Logistics and Distribution Training

Keep Information Flowing

One of the key things to efficient logistical flow is information. Information includes location of raw materials for products, what the raw materials are, and plans for acquiring it to keep product supply healthy and flowing. Since logistics is chiefly concerned with planning and informational flow, members of the logistics team have to keep a careful eye on the physical supply of raw materials and products they have in their warehouses, and calculate what they need to meet the demand for both. This factors into their planning for where they can get their supply of raw materials, and how they’re going to get it. When these materials are available is also important, so they can time their stock planning and warehousing effectively. For example, if a company’s main product is fried chicken, their raw material is chicken meat, which they must accrue from a butcher or a slaughterhouse. Which butcher and slaughterhouse they acquire it from, how much of it, storage location and conditions, and other specific details about what they need are all factors in the logistical planning. Training in the skill of taking inventory of stock in raw material and finished product supply is key to basic logistical training. Programming and maintaining automated inventory systems is also a skill that may be trained, in which you familiarise your logistics team with how to work that particular computer system, and how to read and process information from it.

Follow the Seven R’s

The seven R’s are primary principles in logistics training and execution. The seven R’s are as follows: getting the right product, to the right client, in the right quantity, in the right condition, at the right place, right time, and right cost. Training your logistics members in this is fairly simple; they need to be familiar with the process of accounting for the information asked for by these seven R’s. Drilling them through situations where they must deliver something is good practice.   They are well-trained to know exactly who is buying the product, what the product is, how much of it was ordered, when and where it must be delivered, how much it will cost the customer, and how to ensure its quality and quantity before it makes it to the customer. These seven R’s are the cornerstone to effective logistics, and all logistics team members must be familiar with this basic process, if nothing else.

Build a Healthy Supply Chain

Logistics is concerned with internal planning and execution, but distribution is the physical execution of these plans. Effective distribution is always present in a working supply chain, which is divided into two parts; inbound and outbound logistics. Inbound logistics is concerned with how to get raw materials from suppliers to your warehouses and to processing, while outbound logistics is how these finished products are brought from the company to the customer. Train your logistics team to keep a careful eye on the various parts of the supply chain from the beginning of the process to the end. It starts with the supplier giving the company raw material to work with, bringing it to the company, processing the raw material, delivering it to the customer, and receiving due payment. They must be familiar with these five parts of the supply chain, how they affect each other, and what happens if any one of these makes a mistake. Hands-on experience in watching and trying to solve these mistakes is helpful; watch a mistake unfold, and discover its origin in order to be able to solve it. For example, a customer is dissatisfied with the product’s quality. A logistics team member may guess that it is because the product was processed poorly, resulting in a bad quality product, but blame cannot fall alone on their processing, because their delivery logistics at customer service did not check the product before it was distributed to the customer. They may then work on training customer service to check quality before delivering, while some others bring the poor processing to the attention of the manager. Keeping your supply chain healthy and functioning means happier customers, and happier customers means more resources to keep your supply chain going. We develop this area with participants to help them build a healthy supply chain.