Cook & AssociatesLabor Management Consultants Talk to an expert

The right data, and only the right data.

PEP Too little detail Too much detail
More is not necessarily better, and less is often not useful.

We are labor management consultants first and software developers second. That is why PEP collects what a state-of-the-art labor management system needs, leaves out the fluff, and turns every number into something a manager can act on.

Easy-to-get data can point managers the wrong way.

Plenty of labor data is readily available. The trouble is what it hides. Each common measure blends the building, the merchandise and the methods into one number and hands it to the manager. PEP separates them.

Common data
Units per hourMoved by nine business variables. Only one of them is the employee.
Goals set from past averagesBakes yesterday’s problems into tomorrow’s target.
Scans from the WMS onlyMisses everyone who doesn’t scan, so hours go unaccounted for.
One dashboard for everyoneToo much detail for executives, too little for supervisors.
Meaningful PEP data
Productivity Index against time standardsMeasures the person, with the building’s design already built into the standard.
Standards that reflect how the work is doneLayout, equipment, systems, procedures and methods.
Every paid hour reconciled to payrollTemps and borrowed hours included.
Key indexes for each levelEvery number belongs to someone who can change it.
See it for yourself

Your building sets the standard. Your people set the score.

Two people do the same job at the same pace. One pushes the next tote two steps away on the floor. The other works on the mezzanine, where every tote means a 25-foot walk. Watch what each yardstick says about them.

Floor level

Turn, two steps, push
Totes per hour109

Time standard: 0.55 standard minutes per tote

Mezzanine

A 25-foot walk for each tote
Totes per hour80

Time standard: 0.75 standard minutes per tote

By units per hour, the mezzanine worker looks 27% slower.

A supervisor would coach the employee. A ranking would punish the employee. Neither would fix anything, because the employee isn’t the problem.

Two measures from one standard.

An industrial engineering approach uses time standards to evaluate both the system and the people working in it. The standard itself shows how well the facility and its systems are designed. Comparing the work actually done against that standard shows how well employees and managers are performing.

One building, one year. Two very different stories.

From a real distribution center’s year-to-date report. By pieces per hour, the building slipped. By PEP, it improved. The work had changed underneath: 17% more hanging garments, 42% more marking, 6% fewer pieces per carton.

Units per hour would have sent managers hunting for slow workers. PEP pointed them to the right questions about the building and the merchandise.

Pieces per hour−2%Looks like a worse year
PEP Productivity Index+8%It was a better year
The difference: work per piece rose 12%. Only time standards can see that.

Many needs compete for data. PEP serves operations.

Finance and HR need data too, and much of PEP’s data can be shared with those systems. But PEP’s focus is operating information for management, from the first-line supervisor up to the whole corporation.

The database is the foundation for everything AI will mine from it. So it has to hold the right information, and only the right information.

CorporationCompany-wide labor cost and results
FacilityBuilding performance against standard
Department managersHours, volumes and productivity by area
First-line supervisorsEach employee’s performance, every day
Finance and HR systemsReceive shared PEP data for their own reporting