Taking the leap from one company to another can be stressful. Even if you are jumping into a position that is similar to the one you’re working now, it can be intimidating to enter a new work environment with a brand new list of expectations. Whether this transition is for better pay, culture, or working conditions, finding your footing is a challenging process for anyone.

In today's fast-paced and uncertain business landscape, companies must remain nimble and adaptable to survive. This is especially true during periods of economic downturn, where challenges and uncertainties can arise at any moment. On-demand labor, demand forecasting, and downcycle agility are all important concepts for businesses looking to stay competitive in today's rapidly changing economy. With consistent changes in consumer behavior, companies are under increasing pressure to be agile and responsive to shifts in demand– especially when it’s slower than usual. Read on to learn about how to keep things rolling when demand slows down:

Unfortunately, layoffs happen. In America, about 40% of workers will experience a layoff at some point in their careers. No matter the industry, when times are tough and your business has pinched pennies in every other category, it can lead to having to show valuable employees the door. Even though it’s “just business”, the effects of layoffs will always carry a personal effect– not only to those let go, but also to those continuing to keep operations running on the inside.

Now that the holiday season has passed, many people are taking it upon themselves to get what they really wanted to be gifted this year. Along with year-end indulgence comes year-end returns, with many customers acting now before they forget. Hitting “order” and checking your tracking number every day may come with some anticipation, but how would you feel if you knew your item was safely wrapped under someone else’s Christmas tree before it ever made it to your door?

When understanding the general public sentiment related to your company, almost nothing compares to your average customer’s experience from discovery to purchase to support. There will be specific factors that may lead to churn, such as a negative experience when calling customer support or receiving a product that just doesn’t meet expectations. 

The end of the year is quickly approaching. With it, seasonal sales and shopping are at an all-year high, and therefore, so is fulfillment. Let’s take a look at some of the trends we’ve seen throughout the year, and we expect to continue into 2023:

Are you short on labor resources, or are you actually just coming up short on proper allocation?

No matter what niche your company serves, we’re willing to bet that your data is your most valuable asset. When every key performance indicator can be measured, all customer and employee data are stored internally, and each sales metric is tucked carefully away somewhere within your network– it’s necessary to keep this information safe.

“The American Dream” had to come from somewhere, right? If you’re keen on American history, you’re aware of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the creation of America’s “more to life” mindset. America’s founding fathers sought freedom from the status quo of the British regime. They wanted to live how they saw fit, even if their loyalist relatives and neighbors disagreed. So, they got to work creating a world around them that catered to their way of life, and eventually declared independence from the British crown altogether. In doing so, they created the nation that ultimately became the place where dreams turn into realities.

We all want a good deal. We always want to know how much can we get for the least amount of money. The truth is that there are benefits to spending a little more to get what you need. By the same merit, taking a chance on quality for a smaller investment might lead to stellar results.

Are you a new operator using Veryable, wondering just how to make the perfect bid that will actually get picked?

Is your business facing peak sales seasons, a revolving door of full time employees, or projects that seem to pop up out of nowhere?

Ahh, Black Friday. For many companies, this is the time of year that sees the most business and can make or break your success in hitting annual targets. Earlier this season, we wrote about the benefits manufacturers could anticipate from utilizing on-demand labor to get through a peak creation season. Only a month later, the time for distributors and fulfillment centers to gear up for the busy season has arrived.

Making sure your team has enough hands on deck can present challenges of all kinds. Namely, the expense involved with traditional ways of hiring. Traditionally, a recruiter could spend a couple of weeks hiring for just one position. All things considered (things being salary, onboarding costs, and the plan ahead), hiring often comes with a hefty fee attached.

This land is your land, this land is my land.

The effect of economies of scale is well-established and important for businesses. It is the principle behind the “learning curve effect” and the strategic value of gaining market share.

This just in: your order volume is increasing. What was once a small business you fully owned and operated alone is now a full-blown e-commerce store, and you’ve got a whole team to manage. Sound familiar? Would you like it to? You’re in the right place.

Black Friday kicks off the holiday shopping season for consumers worldwide. While they’re scrolling through must-have lists and shopping guides a couple of weeks out, manufacturers have already produced the season’s hottest items. Forecasting demand and getting boxes ready to fly off the shelves is no simple task and requires manpower from all angles where manufacturing is concerned.

