Now think of all the things that are done within your warehouse, supposedly to save time. How many of those things actually worked over the long haul? Can you count them on one hand? If so, then what do you do?

It all starts and ends with your warehouse supervisor. When you hire a supervisor what type of person do you look for? Usually it is a Time Keeper! Here is a parable: Imagine if someone told you they could look at the Sky, day or night, and tell you what time it is. Wouldn’t that be impressive? But what would be even more impressive is a person that could build a clock that would do the same thing, a Clock Maker!

When interviewing a person for a supervisors position we ask them about all of the things they have done. We ask their references about the things they have done. Then if we like what their past has to tell us, we tell them about all of the things our organization has done and how great our company is. Then once they are hired, we seldom provide them with any training and later we wonder why we continue to have the same problems. Basically we hire people to maintain the status quo. A person who can maintain the time! Is this what you want? A Time Keeper!

Why don’t we tell the potential employee about the problems we have within our warehouse? Why don’t we tell them what our expectations are? By doing these things does that mean the company is not as great? Of course not, we are just being honest with the same person we expect to be honest with us. By being completely honest you give
them the opportunity to give you their vision about how your warehouse should run. A Clock Maker! A person with a vision and the determination to achieve that vision is much more valuable to your organization, even at the warehouse level. Remember, your warehouse is the first department to touch the product when it arrives from the vendor and the last department to touch it before the customer sees it. Doesn’t this mean we should devote more time and energy to ensuring our customers are completely satisfied?

Think about this, What is the most expensive asset you have within your organization? Now imagine, Your Money, being controlled by a person with no vision and no desire to improve your investment. Would you let your 401k be controlled by someone without telling him or her what your expectations are? Without telling them how much of an increase you are expecting? Would you trust it to someone who could not tell you how he or she plans on improving your investment and in what time frame? Then why trust your organizations largest investment to the person with the best past and a limited future.

If we are looking for experience we must look deep and ask ourselves, how much experience does your warehouse supervisor really have? Look at their resume when you hired them, then ask, to view their latest resume. Has it changed? Look at the resume of a potential warehouse supervisor. Has it changed over the years? The types of jobs they have held are probably similar, their positions are all the same, and their achievements are the same from company to company. Remember, nothing is as futile as expecting past returns to be translated into future returns on a linear basis. Now ask yourself, Does this person have X number of years of experience or 1 year of experience repeated X number of times. A Time Keeper. Is this the best person for your organization? Or, should you hold out for a, Clock Maker?

Clock Makers are hard to come by; they are most likely already employed. However, a true Clock Maker is always looking to improve their situation as well as the situation of others. What they want is a challenge, But it will cost you! Before hiring a Clock Maker you have to decide if you are committed to the revolution. That is what they will stir up within your organization, a Revolution! It will not be a commitment to change. Change, is a Buzz word that floats across industries and is consistently used by consultants and wannabe Clock Makers. In other words, they are straddling the fence, one foot is on the change side and the other is on the, continue to operate the same side. What we must do is strive for Revolutionary improvements by taking evolutionary steps! And it must begin at the top! We must force the leaders within our organization to become Clock Makers! Especially in our warehouse! Because, they are usually the least educated people within the company. I dont mean education from a traditional standpoint; I mean what they have learned since High school or College. How many books have they read on logistics? How many seminars have they attended about warehousing and inventory control? How many associations do they belong to? Probably, none, none and none! And believe it or not we promote the lack of continuing education by not giving them the opportunity to revolutionize the warehouse. When they try to attend a seminar, we shoot them down by saying, It wont provide any value and the company wont pay for it. Yet sales personnel attend seminars; we have consultants and motivational speakers come in and speak with our sales force and look at how much we have grown by doing so. If it helped your sales force cant it help your warehouse?

Right now, you probably have someone hiring and firing warehouse personnel who has never attended a course on interviewing techniques or labor laws. You have someone controlling millions of dollars of inventory that could not tell you the last time they attended a course or read a book about inventory control. And we wonder why our inventory is so inaccurate. You have someone Non-Verbally communicating with your customers, more than anyone else in the organization, and they do not even know who your most profitable customers are. And often we justify this by saying, they are doing a good job!

