Issue 134 - Control Causes of "Human Error"

I hope you all benefited from the short break we took from order fulfillment accuracy to touch on the heavy costs of product recalls. For those of you who have been keeping count we've addressed 74% of the common order fulfillment error causes. Out of the remaining 26% we'll look at the 8% attributed to "Human Error" in the cutting/picking/packing process this week. Since the majority of food distributors deal with some catch weight product it won't surprise you that 12% of the errors come from the invoice generation process which includes capturing, calculating, and entering the catch weights which we will discuss next week along with the "triple check system". To wrap up our topic we'll look at loading and unloading the trucks which finishes out the remaining 6% of common errors.

Picking With the Right People

Let me repeat what I said in the introduction…Only 8% of the errors in the entire process are Picking, Cutting or Assembly "Human Error". These are errors that are purely the picker/packer/cutter making an unprovoked mistake. This number may seem low, but remember that we have already reviewed and found ways to improve poor stock conditions and pick ticket problems which cause up to 59% of the errors in a warehouse. Companies that do not monitor these actions individually often place the total (67%) of the errors in one category as "Picking Errors" and struggle with improving.

Eight Percent is still a noticeable portion of the problem, and now that we know this improvement is based on improving the performance of the employee we can focus on making changes to reach our accuracy goals.

You've trained your employees…your cutters know how to cut, your pickers know how to pick, and your packers know how to pack. But they're still making mistakes! Where in the world are these errors coming from? According to The Accuracy Book by David Piasecki there are two classes of Errors. A Lack of Knowledge, or a Lack of Focus.

Examples of Errors caused by a lack of Knowledge Include:

An employee doesn't understand unit-of-measure conversions and subsequently counts eaches as cases.
An employee doesn't realize that the item he is handling is actually a kit.
An employee doesn't realize that when he picks item #xxx he must check the extended description for extra specifications.

Examples of errors caused by lack of focus Include:

Picking the wrong quantity of a item.
Picking the wrong item.
Missing a line item on an order.
Misplacing or mispacking an item.
Bad Cuts or Below Standard Assembly.

We've address many of the lack of knowledge topics by taking advantage of an distribution software package that will accurately describe cases, eaches, kits and custom item specifications. This significantly reduces the product knowledge and training burden for individual employees. In fact working with the breakdown we have only 2% of errors will come from product knowledge errors. Combating this knowledge error percentage is a matter of increasing the training available to your employees and providing them incentives to gain competency regarding the products and stay with the company. We discussed ways to incentivize and retain employees in articles 53 and 76.

This leaves us focusing primarily on Errors caused by a lack of focus, which represent 6% of the errors coming through your warehouse. Let's take a look at some of the things that can contribute to a Lack of Focus Error.

Environmental Distractions – Machine Noise, People talking, two radios on different stations, and something spilled so the floor is slick, not to mention it's 95 degrees on the floor and 0 in here, hope the fog on my glasses clear before I get to the product. Just counting to ten can be a headache, matching an 8 digit item number is even worse.

Take some time to review the warehouse environment, we've discussed the benefits of temperature controlled environments in the past, but also take the time to consider the effects of machine noise, and light changes on your pickers
When designing your picking routes consider if you are frequently having pickers go from a bright area (such as an open air dock or loading area) to a comparatively dim picking area, or if you frequently have them entering and exiting refrigerated areas. By using a batch picking process to collect these items you give the pickers time to adjust to the environment they will be working in.
Areas that have heavy machine noise or vibration should when possible be used for lower volume items, if pickers must work frequently in noisy areas and it would not impair their ability to function consider noise canceling headwear to reduce the distraction.

Physical Distractions – 34,35,36, boy my shoulders are killing me, 38, 39, 40 …89, 90, 91, alright 15 second break before my fingers fall off, what was I at…90, 91, 92

Consider the physical and mental strain being put on your employees. Be sure that the procedures in place have natural break points. Also review workstations to be sure that the work flow you establish does not encourage repetitive motion injuries. Omaha Steaks significantly increased its order accuracy by redesigning its workstation. Previously workers had to stretch to reach literature that was included in each package, now there is less strain, less distraction, less errors, and less injuries.
It is important to also review how frequently a employee is interrupted, whether this is to move to the side to let another picker through, to break open a new case, or to answer a question. Each of these physical interruptions is another chance for the picker to lose count, misplace a pick label, or turn back and grab the wrong item from the shelf or to miscut or mis assemble a piece. We discussed warehouse arrangement and pick style options in articles 96 and 44 which should take into consideration how many times employees "cross paths".

Motivation and Emotional State – I can't believe we're losing to those bums, what was the quarterback thinking, and have they ever heard of defense? Have to blow through this quick so I can get back out and hear the score.

Your employees need to understand how important order accuracy is to the company, how it is measured, and how they can benefit. Better accuracy means fewer corrections, which means less hassles, fewer rush jobs, and smoother work flow. You may wish to include order accuracy measurements in any incentive programs you develop. We discussed an incentive idea in article 46 that could easily be fitted to order fulfillment accuracy.

Rushing – Truck has got to be gone in 10 minutes, order didn't get here till 5 minutes ago, how am I going to do this?

The faster people move, the more mistakes they make. Unfortunately in the world of distribution and processing "slowing down" just isn't an option. The solution here is to make sure every process is as lean as possible, that your warehouse layout is ideal for your work flow, and that you monitor, revisit and revise the work flow and layout as the market changes.

Thinking inside the box:

Our sample company:
$2.5 million in revenue
15 Orders Per Day
10 Line Items Per Order
Losing $26,325 Correcting Mistakes

Human Error In Picking and Cutting and Assembly.

Remaining Product Knowledge Based Errors:
7 Errors costing $525

Errors due to Lack of Focus:
21 Errors costing $1,580

$2105 Total Cost of Human Error
x 50% Average Improvement

$1,052 in Savings by reviewing warehouse conditions and picking route order.

Our Progress So Far:

Savings Goal: $26,000
Saved so Far: $15,900
$4000 in improved stocking
$2600 in improved order entry
$8250 in improved picking labels
$1050 in eliminated human errors

Studies by Professor Alan Hedge of Cornell University and R.S. Bridges indicate that the number of Human Errors is reduced by 40% to 60% when an employee is working in an ergonomic and reduced distraction environment. We're going to split the difference and say we get a 50% improvement from our sample company workers by reviewing our warehouse setup and revising our batch pick routes. We also sped up the turn around time between taking an order and giving the pickers and cutters tickets significantly (the sample company was writing it all by hand when we started this experiment) so the pickers will have more time to get the work done reducing the errors due to rushing.

Next week we'll be reviewing the Triple Check System, and the very common mistake that prevents it from working properly.

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