The idea of the American manufacturing industry has always carried an implied meaning. When visualizing it, the setting that comes to mind might be in black and white, featuring workers covered in dirt and hard-earned sweat. While the days of Henry Ford’s assembly lines certainly influenced the industry that quickly became the backbone of America, the methods of manufacturing have kept up with current times.

In an earlier blog post, we said that defect prevention depended on understanding the root cause(s). Because this is such an important part of the problem-solving process, let’s explore it further.

Quality is a valid concern whether you’re using on-demand labor or not

Having on-demand labor at your fingertips is a great competitive advantage, but many businesses have questions about how bringing in new operators might affect quality. 

The current lean paradigm is about to drastically change, leading to an expansion of just-in-time. While leveling is a part of any lean production system, we need to see it for what it is: a countermeasure to rigidities that ends up being anti-lean. The gist of this article is that we now have a better solution.

We performed a survey of our current customer base and found that our customers are overwhelmingly producing and sourcing within the United States. This is a result of our focus on our core mission of revitalizing US manufacturing. We’re resonating with a significant portion of the supply chain that wants to localize production and is ready to innovate to make it happen.

There is a lot of talk about how difficult it is for businesses to find and keep workers. Whether you call it “The Great Resignation” or another term, something is clearly happening. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is, “What’s driving this?”.

You’ve seen the comments about supply chain visibility, and maybe you’ve encountered some technology providers who want you to know all about how their solution is the best for it. But first, you’ll need to know what it is and whether it’s useful for your business.

Have you ever wondered where all the overhead in your business is coming from? Transaction costs might be to blame, but luckily there are things you can do to minimize these. Lean methodology holds the keys to reducing the most readily addressable issues affecting transaction costs in your business.

You’ve likely heard the forecasts  of an impending recession. Some people might even have warned you of the possibility of a depression. We’re in no place to make a judgment on whether or not these predictions will come true, but we do know what you can do to prepare, just in case.

The skilled labor shortage has been a persistent problem in manufacturing for some time now. What’s causing this, and how do we fix it?

You’ll sometimes hear inventory referred to as “crystallized capacity,” the idea being that when you have limited capacity, building inventory is a solution that helps you meet customer demand. The typical example is a seasonal business, like a manufacturer of skiing equipment. 

Automotive manufacturing is not immune to the challenges facing the rest of the supply chain. Volatility is common in manufacturing and certain variables, such as geopolitical uncertainty, are often out of the circle of control. However, two of the most common struggles which can be affected are labor and the supply chain. If you sample a group of manufacturers, those two topics will come up over and over.

Flexibility and agility are two words that are often used interchangeably, but there are important distinctions between them. Knowing the difference can guide how and when you focus your time and energy to strengthen your business.

Reshoring is a hot topic due to the shocks to the supply chain over the past few years. Maybe you’re considering reshoring, but aren’t sure if it will be worth the trouble. What are the benefits of reshoring which so many people are saying you should be doing?

The next evolution of manufacturing will be true “lot size one” and will respond in real time to customer demands. Real-time agile manufacturing will require new approaches to production, including how labor capacity is managed, how production occurs (i.e. additive manufacturing, asset-light manufacturing), and how the supply chain is arranged (i.e. decentralized manufacturing).

While piecework is not as common as it used to be, perhaps you’re wondering if it would work in your business. For Lean practitioners especially, it’s important to consider how this would impact the culture of your workplace. Will workers still function as teams? Will productivity change?

The future of manufacturing is localized, agile, asset-light, and focused on customization to meet each customer’s preference.

There are many reasons you might be lacking labor capacity to meet the day’s demand. Workforce burnout, sick employees, religious accommodations, PTO, and a tight labor market are all common causes of labor capacity fluctuations.

Value stream mapping seems like a cryptic artificial constraint to the outsider, but it can actually be a powerful tool for your business. If you get past seeing this as a documentation exercise and explore the possibilities it exposes for operational improvements, you’ll see how a value stream map is worth your time.

The future of manufacturing is localized, agile, asset-light, and focused on customization to meet each customer’s preference.

Local workforces are a microcosm of the overall state of the labor market. In a tight labor market, the local workforces often feel it most strongly. When a large employer moves into town, this often causes a shift in the workforce that can be quite disruptive. A concept known as the Dutch Disease can reveal some insights into how to deal with this issue.

