
Ken Ackerman
Ken Ackerman has been active in logistics and warehousing management for his entire career. He is editor and publisher of Warehousing Forum, a monthly subscription newsletter. Since 2007, he has also been a group chair for Vistage International, the world’s leading chief executive organization. Before entering the consulting field, he was chief executive of Distribution Centers, Inc., a public warehousing company that is now part of Exel Logistics USA. In 1980, Ackerman sold the company and joined the management consulting division of Coopers & Lybrand. Later, he formed the Ackerman Company, a management advisory service. You can reach Ken atArticles by Ken Ackerman
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Disruptive innovation: The new normal in warehouse management
The phrase "disruptive innovation" was invented by Clayton M. Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business…
Tuesday, October 03, 2017 -
Defining the role of warehouse supervisor
Most people want to do a good job every day, and warehouse workers are no exception. However, management…
Tuesday, March 14, 2017 -
Understanding the costs of warehousing
All companies with warehouses incur the same elements of cost, but they compile them differently.…
Tuesday, January 17, 2017 -
The search for a perfect unit load
It is an established fact that the cost per pound to move materials will decrease as the size of the…
Tuesday, November 08, 2016 -
The DuPont model’s impact on LSPs and distributors
At the end of World War I, a venerable chemical company in Delaware purchased about one quarter of…
Tuesday, October 04, 2016 -
Finding a blue ocean in the warehouse
"Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant," a book…
Tuesday, September 06, 2016 -
Seeking a profit island in the warehouse
Many buyers of logistics services regard their vendors as purveyors of commodities. While providers tend…
Wednesday, August 03, 2016 -
How warehouses can avoid the contract trap
Until a few decades ago, agreements between logistics service providers and their customers were seldom…
Tuesday, July 19, 2016 -
Succession planning in the warehouse
Succession planning is the development of a formal program to provide timely replacement for every key…
Tuesday, July 05, 2016 -
Can the alliance proposition work in managing warehouses?
One of the greatest misunderstandings in business is the illusion that employment is permanent. Few…
Tuesday, June 28, 2016 -
Disengagement: Your greatest threat in the warehouse
Senior management in the warehousing industry has every reason to worry about the many external challenges.…
Wednesday, June 15, 2016 -
Slimming down to a lean warehouse
Some say "lean" was the biggest management idea of the past 50 years. If that is true, the concept…
Tuesday, May 24, 2016 -
Connecting the disadvantaged with warehousing opportunities
Decades ago, warehouse managers discovered that people with certain disabilities could perform some kinds…
Tuesday, May 10, 2016 -
Using a performance scorecard to measure your warehouse
When you embark on a project to measure warehouse performance, the first step should be to ask why you…
Tuesday, April 19, 2016 -
Is your warehouse truly agile?
Two key words dominate the field of logistics: Lean and agile. Lean warehousing has been the subject…
Tuesday, March 29, 2016 -
Why should you audit your warehouse?
When it comes to auditing the warehouse, most of our attention focuses on "how to," but underlying…
Tuesday, March 15, 2016 -
Risk management for the warehouse operator
Warehousing always has been a risky business. In our present-day global economy, the risks are more…
Tuesday, March 01, 2016 -
Chance vs. execution in business decisions
Much of the stress of 21st-century corporate life is generated by the decision-making process. Warehousing…
Tuesday, February 16, 2016 -
Achieving excellence in warehousing
The emphasis of warehousing should go beyond cost-cutting to creating increased value for customers…
Tuesday, February 02, 2016 -
The differences between B2B and B2C warehousing
Perhaps there was a time when warehousing was almost entirely "business to business," or B2B. Today,…
Tuesday, January 19, 2016 -
What is your company’s culture?
Every organization has a corporate culture, defined by Harvard professor James L. Heskett as "the way…
Tuesday, January 12, 2016 -
Why and how to prepare a warehouse operations manual
It is possible to operate a warehouse in the absence of written procedures or a manual, and we have seen…
Monday, December 14, 2015 -
Strategy, connectivity and measurement in warehousing
If there once was a time when executives considered a strategic plan as a sacred document that is…
Tuesday, December 01, 2015 -
Finding and keeping the right talent in the logistics industry
In most metropolitan areas of the U.S. today, the unemployment rate is lower than it has been for…
Tuesday, November 17, 2015 -
Practicing Pareto practically in the warehouse
One of the most useful rules in warehousing, as well as many other commercial activities, is called the…
Wednesday, October 28, 2015 -
Justifying the cost of warehouse improvement
Have you ever had difficulty obtaining approval of capital investments for your warehouse? Many warehouse…
Tuesday, October 13, 2015 -
Pricing for profit in warehousing
Many logistics firms experience both cost pressures and price pressure. Most logistics executives believe…
Wednesday, October 07, 2015 -
Does your warehouse cut costs or add value?
