Refining Our Warehouse Efficiency

We have a terrific story to celebrate on the blog today that involves our Receiving Manager and Facilities Manager Antonio Fuller, who is graduating through a number of phases of a very important program that is helping him problem solve in a way that enhances our company’s success. He is refining our warehouse efficiency so that we can make even greater strides in keeping our clients happy.

Refining Our Warehouse Efficiency

“It is so exciting to recognize Antonio Fuller for earning his Green Belt Certification in the Lean Six Sigma at Emory University,” says Cam Meriwether, our Vice President of Manufacturing. “For those who are not familiar with this type of training, Lean Six Sigma is a process improvement approach that teaches a student the tools and techniques needed to decrease waste, defects and variation in a company’s operational processes.” We sat down with Antonio to get his take on how the experience has changed his point of view and the excitement he feels is palpable. “This experience has given me a whole different perspective of basic organization and elimination of waste that affects everything from business to my daily life at home,” he says. “The principles can be applied to everything—from ways to organize to how to eliminate clutter in order to streamline, which will save so much money and time.”

In terms of receiving, he says it makes an impact on things as basic as the way he and his team move things from one area to the other. “When you’re aware, you see things you’d never noticed before,” he explains. “One example is how we would move a palette to one spot only to turn around and move it closer to where it was before. These extra steps took extra time so we problem-solved how to make the fewest number of moves possible because getting the products to the shelves faster means getting them to the clients sooner.” The coursework awakened Antonio to the use of visuals to communicate to his team members. “Using different charts and graphs as tools creates supporting materials I’d not been utilizing before,” he explains. “When you create a chart or a line-graph, it’s easier to share the concepts they represent because the team can visually tie it all together.”

His aim for every visual exercise is to communicate efficiency. “Our goal is to never lose a customer because we aren’t able to get a product on the shelf in a certain amount of time in order to get it to the customer as soon as possible,” he explains. “On a chart, I can plot it out step-by-step and identify the ones we don’t need.” Antonio is currently organizing meetings during which he is helping his Currey team become comfortable with the new ways of thinking. One of the shifts is about brainstorming. “I now understand that unless an issue is one that directly affects the management team or the owners, it is best not to invite them to an initial brainstorming session because if the president or a vice president is there at the beginning of a problem-solving effort, the members of the team could be intimidated and might not speak up,” he says. “I’ve now learned to only bring them in when an issue is resolved to a point that it’s appropriate for them to be there.”

Antonio celebrates that he’s had a tremendous confidence boost. “I now have basic staring tools so I can walk into a situation and always know where step one is, which I can clearly communicate to the team,” he says. “Knowing the starting point and identifying which team members need to be involved at the different steps along the way helps me map it out succinctly. This gives me such an accurate trajectory that success is almost guaranteed. We may have to tweak or fine-tune a solution but the process becomes seamless from start to finish.” We asked Antonio to share with our blog readers what the experience of learning has meant to him.

He answers, “I took on this new position at the beginning of the year and the coursework has strengthened my feelings of confidence, which convince me I will be able to succeed in a way that will be more beneficial to our customers and to our owners, and will help me build a better team.” He adds, “I am really thankful to have the opportunity to work for a company that stands behind educational opportunities. Currey makes it possible for all of us to pursue our professional aspirations—it’s been a blessing to have Currey stand behind all of us so that we can grow as people. They encourage us even when the course we want to take is outside our areas of expertise because this helps us expand our thinking.”

What’s next for this dynamic go-getter? A Lean Continuous Improvement Certificate that focuses on Value Stream mapping, which he will begin on November 1st. After that, he’ll be tackling the Black Belt level of training. “I’m looking forward to seeing more of these Lean tools in action,” Cam says. “Great job, Antonio; we appreciate the effort you are putting into this training!”