Veryable won the MHI Innovation Award for Best IT Innovation, awarded March 30, 2022 at MHI Industry Night at MODEX. Veryable’s on-demand labor marketplace competed with many other participants and won based on the concept, value, and impact as judged by professionals from the material handling and supply chain industry.

Many people know about the two pillars of the Toyota Production System (TPS): just-in-time and jidoka, and they probably know the two principles of TPS – continuous improvement and respect for people.

The future of manufacturing is localized, agile, asset-light, and focused on customization to meet each customer’s preference.

On March 14, 2022, the Eastern District Court of Texas reinstated a Trump-era rule which clarifies the worker classification test used to determine whether individuals are independent contractors or employees under federal law.

Data maturity is a skill which, just like any other skill, requires an initial foundation of knowledge and practice with incremental advancement until excellence is achieved.

In this blog, we’ll provide a solution to a common problem across all industries: insufficient standardization, leading to quality issues and inconsistent throughput rates.

Everyone faces turnover at some point. Knowing your turnover rate enables you to properly manage your labor capacity by taking action to address your labor needs.

Blockchain has been a hot topic since 2017, although most probably know about the technology because of the craze around cryptocurrencies. However, companies have started to pursue other uses for the technology in supply chains, such as material tracing. You might have heard of big players such as Walmart using the blockchain to trace food, but what does this mean for small businesses in the supply chain?

Kaizen is a term you’ll hear thrown out casually in conversation with many manufacturing leaders. If you’ve been using context clues to get by this far, you’ve likely figured out that it has something to do with always improving. So what exactly is kaizen, and why are people talking about it?

Want a real challenge? I challenge you to find a factory with more than 20 people that doesn’t at least try to apply 5S.

You’ve probably encountered a scenario in which you needed to stop production to solve an issue causing defects. And you probably lost more productivity than you would have liked, especially if you didn't find out about it until a few hours later when someone casually mentioned the problem at the water cooler like it was common knowledge.

Lean companies talk about “respect for people'' as a key piece of the Lean mindset, but what does it mean? It means that those who are closest to the process and add value are the true experts when it comes to rapid and sustained kaizen and that the role of managers is to develop and empower them. 

Imagine yourself sitting at a table, attempting to complete a puzzle blindfolded. Without the use of your eyes, you find your hands scrambling around the table, hopelessly feeling edges and shoving pieces together at random. With the use of your eyes, the information needed to complete the task efficiently is clear, like where the colors match and where they don’t.

Stacking inventory as a buffer is a common practice, but it often goes too far. In the worst cases, businesses produce everything ahead of time and then hope to sell it all, only to find that engineering made an urgent modification to the product or that the forecasts were way off.

From metaverse to augmented reality, these terms are spinning a bunch of buzz around them, but what do they really mean? There continues to be a lot of discussion around augmented reality in manufacturing. However, we have not seen a breakthrough use case to date that has uncovered a trove of value creation.

There are likely many times you’ve encountered problems that arose from something being unclear. Communication is key, as the saying goes. That’s where visual management comes in.

One of the first steps toward adopting the Lean methodology is implementing the five S’s. You might have heard of these before, but we’re going to make it clear what these terms are, what they mean, and how you can use the 5S methodology to set a strong foundation for future operational improvements.

Companies often ask us why we only focus on providing our on-demand labor marketplace for the manufacturing and logistics industries in the United States.

Delivering on time and including everything the customer ordered are key to succeeding in the supply chain. So how should you measure your performance in this area?

You’ve seen the headlines and heard the talking points on what’s happening in the labor market in the US. But what does this mean for you as someone in manufacturing and logistics, and more importantly, how can you adapt to this reality and come out stronger on the other side?

If you say “we only want to hire full-time employees,” then you’ve probably been burned by temp staffing or aren’t aware of all the options for finding workers to get work done in your facility. Keeping your labor capacity at the right level is a big problem to solve, and if you expect better results, you’re going to need to change your methods.

It can be daunting to select an IIoT platform when you’re on your digital transformation journey. The good news is, your transformation won’t happen overnight, so there’s plenty of time to pick the right solution.

Have you ever gone through the steps of a process and thought, “Wow, that was easy”? If you have, there’s a chance that poka-yoke was involved. There’s a common refrain that good design goes unnoticed. Maybe that’s why you haven’t heard of poka-yoke until just now.

We’ve narrowed down the leaders in the maintenance management software realm and compared them to help you decide which one works best for your business.

