Warehouse A had it figured out in nine days. Warehouse B, with the identical setup and the same training materials, was still fighting it three months later. Same company. Same software. Different outcome.
This is the part of implementation work that gets blamed on software and almost never is.
What Warehouse A did differently on day one
The supervisor in Warehouse A did something his counterpart didn’t: he asked his team what would make the new process slower, and then he changed two things before training started.
He moved the scanning station closer to the dock doors, saving about 40 feet of walking per pallet. And he let the two fastest pickers test the sequence first, so the rest of the crew heard it from them, not from management.
Training took one day instead of three. Adoption was basically automatic, because the people doing the work had already shaped it.
Warehouse B’s quiet rebellion
In Warehouse B, the process was designed in a meeting room, printed, and handed down. Nothing was wrong with it on paper. On the floor, it added 11 seconds per pick and required walking back and forth across the aisle.
What happened next is predictable. People kept a paper list in their pocket and entered transactions in batches at the end of the shift. The system was “live.” The data was fiction. Error rates on inventory went up 18%.
Nobody was being difficult. People don’t resist new systems; they resist processes that make their day harder.
What we did when we came back
- Spent a full shift watching, not talking. Two observers, one aisle, no clipboards.
- Asked the crew to name the top three annoyances. They named five in under ten minutes.
- Changed the pick sequence and moved one printer. Total cost: about $400.
- Gave the crew a scoreboard they could see — picks per hour and error rate, updated daily.
- Made two experienced pickers the go-to people for questions, with a small pay differential.
Six weeks later, Warehouse B matched Warehouse A on accuracy and beat it on throughput. The change had nothing to do with configuration and everything to do with who got to have an opinion.
Any ERP Consulting effort that treats floor staff as an audience instead of a design team is planning to lose six months. Budget the observation time. It’s the cheapest insurance you’ll ever buy.
Before your next rollout, spend one shift standing next to the people doing the work, saying nothing. You’ll redesign half the process before lunch.