As a warehouse manager, is it your job to cut costs or to add value? You might answer that you do…
Tuesday, September 01, 2015 -
Driver shortage: What warehouse managers should do
For more than two years now, we have seen a growing discussion about the driver shortage problem,…
Tuesday, August 11, 2015 -
Unions pose a continuing threat to warehouses
The inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009 gave the U.S. its most union-friendly president since Harry…
Tuesday, July 28, 2015 -
In turbulent times, Drucker’s advice still rings true
Peter Drucker, a world renowned pioneer in management theory, died in 2005 at the age of 95. Yet his…
Tuesday, July 14, 2015 -
Marketing your warehouse magic
Some managers believe warehousing is a task that can be handled adequately by anyone with a strong back.…
Tuesday, July 07, 2015 -
Freight brokerage: What the warehouse manager needs to know
A freight broker is a company or individual who serves as a liaison between a buyer of transportation…
Tuesday, June 16, 2015 -
Finding metrics that mean something in the warehouse
"You cannot manage what you cannot measure," yet the majority of warehouses we inspect have either no…
Tuesday, June 02, 2015 -
Don’t forget the service aspect of warehousing
Because warehousing is essentially a service business, the nurturing of relationships is at the heart…
Tuesday, May 19, 2015 -
A warehouse manual on manual handling
For thousands of years, humans have handled cargo manually. Visitors who see ancient structures in…
Tuesday, May 05, 2015 -
Mastering the basics of leading warehouse people
In the warehouse, it is not uncommon for an outstanding forklift operator to be promoted into management.…
Tuesday, April 14, 2015 -
Making your warehouse more effective
So much has been written on the subject of warehouse productivity improvement that one is tempted…
Tuesday, March 31, 2015 -
Ethics in logistics come down to a matter of trust
Whether business ethics are improving or declining is a question that is highly debatable. Whether…
Tuesday, March 24, 2015 -
The critical importance of sequence in warehouses
One aspect of warehousing that is readily overlooked is the order in which tasks are performed. In…
Tuesday, March 03, 2015 -
Better ideas for warehouse construction
A quiet revolution has been growing in the construction of warehouse buildings. While the price of other…
Tuesday, February 17, 2015 -
Basics of benchmarking for warehouse operations
Just what is benchmarking? When, why and how might it be used? When should it be not even considered?…
Tuesday, February 10, 2015 -
How to wreck a warehousing business
Compared to most businesses, the distribution industry is reasonably stable. New enterprises frequently…
Tuesday, February 03, 2015 -
Employing a staffing service at your warehouse
Using staffing-service employees is one way to hedge the risk that warehouse employers will be sanctioned…
Tuesday, January 27, 2015 -
Building and keeping a great warehouse team
Nearly every appraiser of warehousing quality agrees that the most critical element in a successful…
Wednesday, January 07, 2015 -
When is a warehouse obsolete?
When does a building have no current value as a storage or distribution facility? Let's look at an…
Tuesday, December 09, 2014 -
Do warehouses still need 8-hour work shifts?
Not long ago, the typical warehouse operated eight hours per day and five days per week. That was a normal…
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 -
Self-directed work teams in the warehouse
Groups of people working together in a warehouse have typically been called a crew, a shift or a workforce.…
Tuesday, November 11, 2014 -
Designing tomorrow’s distribution centers today
At a time when the warehousing industry is relatively prosperous, it is natural for operators to be working…
Tuesday, October 28, 2014 -
Management by asking good questions
The concept of "management by wandering around," or MBWA, was created by David Packard of Hewlett-Packard.…
Tuesday, September 30, 2014 -
The critical importance of warehouse floors
The single most important element of warehouse construction is the quality of the floor. As stacking…
Tuesday, September 16, 2014 -
Pitfalls in logistics partnerships
Four decades have passed since a logistics magazine published an article about how the relationship…
Tuesday, September 02, 2014 -
Make quality an important part of your warehouse
The process of recognizing quality has been applied for many decades. Quality is the result of eliminating…
Tuesday, August 19, 2014 -
Managing the inventory in your warehouse
There is a difference between inventory management and inventory control. Every warehouse manager…
Tuesday, August 05, 2014 -
Why warehouse operators need a strategy
Your people — especially your senior management team — will be motivated if they understand where…
Tuesday, July 22, 2014 -
Developing dashboards: The right data for warehouse managers
Like the dashboard on your car, your business system should be designed to provide the essential information…
Tuesday, July 08, 2014 -
Improve your warehouse by using what you already have
The process of warehousing is essentially a management of space and time. Before we spend excessive…
Tuesday, June 24, 2014 -
Warehousing and transportation: Creating a perfect marriage
The value of a foot of space in a trailer, boxcar or plane is always higher than the value of a foot…
Tuesday, June 10, 2014 -
Maintaining a productive relationship in the supply chain
Two of the dirtiest words in supply chain management are commoditization and disintermediation. In fact,…
Tuesday, May 27, 2014 -
Automation and innovation in the warehouse
Full automation of materials handling in a warehouse exists only in the imagination of the technocrat.…
Monday, May 12, 2014 -
Don’t overlook the human element of systems implementation
Nearly all of the emphasis on implementation of warehouse management systems (WMS) and other software…
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 -
Why you need to develop a storage strategy
A surprising number of warehouse operators do no storage planning at all. In the absence of any instruction,…
Tuesday, April 15, 2014 -
Why you should view warehousing as real estate
It is not surprising that real estate and warehousing go together like ham and eggs. Yet, despite…
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
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