When your orders come in for the next day and you see that it’s your pickiest customer with a bigger request than usual, you need a plan fast. And when your orders slim back down, you don’t want to pay people to stand around waiting for work.

In recent months, some supply chain thinkers have all but blamed lean inventory levels for the challenges and delays the world has faced in 2020 and 2021.

When your warehouse is buzzing and nobody has much time to stop and analyze the situation, you need a way to quickly see where everything is and then direct the work to get it done. That’s where warehouse management systems come in.

Perhaps you’ve heard of process lead time, a common metric in manufacturing that gives you an idea of how long you’ll have to wait on a widget if you start working on it right now. But you might not know that it’s closely related to a queue theory concept called Little’s Law.

When you need to know what to produce, how much of it to produce, and what order to produce it in, you have a couple ways to approach the problem. You can push through orders and create piles of inventory, or you can pull orders continuously to keep your production flowing smoothly.

It’s important to know which actions will drive results, especially when there’s so much noise. Being able to narrow down your to-do list to what matters is a crucial skill for doing work that matters in today’s world.

Back in early 2020, I published a couple articles aimed at encouraging US Manufacturers to stay the course and go on the offensive while global supply chains hemorrhaged amidst geopolitical turmoil. Now is the Time to Take it Back and Manufacturing Companies, Keep the Faith and Soldier On were calls to action during a time of great confusion and chaos – periods which have consistently proven to be the right time to rise above the noise and come out on the winning side.

Automation, whether robots or co-bots, are drawing a lot of attention these days with the 43.7% growth of e-commerce and the increasing fulfillment needs across a number of industries and consumer categories.  We’ve all heard the familiar refrain that automation is taking over in manufacturing and logistics, but that has not been the case due to offshoring versus automation.  

You need to meet customer demands, but you also have to plan your production properly to make sure you’re working profitably. This is a tall task, and luckily, people in your shoes have already tried many approaches to solving this problem.

Are you making the most of the data available to you in your Veryable portal? When used properly, you can see how many workers you’ll need, what your efficiency targets should be, and how much value you’re creating for your company.

As an operations leader in today’s hypercompetitive landscape, you’re always on the lookout for ways to reduce lead times to better satisfy internal stakeholders and, ultimately, delight the customer. In a volatile time with so many supply chain disruptions, the companies able to put products on shelves and in carts are the ones that get orders.

As a company decision-maker, you know that continuous improvement is critical to competing, and digitization is all but required to win in today’s market. However, stakeholders don’t always agree on the best way forward. Often the introduction of any new technology to your long-standing operations is a battle, and buy-in at all levels is necessary to maximize value creation.

There’s a good reason you hear about Lean, Six Sigma, and probably Lean Six Sigma all the time as a manufacturing leader. It’s a powerful way to manage your production, and so contagious that proud practitioners of this method often include their certification next to their names like doctors or lawyers.

US manufacturing has a problem. It’s not attracting enough workers, and its output lags behind where it needs to be if we are going to bring productive power back onto our shores en masse. What would otherwise be a simple equation has become muddled with variables and complexities that leave us worse off, as the global supply chain has shown us in the past year. US manufacturing is stuck in a giant Rube Goldberg machine, propped up by tinier complexities at the individual facility level.

You’ve been here before: operations seem to be doing just fine, until you check the numbers and see that output is not keeping pace. You should be taking on more orders, but you’re having trouble keeping up with the ones you have. So what do you do?

The following list of manufacturing execution software (MES) will help you choose the right tool for getting a clear picture of what’s going on inside your operation, so you can wrangle it under your control to achieve greater business results.

Implementing heijunka to level your production is a longstanding approach to manufacturing. However, it can bog down your business when it is used as a self-imposed, artificial constraint on production.

Quality is a qualifier for keeping business. The balancing act between cost, speed, and quality isn’t easy. Luckily, you still have control of your situation and can take action to save your operation from quality issues.

Manufacturing has long had the concept of a “digital twin” of physical facilities and their machines. The consumer-oriented version of this concept has been branded the “metaverse” and is catching on among Silicon Valley figureheads and social media companies.

If you’re a food manufacturer, you deal with products that become worthless if they aren’t delivered on time. On top of that, there are angry people at the other end of the supply chain who will face hangry customers if they can’t stock their shelves. Who wants to lose money and get an earful about it?

Ideally, your production process would achieve single piece flow and there would be no need for managing the process with a system for tracking what is where, and how much is needed. But because we don’t live in a perfect world, you will have to choose a system for managing your production process.

