Focus & Business Challenges During Coronavirus ‘Lockdown’

What are businesses focussing on right now?

Joe O’Shea shares his thoughts on current business challenges and how Principal Logistics Technologies is addressing these.

 
 
“We are deemed an “essential service provider” under current operating conditions. As we have invested significantly in technologies including a private IP telephone system, Microsoft Office 365 and Teams etc., we’re continuing to carry out face-to-face internet-based business meetings and customer support and training sessions without any loss in efficiency.”
 
 

‘Business as Usual’ well not quite but…

“We’re finding that the lockdown isn’t putting business on hold completely and we’re continuing to support over 170 customers across in the UK, Ireland and in China. We’re also deploying a number of new operations and are still receiving requests to engage with new operators to understand their requirements and how we could improve these.”
 
 

What are businesses focusing on right now?

“As the dust has barely settled on ‘lockdown’ we’re finding that some business’s volumes are at record levels and some, for example in the food services sector, are having to adapt quickly as their volumes have dropped through the floor. In either scenario businesses are looking at different ways to operate, for example smarter system directed put-away rules to deal with higher volumes and direct-to-home food deliveries. As a service provider to these types of operations we are assisting our clients to optimise and re-engineer, as required.”
 
 

Business Intelligence: Don’t work in the dark, see then act!

“We’re also finding our In-DEX BI: Business Intelligence capability highly relevant in these challenging and dynamic times as it provides live operational data allowing operators to see, for instance, how staff and volumes are changing, enabling them to them perform “what if” scenario analysis. Several In-DEX sites have dashboards that enable fulfilment rates to be divided by exact live individual pick rates, to calculate the estimated completion times to optimise staffing levels.”

“These actionable insights enable operators to predict and manage operations in a proactive fashion.”
 
 

How is Principal Logistics Technologies helping?

We combine our in-house developed In-DEX WMS Warehouse Management Software with mobile computing technology (for example, barcode scanning, wireless label printing, voice and/or RFID) to provide real-time product data capture. This enables digitalised workflow control ensuring accuracy, optimised efficiency, complete audited adherence to product handling and storage rules and full forward and backwards traceability.
 
Joe concludes “Its uncertain times for everyone, we are all in this together and we will emerge at the other side. While it is still earlier days, we do see the new norms evolving and such times do provide for opportunities for everyone. My advice is to keep safe and keep positive.”
 
Joe O’Shea is a director at Principal Logistics Technologies.
 
Principal Logistics Technologies provides warehouse and supply chain technology and solutions to 3PL Logistics providers like Agro Merchants, Chemsource, Gordons Chemists, Cold Move, Dale Farm, Musgrave Group, Norish, Morrisons, Wholefoods and more.