The next time you take a physical inventory and you look at the numbers, the accuracy of it will tell you how good of a job they have done. The next time a sales person tells you about a customer you lost because of shipping errors, that will tell you how good of a job they have done. The next time you look at the turnover in the warehouse, that will tell you how good of a job they have done. The next time you look at the number of returns you process, that will tell you how good of a job they have done. And finally, the next time you walk through your warehouse and you see receiving that has not been completed for a few days, and personnel that do not seem busy, that will tell you how good of a job they have done. Ultimately, it will tell you if you have hired a Time Keeper or a Clock Maker!

About the Author

Rene Jones was the founder and President of Total Logistics Solutions, Inc. (www.logisticsociety.com). He is now taking on a new role as President and CEO of AHN Corporation (www.ahninc.com). He is the author of, This Place Sucks (What Your Warehouse People Think About Your Company) and Warehouse 101 (A Complete Guide to Operating Your Warehouse). Rene can be reached by phone at (818) 353-2962 or by email at rene.jones@ahninc.com

Written By: Rene’ Jones

Electronic time clocks are pretty much the only kind that we see on today’s market. We no longer use wind up clocks, there are not even many wind up watches available anymore. Electronic time clocks are reliable and easy to use. You will not have to worry about having them lose time like you do other kinds of time clocks and they are cheap to run. You will not have to worry about your electronic time clocks breaking the bank.

You can find a time clock that uses almost no energy at all. These can usually be plugged in or be run on batteries. No matter which way you choose to run your time clock you will be fine and never late again! You can even place both batteries and a plug into most of these types of clocks. This is the best because the batteries serve as wonderful back up in case of a power outage.

An alarm clock is something that you need to have if you want to be able to get to work on time each day. There are all kinds of different alarm clocks for you to choose from when you need a new time clock. Some of these time clocks have large numbers that make them easy to read for everyone, even those with bad eyesight, and others will even reflect the time onto the ceiling. These are often time zone clocks as well as they will allow you to change the time zone according to where you live. They are usually automatically set by the world time clock, which means that you do not even have to set them. They simply tap into that signal out there and you are set for time.

If it is cheap time clocks that you are looking for then you will be happy to know that you will never have trouble finding them on the internet. You will be able to get all of the lowest priced time zone clocks, wall time and tide clocks, world time clocks, electronic time clocks and even time attendance clocks when you shop for them online. We live by strict time lines and we need to know that we can get where we need to be on time each day. It is the time clock that we use that will ensure that we can do this successfully day after day after day.

Even our workplaces have a time clock or two that we need to live by each day. We use employee time clocks to tell when we have checked into work and out of work. These time attendance clocks are a necessity that gets us our paycheck each month.

About the author:

Jeff King is a technologist who writes on many consumer topics. There’s more about clocks at Every Clock

Written By: Jeff King

This LED timer has many useful applications in manufacturing plants, radio & tv stations, hospitals, trade shows, military installations, science and research labs, and more!

Self-contained LED (light emitting diode) clock modules are durable and are available in many color and design options. Time format, if the point of considerations, they have different models giving different time formats of LED clock which shows splitting in formats. They are also very bright and are suitable for both indoor and outdoor use. Of course maintaining equipments or accessories are available with these equipments. These are manufactured considering the distance; therefore they give bright outdoor light, readable form and clarity also using the advanced technology.

LED technology ensures that information can be easily readable from any distance. This clock also features a battery backup circuit to keep the internal clock circuit functioning during power black-outs and times when the digital clock is unplugged to be moved to another location.

LED clocks are produced and customized in such a way that any one can program and operate these with no expertise knowledge. They can be controlled through local or remote sources. Moreover they can be controlled from anywhere, i.e. it is least concern about the location of the controlling equipment. The company is successful in giving bright result in LED clocks as well as they are energy efficient. It is possible to have your clocks customized.

Led clocks comes in variety of ranges like alarm clock, reminder clock, work limit clock, wall display, outdoor display and many like these according to the need of the industry and type of industry. Thus the style and size differ accordingly, but all in most affordable outlay.

Jayex Technology Limited, based in London specialise in advanced information display systems. Established in 1978 we have pioneered the development of the LED display market and now have over 18,000 customers worldwide. We offer, probably the largest range of models from small single line signs to big screen Megavision screens that can display live video and action replay in stadia. jayex.co.uk

Written By: Paula Jones