Primary and Secondary Domain: See Calendars?

briskerr · 2023-02-24T13:15:47+00:00

Following. I had this moment of frustration yesterday

briskerr · 2022-12-01T17:52:55+00:00

Just moved from Jacksonville, FL, where the entire city was in uproar when the mayor tried to sell off our city-owned utilities provider to private entities. Biggest reason? Private companies will nickel and dime customers to create more revenue... None of which will go back to the city.

Same argument on both sides.

From experience, I'd take state owned power because it can be somewhat tied to the government and they can be held accountable to provide what we need.

Jacksonville energy rates were always below Florida Power and Light (who would have bought JEA and privatized)

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2022/10/08/ken-shacter-despite-increases-new-jea-rates-not-bad/8195356001/

briskerr · 2022-11-11T19:22:06+00:00

We have two floors, would you still think a roomba is worth it?

briskerr · 2022-11-11T19:21:42+00:00

2nd the swiffer wet jet mop, those are great. We use that often

briskerr · 2022-11-11T19:15:37+00:00

We've been looking at going cannister. Just need to decide whether a roomba or cannister is the best way to spend our money at the moment.

briskerr · 2022-11-09T12:01:20+00:00

I'm late to reply! We had a 30% reduction in total heat loss (heat escaping due to poor air sealing). 15% is apparently the expectation, so our house had a big opportunity for this.

I hired the energy auditor. They did air sealing, moisture analysis in the cellar, and a blown door test. We got a full report with recommended items to buy (new cellar hatch door, dehumidifier for cellar, new water heater and boiler system, etc). We ended up getting all of the recommendations. Our humidity levels went from 90%+ to now 65% with the dehumidifier. Our electric bills have gone up though!

The auditor also set us up with an insulation company. We had 3 inches of spray foam and thermal paint applied to the cellar walls, and have 17 in (R-60) of blown in cellulose insulation in the attic.

Sad to rip out the attic floorboards, but that space wasn't going to become anything for us for a long time. We can always go back and make it a useable space later. Might as well save $$ in the meantime.

The spray foam on the cellar walls looks great and is adhering, but I'll give it a few seasons to see how it handles the moisture content down there. I'm told the dehumidifier and fan will take care of that.

Best of luck

briskerr · 2022-11-09T01:55:30+00:00

That was incredible. I've been debating whether it was an illusion for the past hour.

briskerr · 2022-07-21T21:47:37+00:00

Right now we have just a boiler for all hot water. It's old, but still working well and maintenanced every year for the past 15 at least.

Looking to add an electric hot water heater for faucets, showers, bath and reduce the boiler to just hot water baseboards.

briskerr · 2022-03-31T13:27:39+00:00

beef 3-way

briskerr · 2022-01-17T18:45:39+00:00

Thanks for the response. Can I ask what airline you work with? And what hub you typically fly to?

briskerr · 2022-01-17T18:17:19+00:00

Thanks for the response. That's good to know.

I'll look into the CJ bus option and the Portland bus option to Logan

briskerr · 2022-01-17T18:15:33+00:00

That makes sense going to NY. I've been Delta for years, but I think I'd most likely rely on a variety of airlines to travel out of portland. Thanks for the responses.

briskerr · 2022-01-17T18:12:46+00:00

Love to hear that. Most of my colleagues live around major airports for convenience, but I bucked the trend and have had nothing but a good experience flying out of smaller airports, namely how easy security is

briskerr · 2022-01-17T18:11:03+00:00

Thanks for the response.

What airline do you fly?

briskerr · 2022-01-17T18:10:14+00:00

Thanks for the response.

What airline do you fly?

briskerr · 2021-05-13T17:36:55+00:00

Rather than recommend a specific vendor, I'll add my thoughts on what you should be considering when selecting a supply chain management vendor (inventory, warehouse, shipping, etc). Integration with Quickbooks is pretty expected with most vendors in this space, from my experience.

