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 Examining the Realities: An Analysis of Today’s Call Center Metrics
By: By Brian Galvin
Contact centers are data-rich environments, with detailed information available from a multitude of systems on every minute step of each interaction’s progress. In fact, the vast quantity of available data is one of the industry’s key challenges, since it is often quite difficult to link the various data elements together to get a coherent picture of how well centers are being managed. ...
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UPS' Eskew Letter: Don't Blame Us
In a letter obtained by the O+F Advisor, United Parcel Service (UPS) chairman/CEO Michael L. Eskew says his organization is being incorrectly depicted as the villain in the postal reform issue. ...
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WERC Salary Survey: VP Logistics is Tops
If you're a vice president of logistics, chances are you're walking around with a few more dollars in your pocket than your counterparts, at least according to 2006 Warehousing Sales and Wages guide from the Warehousing and Education Research Council. ...
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President Signs SAFE bill into Law
As expected, President Bush signed the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act (SAFE) into law on Oct. 13. Congress passed the legislation on Sept. 30, by a vote of 409 to 2 in the House of Representatives. In May, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to pass H.R. 4954, the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act. ...
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5 Steps to Shape-Based Postage Compliance
By: by Bob Makofsky
You've probably heard that the U.S. Postal Service has filed to raise rates again in May 2007. But the proposed rates follow a more complex pricing structure than the flat 5.4% increase implemented last January. For the first time, the rate structure will rely on shape, as well as weight. ...
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Thinking of Relocating Your DC? Consider These 5 Factors
By: By Curt Barry
Is your distribution center cramped? Or do you think you might save substantially on your outbound shipping costs by moving into a DC? A warehouse relocation may be just the thing for you. But before you go breaking ground or signing lease papers there are factors worthy of consideration: inbound transportation costs; labor cost, availability and peak staffing needs; facilities costs; state and local government incentives; and risk evaluation to your business. Marketers must evaluate all these factors to see how they impact the total savings or costs for the potential move....
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Securing Global Supply Chains: Seven Reasons Why "Getting It Done" Is So Hard
By: By Ralph Welborn and Vince Kasten
We all know that a company's global supply chain is a potent strategic weapon, economically speaking. Unfortunately, it can also be a potentially fatal area of vulnerability. Consider the hundreds of millions of shipping containers that move among the world's seaports--about 80% of the world's cargo, which adds up to 5.8 billion tons per year--and you can see that there is a lot of room for error. ...
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Ay Carrumba! Eleventh-Hour Debate Over Parcel Rates Could Kill Postal Reform
By: By Mark Del Franco
As the House and the Senate mull the merits of enacting postal reform, it appears that 11th-hour lobbying efforts brought by private-sector package delivery firms over parcel rates could threaten postal reform, according to Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president of government affairs for the Direct Marketing Association in Washington....
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Lake Champlain Chocolates Moving to Greener Pastures
By: By Mark Del Franco
Lake Champlain Chocolates in October is moving its packaging, warehousing, and shipping divisions into a building down the street from its Burlington, VT, headquarters. Not only is the new 47,000 sq. ft.- location more than double the size of its old distribution center, it's also a whole lot greener....
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Flight Simulators for Contact Centers
By: By Kathryn Jackson
Recently I asked several contact center managers, "How prepared are your agents to handle the job immediately following initial training?” The answers ranged from “barely” to “more than 60%.” Many managers said there was no way to prepare them adequately: Agents simply have to get on the phone and experience what it is like. ...
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Four Steps to Internal Benchmarking
By: By Kate Vitasek
Benchmarking is the process of drawing meaningful comparisons between a company’s performance and the performance of identified best practices. For many companies, these known best practices can become a beacon for continuous improvement, pointing employees to better ways to get things done. ...
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The Skinny on “Amputated” Coaching
By: By Kathryn Jackson
You may already know where your coaching gaps are in the contact center. If you don’t, there’s a good chance they are either between performance feedback and educating or between educating and modeling, since these are the most commonly recognized gaps in contact centers. We call these gaps stage-one and stage-two amputations. ...
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Separate but Equal: Warehouse and Labor Management Systems
By: By Don Cook
Recent advances in warehouse management systems (WMS) and time and attendance (T&A) systems provide many benefits in inventory control, distribution operations, and personnel administration. They also provide an opportunity to obtain files that you can use to comply with certain labor management requirements. But though labor management is a key means of cutting costs and improving service, it is usually given a low priority during implementation of WMS and T&A systems. ...
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The Ins and Outs of Conveyor-Based Zone Picking
By: By Sam Flanders
Conveyor-based zone picking can dramatically improve operational performance in certain situations. It works by separating an order into two or more distinct picking zones and having the conveyor control system determine what zones the order needs to visit. It is most often used with a shipping carton or tote, traveling on a conveyor system. ...
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WMS by the Numbers
By: By Rene Jones
Warehouses are built around numbers —the facility’s square footage, how many rows of racking it takes to stock the number of SKUs, the amount of orders processed through a facility in a day. In their marketing materials, warehouse management system (WMS) providers discuss all sorts of numbers. But there are other numbers that you won’t see in their marketing brochures or advertisements that you should nonetheless keep in mind before buying and implementing a system. ...
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Are You Outsourcing?
By: By Debra Ellis
The debate over international outsourcing is passionate. With protectionists and free trade advocates drawing battle lines. Isn’t ironic that neither side ever mentions domestic outsourcing to customers? Since the 1970s, when consumers gladly pumped their own gas to save a few pennies, companies have been outsourcing service positions to their customers. The proliferation of e-commerce has contributed to a significant reduction of service positions in established corporations. ...
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Customize Dashboards for Individual Needs
By: By Sam Flanders
You should create multiple "dashboards" in your facility, signs or screens each customized with metrics and information for a particular audience. Senior management will be most interested in getting a view of how the entire facility is doing....
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Nordstrom To Expand Cedar Rapids DC
Seattle-based cataloger/retailer Nordstrom said on Aug. 29, it plans to expand its Cedar Rapids, IA-based fulfillment and contact centers. The expansion will coincide with the company's updating of its direct business' inventory systems. ...
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IT Budgets to Grow Over Security Concerns
Marketers are expected to show IT budget and capital expenditure growth in 2006, according to the third annual Retail IT Budgeting Study conducted by the National Retail Federation and AMR Research. ...
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