes. At EyeOn Planning Services, we have the ability to generate a workload forecast on a daily basis, automatically integrated into our customer’s system , taking into account the latest actuals.
Do you want to make the next step in your warehouse planning?
For more information on how we can support, please contact one of our experts or read more about boosting logistics performance.