Order Fulfillment

Create a capability to respond quickly and to provide greater value to your customers.

A lean factory floor produces quality products quickly, but it does not ensure that customers will get those products when they need them. Order fulfillment is the critical link in the value chain that allows you to provide greater value by responding quickly to customer demand.

Lean order fulfillment improves the efficiency of order entry and processing, warehouse design and operations, packaging, the distribution network and logistics management. This means addressing how orders are received and processed, how product is stored, picked and shipped your customer-facing points (e.g. distribution centers).

Benefits of Lean Order Fulfillment

Pain Indicators	Benefits of Lean Order Fulfillment
Frequent out-of-stocks Obsolete or excess inventory Disorder created by order fluctuations - size and frequency High, fluctuating logistics cost	Improved customer service Improved product availability Reduced lead times (order to cash) Improved quality Lower inventory requirements Lower distribution costs

Case Example: Sargent Streamlines Order Entry Process

In an example of lean order-entry, SARGENT, an ASSA ABLOY Group brand, redesigned its order-entry process to improve flow by creating standard work. The new process reduced the number of steps from 63 (more than it took to make the product!) to 14, dropped the number of handoffs from eight to three, and reduced overtime from 25 hours a week to zero.