Don’t let pests hitch a ride into your facility

The changing fall colors don’t just signal the coming of winter. In the supply chain industry, fall also means pests will be seeking shelter in your facilities. Among these pests are psocids, which are tiny insects that eat mold and mildew and love damp environments.

Often these hard-to-see pests will hitch a ride into production areas and distribution centers on pallets. However, a few simple steps can help supply chain professionals prevent them from entering facilities.

• Never store pallets outside. Leaving pallets out in the elements creates the perfect environment for psocids.
• Always use dry pallets. Again, dampness is the enemy. Bring damp pallets into your facility and you’ve opened your doors to psocids. Send product out the door on damp pallets and you are extending their domain into the supply chain, leaving them free to roam inside trailers and the warehouses receiving your product. Don’t do it.
• Inspect trailers before receiving product. Remember, a food safety plan is only as strong as its weakest link. Even the cleanest facility is under threat when something enters. Make sure to inspect shipments and trailers before receiving product. Reject anything that looks suspect.
• Training. Staff should know exactly what they are looking for when receiving product. Implement a set training plan and solid SOPs to provide staff with the tools to keep pests out of your facility and supply chain. Don’t forget to test them periodically to ensure SOPs are being followed.

If you are interested in learning how to properly inspect for Psocid bugs, there are three simple videos linked below. These videos will show you how to inspect pallets and what a Psocid looks like. The key to avoiding these pests is controlling the source of your pallets, making sure the wood is fully dried in the pallet construction process, and never using a pallet that has been stored outside. Please note that Psocids, though important to control, are not harmful to food products. 

Psocid Inspection
Psocid Inspection Part 2
Identifying a Psocid With a Flashlight 

Time for a visit from the supply chain doctor?

Here’s a revelation: your company has supply chain inefficiencies. And guess what? Correcting some of these inefficiencies could bring substantial savings, while improving logistics performance. The problem is how to uncover these issues and prioritize which ones to address.

Think of it like visiting a doctor. You can wait until you have an ache or pain, or in this case “pains” such as costly overtime or increased transportation costs. A more proactive approach, however, entails visiting the doctor’s office for regular health checkups. Your doctor can highlight areas to work on to improve overall health, but most importantly, head off major issues later on.

This is the role a supply chain consultant can perform for your company. Their “health check” will focus on key decision-making levels – strategic, tactical, and operational.

Strategic can look at things like:

• Network optimization
• Facility Layout
• Space utilization
• Pick/pack strategy 

Tactical includes:

• Ship-to alignment
• Safety stock analysis
• Mode conversion
• Racking configurations

Operational touches on:

• Carrier and mode selection
• Transit time analysis
• Metrics and reporting
• SOP creation

What companies will receive following a consultant’s visit is a roadmap to improving the health of their supply chain. The best logistics consultants will not only identify areas of improvement, but prioritize them and provide an ROI calculation. Companies then can enlist the services of a supply chain professional to swiftly correct high-priority inefficiencies.

It’s a simple fact that you can’t fix what you can’t measure. Enlisting the help of a supply chain consultant will not only help identify problems and corrective actions, but they also can assist with developing metrics to measure performance moving forward. The end result is a healthier supply chain.

Protecting Your Inventory from Unwanted “Consumers”

Pest control. It’s a topic you simply can’t ignore when selecting a warehouse or 3PL partner. Whether it flies, crawls, or burrows, pests are a constant threat, especially to facilities storing food-grade products. Without the proper procedures in place, this can mean big problems for your stored product.

Before trusting your inventory to a warehousing provider, ask the questions below to ensure that your products are in good hands.

• What inspections take place around pest control? It is important to work with a facility that goes beyond regular checks on interior and exterior traps. Make sure the actual product is being examined, as well as the tops and sides of pallets, for any pest activity. Some facilities will take extra measures, such as using pheromone traps, to make sure nothing was missed during regular inspections.
• How often are the inspections conducted? A reputable warehouse will have a pest control professional visit at least once a week. Additionally, the warehouse itself should have staff perform detailed inspections during inbound, outbound, and storage processes to ensure product is pest-free at all stages.
• What is the audit process to ensure their pest control vendor is doing their job? Make sure that your warehousing provider does random checks on traps, pallets, etc. directly following an inspection by their vendor. This will reveal if the vendor is doing a thorough job.
• What is the corrective action when pests or pest evidence is found?  Corrective actions are all dependent on the situation. Give a potential warehousing provider a pest related scenario and confirm they can provide a suitable plan of action. 
• How are live insects handled when found? In the event that live insects are found, your warehousing provider should have their pest management company come in to do fumigation or fogging upon your approval. 

Five Mistakes to Avoid When Selecting Material Handling Equipment

Selecting the right material handling equipment (MHE) is often overshadowed by the hundreds of other decisions that come with opening a new warehousing facility. However, selecting the wrong number or type of equipment for the operation can be costly for companies.

Before selecting MHE, companies should do a thorough investigation of their current and future business needs, while avoiding the five mistakes outlined below.

1. Not properly thinking through specs. Do a deep dive of your operational requirements to ensure you are covered for all handling types, especially the infrequent ones. For example, you might miss the fact that a small portion of loads come in shipping containers, and require MHE with a shorter mast to safely enter and exit the container. 
2. Not foreseeing business changes. Study possible developments in your company’s future to ensure proper MHE selection. You might choose to structure a 60-month lease for 20 pieces of equipment, and then find out the next year that volumes are dropping and you only need 15 pieces of equipment.
3. Not building flexibility into a fleet. MHE selections sometimes are based on a company’s current handling needs, but what if next year you take on new business or add new products that the MHE you selected can’t handle? Now you are stuck buying more equipment, resulting in a fleet of underutilized equipment.
4. Not planning properly for battery charging. Companies often focus on the trucks themselves and overlook other requirements to support MHE. For example, companies that select electric equipment must think about proper sizing and setup of a battery charging area. They also need a water source nearby for eye wash and battery watering needs, and it’s imperative that the building has adequate electrical service to handle the quantity and type of battery chargers. 
5. Not negotiating a preventative maintenance agreement. Understanding what is and isn’t included in your maintenance agreement is essential. Companies opting for a fixed maintenance package may overlook expenses that go beyond the fixed monthly rates, such as tires and other wearable items. Having a good understanding of all maintenance expenses enables managers to better predict total operating costs.