Frequently Asked Questions

1. Should I have owned trucks or 3rd party ones?

3rd party trucks offer you flexibility and variable costs. Depending on the type of your business, the safer solution usually is a mixture of owned and 3rd party

2. Which is the most important asset in the Logistics department?

The people, as for every department.
Invest on training them, use rotation plans and share your vision with them.
Richard Branson said: "train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to".

3. Should I rent or buy a warehouse?

Because of the recession there are thousands of sqm free all over Greece.
You can do cherry picking and rent the most suitable building for you with low rents. It’ s a matter of CAPEX vs OPEX
If you have a long term plan and clear strategy, buying or building could be an option

4. How can I monitor the performance of people in the warehouse? Do I need to invest huge amounts in software other than WMS?

There are always many ways to count the productivity.
The challenge is not the systems but the metrics.
The fewer and simpler kpi’s you have, the better.

5. My warehouse manager is many years with us and he knows the location of every pallet and every carton. Why should I invest in an warehouse management system?

Because everything has to be scanned and monitored real time
Because you want reliable statistics and minimum mistakes
Because your lots and your expiry dates must be followed 100%

6. Logistics procedures and ISO quality manual. We created a fantastic manual with more than 100 procedures and 250 pages in written but no one is following. What is wrong?

The procedures must be simple and easy to adapt for staff with significant turnover.
The people who will write the procedures must have a very good knowledge of the business
Photos help a lot
The implementation of ISO must be gradual and not one off.
Steve Jobs said: "Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains."