Organizing a Stockroom to Solve Service Problems

As a part-time customer service representative, I reorganized the stock room like a library. This solution decreased the time required to locate stock from 5-10 minutes to less than a minute, improving the sales experience.

Project

Do you have this jacket in a large?

At Danier leather, the stock room's organization was ineffectively organized by gender and colour. The location of jackets were always moving for part-time staff.

The stock room reorganization occurred when I was a part-time customer service representative. Back then, the Danier Leather location had a manager, a couple full time employees, and 5-6 part time sales people. Due to staffing and customer traffic issues, the organization of the stock room was a very low priority. At best it was organized by gender and by colour, which was not very effective considering most leather jackets are black. The full time staff would update, sell or transfer most of the stock, so the stock room's jackets were always in flux for part-time staff.

Objective

Boxing Day Prep

The goal was to decrease the 5-10 minute wait time for jacket fitting and prepare for the boxing day rush.

Often when customers shopping for jackets would request a size, the 5-10 minute search would eliminate their interest. This would affect the morale of part-time staff and their commision sales bonus. The opportunity to organize the stock room was not noticed by any sales people, nor would they have had the time to do it. The stock room had perhaps a thousand jackets. As I was not a sales person, I had a unique chance to help as we were preparing for the Boxing Day rush.

Key objectives:

Decrease wait time for jacket fitting
Prepare for Boxing Day

Work

Like sorting a massive deck of cards

We received permission to organized jackets by style number. We created signs to help staff navigate the system

I noticed that leather jackets each had a style number representing gender, leather type, style and colour. Having volunteered in a library using the Dewey Decimal System, I foresaw the usefulness of ordering jackets according to this number. I convinced the manager and full time staff to allow me to reorganize the jackets according to this number during the early Christmas holiday.

With the help of another colleague, we spent two days shouting out style numbers and organizing them like a deck of cards. When we were finished, I fashioned signs on hangers to help navigate and locate style numbers.

End Result

Smooth sailing

Quick jacket retrieval improved sales & morale.

We reduced jacket search time to less than 1 minute.
We increased sales person morale and eliminated the stock room as a barrier to their sales effectiveness.
The boxing day rush was well managed by the team.

Reflection

Change is the only constant

Maintenance became an issue with new system. A root cause analysis could have created a more lasting solution.

One drawback was noticed regarding maintenance. New stock had to be carefully sorted to ensure the system of organization was upheld. In the previous system, the staff were used to quickly adding stock to the stock room. The constraints of the new system put too much pressure on employees given existing staffing levels.

A root cause analysis could have highlighted the causes of stock room disorganization: staffing levels and training. The solution to these would have enabled a more lasting solution.