There are not many areas within a company, especially in manufacturing companies, that are so strongly influenced by the question of an adapted staff deployment for the materials management. Is it really always so good to only focus on the costs, or can't you maybe even achieve new potentials?
At this point, however, it should also be pointed out once again that the staff intensity depends in particular on the degree of automation in materials management, but we are already dedicating ourselves to this topic here.
Being able to automate is fundamentally strategic and involves long decision cycles, which also take place over much longer periods of time. But what about your operative logistics if you just can't wait 5 to 10 years? The answers can only be found in optimizing your logistics today and using the potentials that are already available to you.
On one hand, the focus is on the general optimization of logistics processes, but adequate and productivity-oriented staff deployment planning is one of the most important components of this process anyway. However, as the title of this post already reveals, we are always concerned with understanding our costs correctly. With this in mind, it is important - as shown in the following diagram - to have analyzed and recorded every process times in detail.
This also means that fixed staff costs can't really be helped in the first place but you also shouldn't get fooled by this misconception. Here you should ask yourself one question: Do I have full transparency in all areas of my materials management and can I say in which areas the productivity is above or below ~ 90%? Then you should at least have a tangible answer.
For the control and staffing of our materials management, it is essential to be able to answer Yes to the question just asked above. It is precisely this knowledge of our processes that makes it possible for us to control the interactions between our departments in such a way that we can achieve ideal productivity. Moreover, this also means that capacities between departments can be transferable. Reconsidering the way you view your staff costs literally can turn your fixed costs into opportunities that'll result in an increase of your overall productivity.
I hope I got you interested in this topic and if so, I have a few last words: If you want to know more about the fundamental possibilities to increase your productivity, you can take a deeper look at this topic that's discussed at the following page which also provide a corresponding case study - just stop by !