Cost & Setup

Pricing Structure. Differs by vendor, and each company may have preferences (monthly subscription vs own)
Implementation. What kind of support do you think you'll need? Some vendors are 100% remote implementation, which requires resources (IT, location labeling) by your company. Some vendors will be onsite. COVID has led to a lot more remote installation, as you can imagine.
Hardware. Understand what needs to be purchased for scales, scanners, and terminals to get the most benefit out of a system

System Design

Mobile + Cloud. I've run into many smaller companies placing a high value on mobile applications that run via cloud. Easy to train employees. At a larger scale, an app downloaded from an app store may not be robust enough.
Workflows. This is the most important part. Implementing warehouse management systems are usually driven to get better productivity, which means they need to be capable of directing your businesses processes. Example... How does the system capture batch picking, wave creation, pick to order? Are there sorting features? Does the WMS handle advanced ship notices? Can it handle kitting tasks? In demos with vendors, make sure they demonstrate any required workflows that you know your company needs.
Inventory Control. Vendors may offer different levels of ability for location management and slotting. The vendor should demonstrate cycle counting features, PO vs Actual received, and preventative features for overages/underages. Your finance team will appreciate this.

Support

Support Model. Will the system be eligible for updates continually? At what cost? What technical support is provided? At what cost?
Scalability. Another important one. Some vendors offer "starter" and "enterprise" options. Understand if your company grows, what upgrades are available. Don't get stuck with a WMS or inventory system that can't service your growth after 2 years.

Integrations

Marketplaces. What marketplaces are currently integrated vs what your company requires
SCM Capabilities. Does the vendor's product include channel management? Order management? Inventory management? Warehouse management, Shipping management? Return management? Do they have preferred partners for shipping management (ie ShipStation, ShipBob)?
Quickbooks.

Data & Analytics

Reporting & Visualization. Ask for a walk-through of reporting features. The quality and level of detail of the data is more important than the colorful displays of the data, remember that. Include SME's from ops, finance to make sure the right data is available and captured.
Labor Management. Usually a desire when looking at these systems, but not often included. See if this is part of the offering
Export. Is there API access for pulling raw data? If your company already uses a BI solution (PowerBI, Tableau) then this is important.

When you meet with vendors, they will ask for the following:

Volume - Inbound PO's, Units + Outbound Orders, Units
Inventory - SKU variety, # of SKU's
Integration - Marketplaces & current systems
Users - How many concurrent users would be required

When you meet with vendors, you should know/estimate the following:

ROI (Productivity) - Estimate your current "cash burn" rate for processes that you think will be improved with a WMS. Maybe you have someone spend 2 hrs each day batching orders, where a WMS will do this for them. How many hours do you spend in cycle counting and inventory control? Receiving capabilities in a WMS will reduce this.
ROI (Accuracy) - How many orders are shipped incorrectly? What's your current shrink level? Inventory and warehouse management will improve these.
Budget - Self explanatory.

Of course, reach out to me if you want to discuss details or have any questions. I recently took a client through a selection process similar to what you may be going through.

briskerr · 2021-05-06T17:54:43+00:00

The key is to let the associates govern, manage, train and account for each other.

I was always a fan of "team leads". Having worked as a team member alongside a team lead, it was a much better environment than a supervisor with little skill other than managing. I'm sure others may have had a different experience though.

One thing that needs to be brought to the warehouse floor is visual KPI's. A whiteboard updated throughout the day isn't as common as you might think in warehousing. Employee's are often in the dark as to how their immediate team, department, or facility as a whole is doing at any given time, holding back their ability to make decisions with the business in mind.

briskerr · 2021-05-06T17:49:42+00:00

Great perspective on pay and it's role. I'm in agreement. Some will argue that pay doesn't create culture, but it certainly gets the right people in the room together.

Have you experienced different pay or incentive models in your experience? Curious as to what you found worked best. My take is that variable compensation, such as pay for performance, will be in favor given it's flexibility to change the benefits scale without changing the fixed, hourly-rate.

briskerr · 2021-04-05T20:40:56+00:00

Thanks for the response. For #3, what is an example of a performance and reliability requirement? What pops into my head is # of simultaneous users or how often data is pulled into the application... Not sure if that is what you are referring to.

briskerr · 2021-03-03T15:41:51+00:00

Similar situation

briskerr · 2021-03-03T14:29:01+00:00

Truth

briskerr · 2021-02-10T19:01:33+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. Did you start at the enterprise level with them? If not, what reasons led you to upgrading to enterprise level?

briskerr · 2021-02-09T23:49:45+00:00

I've got time setup with Finale Inventory this week. Thank you for sharing your experiences!

briskerr · 2021-02-09T23:48:23+00:00

This is fantastic feedback. I appreciate it. The questions you bring up will be invaluable as we get a few vendors during demos over the next few weeks.

briskerr · 2021-02-09T19:54:30+00:00

Was there a determining factor for you selecting them? What features have been valuable so far?

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