Background
This contract packaging company has a high-volume customer base with large swings in workloads. To handle the work levels would often require large amounts of overtime to meet customer expectations and deadlines. The resulting extra costs would have a negative impact on their profitability. They needed a 3rd party overflow partner they could trust that had the capacity and expertise to help them effectively manage the enormous variance in business levels.
Challenges
- To maintain quality of workforce despite fluctuations in labor demand.
- To manage space requirements needed for staging and kitting of the work.
- To manage communication between facilities to plan for daily shipping/receiving.
- To effectively handle scheduling for this overflow work combined with the workload requirements of other customers.
- To understand all the specifications and requirements of the customer.
Solutions Approach
- XPress360 implemented scheduling meetings company-wide to better plan labor needs, space requirements and daily logistics.
- XPress360 implemented daily communication with our staffing company (TSI), resulting in lower turnover and a higher skilled, more cross-trained workforce
- XPress360 implemented a new software management system for inventory, shipping & receiving to manage all components needed each day. This lowered the cost of unproductive work due to lines not having continuous product to work.
Results
Our Partner was able to handle 20% more work from their customer base while maintaining all quality control expectations. Customer satisfaction went up dramatically with the increased productivity.
Overtime and double time costs decreased by over 15%. Improved scheduling allowed us to maintain a more skilled, experienced, productive work force to handle larger volume of business, which added to overall profitability.
