As I sat thinking about companies that have been making headlines for finding innovative ways to deliver orders on time, Amazon comes to mind. Many have heard the headlines about Amazon’s drone’s, its one-hour delivery service, and rapid expansion into transportation logistics. Next week at CSCMP’s 2015 Annual Conference the session It’s Still Day 1 For Amazon fulfillment is taking place. This session is being led by Dave Clark, senior vice president of world operations and customer service Amazon. Clark is going to take attendees of the session through Amazon’s journey and the future of its operations.
The logistics function offers a strategic opportunity for process improvement, cost savings, and customer satisfaction. Organizations are adopting new innovative technologies and processes that are having a substantial effect on the percentage of orders delivered on time, which impacts customer relations and the bottom line. While Amazon may be able to use drones in an effort to achieve top performance in the percentage of orders delivered on time, other organizations are also trying other methods to ensure delivery. United Parcel Services (UPS) has developed an optimal-route tool that allows the delivery service to be more efficient in these performance areas. ORION, UPS’ new on-road integrated optimization and navigation program, is an automated system that uses algorithms to devise optimal routes for its drivers and is transforming package delivery. While and organizations path to top performance may vary, benchmarking performance is a great way for organizations to see if the efforts they are putting in place are effective.
APQC’s Open Standards Benchmarking in logistics data below shows that top performing organizations have a much higher percentage of orders delivered on time and complete than organizations in the bottom quartile. In fact, top performers deliver 12 percent more completed orders on time. The chart below shows top performers with 97 percent of orders delivered on time and complete versus only 85 percent for lower performing organizations.
What new processes and technologies have your organization adopted to improve its on-time delivery? Is your organization the next Amazon or UPS?