In our continuing series of discussions with top supply-chain company executives, Keith Moore discusses warehouse optimization and good labor management.
Keith Moore is CEO of AutoScheduler.AI, a warehouse resource planning and optimization platform that integrates with a customer’s warehouse management system to orchestrate and optimize all activities at the site. Prior to venturing into the supply chain business, Moore was a director of product management at software startup SparkCognition. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering.
Q: Autoscheduler provides tools for warehouse orchestration—a term some readers may not be familiar with. Could you explain what warehouse orchestration means?
A: Warehouse orchestration tools are software control layers that synthesize data from existing systems to eliminate costly delays, streamline inefficient workflows, and [prevent the waste of] resources in distribution operations. These platforms empower warehouses to optimize operations, enhance productivity, and improve order accuracy by dynamically prioritizing work continuously to ensure that the operation is always running optimally. This leads to faster trailer turn times, reduced costs, and a network that runs like clockwork, even during fluctuating demands.
Q: How is orchestration different from a typical warehouse management system?
A: A warehouse management system (WMS) focuses on tracking inventory and managing warehouse operations. Warehouse orchestration goes a step further by integrating and optimizing all aspects of warehouse activities in a capacity-constrained way. Orchestration provides a dynamic, real-time layer that coordinates various systems and processes, enabling more agile and responsive operations. It enhances decision-making by considering multiple variables and constraints.
Q: How does warehouse orchestration help facilities make their workers more productive?
A: Two ways to make labor in a warehouse more productive are to work harder and to work smarter. For teams that want to work harder, most companies use a labor management system to track individual performances against an expected standard. Warehouse orchestration technology focuses on the other side of the coin, helping warehouses “work smarter.” Warehouse orchestration technology optimizes labor by providing real-time insights into workload demands and resource availability based on actual fluctuating constraints around the building. It enables dynamic task assignments based on current priorities and worker skills, ensuring that labor is allocated where it’s needed most, even accounting for equipment availability, flow constraints, and overall work speed. This approach reduces idle time, balances workloads, and enhances employee productivity.
Q: How can visibility improve operations?
A: Due to the software ecosystem in place today, most distribution operations are highly reactive environments where there is always a “hair on fire” problem that needs to be solved. By leveraging orchestration technologies, this problem is mitigated because you’re providing the site with added visibility into the past, present, and future state of the operation. This opens up a vast number of doors for distribution leadership. They go from learning about a problem after it’s happened to gaining the ability to inform customers and transportation teams about potential service issues that are 24 hours away.
