Operations: Finding Efficiencies to Satisfy Huge Demand

After starting at Cufflinks Inc. (hereby referred to as Cufflinks), one of the leading providers of men’s accessories in the world, I truly began to understand the meaning of “make every second count.”

Though the company itself is a family-run business, the product demand is anything but small; the steps involved in my role of receiving orders and preparing items for shipping became much more hectic with the tremendous demand increase that Cufflinks experienced this year.

With a substantial increase in year-to-date sales, it became necessary to examine opportunities for improving the efficiency of the distribution center operations.

In this post, I want to highlight just that!

That is, I want to showcase the operations enhancements that Cufflink’s went through (and is currently going through) in order to increase efficiency and prepare for what may be record-setting holiday sales.

Help Wanted

In the distribution center, each order is hand-picked from over 2,000 SKUs, quality-controlled, and then specifically labeled and packaged for shipping.

With many orders requiring at least a few minutes to be completed and some larger orders taking up several minutes to fulfill, the warehouse staff work swiftly and attentively to make sure each customer is satisfied with their order; however, with so many more orders coming in and a famously-busy holiday season on the horizon, one of the most important operations improvements underway is simply hiring some more help.

With more hands (in addition to other company employees who help fulfill orders), each step of the process can be completed faster and thus increase the speed with which orders can be shipped.

Stream Deck

When it comes to labeling the orders, there are only three computers (and thus only three people) who can scan orders and print shipping labels at any given time.

Waiting for the computer to “think” and clicking between tabs can lengthen this part of the process: enter in Stream Deck.

Stream Deck puts 15 LCD keys at your fingertips, allowing for faster movement between screens than you would otherwise do by moving a mouse.

Wholesale orders to certain retailers can require extra steps for shipping labels and thus extra time, and Stream Deck is invaluable in speeding up that process and keeping the line moving.

Change the Setup, Change the World

Another innovation (which is being tested as of the publication of this post) to the shipping process examines the desk space that the person printing shipping labels has at their disposal.

Right now, most of our shipping stations sacrifice a lot of desk space to a printer, keyboards, and other office supplies that can get in the way of applying labels to the package and moving those packages along to be sealed.

How can this space be improved from an operations standpoint?

A little redecorating!

Specifically, by designing some suspended brackets that move the Stream Deck console above the desk and move the printer below it.

This experimental change opens up the desk, allowing more work room for more packages to be labeled and moved at once.

Now That’s How You Ship

Through implementing both large-scale and relatively smaller changes to the multi-step process of receiving and shipping orders, efficiencies can be created and time and money can be saved.

For this company, it’ll need every second it can get to meet the tremendous demand for its products as seamlessly and proactively as possible.