Transitioning from paper manuals to digital work instructions might not seem like a big deal, but this is an important step into the future of manufacturing.

So you want to grow your business, but you aren’t sure you can because of cash flow constraints. This problem plagues many companies, so you aren’t alone. This is an issue that US manufacturing as a whole needs to solve to maintain competitiveness.

Maybe you’ve heard of critical path project management, but what about critical chain project management? You might be wondering what the advantages could be of this project management approach.

Every company that sells something online knows the pain of watching returns roll in. It’s just part of the business. But companies that are new to selling online or that have experienced a recent increase in volume from online orders might not have a strong system in place yet for handling all its reverse logistics.

Most operations leaders know that service is the number one differentiator between suppliers. If you can consistently deliver on time and in full, you will win customers. On the other hand, if you can’t do those things, don’t hold your breath waiting for new customers and don’t expect to keep the ones you have for very long.

One day you might get a rush order and need to work around the clock until the next morning to fulfill the request. And if the print job is for an event, the customer is not going to be happy about delays, meaning you’ll get an earful about how they don’t need the signs anymore because they can’t go back in time.

Maybe you’re familiar with just-in-time as a concept, but what’s this about a just-in-time workforce?

You’re no stranger to logistics if you’ve implemented a micro-fulfillment strategy. It’s not easy to pull off ship from store operations and the like. There are often wildly different order volumes from day to day, and as eCommerce grows, things are only going to get more hectic.

You’ve likely been here before: you get an order that’s unusually large from your customer. And then another customer, and another customer. So you take that as a sign that demand has increased for your product, and you order enough supplies to sustain this level of demand based on your forecasts. Then a couple weeks later, your demand has settled back to its average level. What happened?

Far too often operations leaders view ‘the supply chain’ as an endless cost center rather than an opportunity to gain an edge on their competitors. Because of this, misconceptions over supply chain decisions handcuff organizations from improving operations & ultimately improving business outcomes.

There are tons of opportunities right now in manufacturing and warehousing. Maybe you’ve thought about expanding your resume into these areas of work, but you didn’t know how to get started, or whether it would be worth your time.

You’ve been there before: volume has suddenly dropped off a cliff, after months of hiring staff to meet a big surge. You’re left with more employees than you have the work for, and it’s eating a hole in your margins. The situation might be bad enough that you have to let people go.

If you’ve shopped online lately and ordered from a major retail store, you’ve probably received an order that was shipped from the store.

So you need workers now, but you aren’t sure if you’re ready to hire anyone yet. Maybe the need for workers won’t last, or maybe you would rather test the waters with any newcomers before extending an offer of full-time employment.

You’ve found that some parts of your operation move more slowly than others. And you’ve done what you can to work around it. It might seem like common sense adjustments to you, but the topic goes deeper than it seems on the surface.

You’re likely all too familiar with the annual busy season your operation faces. The long hours. The overtime. The circus of staffing up in preparation for it.

Maintenance isn’t what most people think of when they think of getting work done. It’s right up there with washing dishes, at the top of the list of things people let slide until they can’t ignore it anymore. However, savvy operations leaders know how important it is to stay on top of equipment maintenance proactively.

Micro-fulfillment is gaining traction in the supply chain as a viable strategy. You’ve probably seen it in headlines, and whether you know it or not, you’ve almost certainly shopped somewhere that’s operating a micro-fulfillment center. So what’s this all about?

You’ve probably seen Craigslist show up in search results for … well, anything you could want to buy. The Craigslist website was one of the early power players on the Internet, and still has staying power today. So does that mean the Gigs section of Craigslist is the right way for you to find work?

You’d like to add capacity and capabilities to your organization, but it’s not clear the best way to do this. Staff augmentation sounds like it might be a solution, but the term doesn’t make it immediately clear what this is or how it works.

Staff augmentation is a broad category, but does it include Veryable?

You’ve bid on your first Op, and when your phone lit up with the notification that your bid was accepted, you felt a little excited and a little nervous. You want to do your best on your first Op to make a great impression, but you aren’t sure how this whole thing works just yet.

Managing distribution at a beverage company can be a wild ride at times. You have high demand, a fragile product, and quick turnarounds to manage, all while trying to keep employees happy.

Keeping track of all the company’s employees is hard work. At times it seems like you won’t be able to get everyone where you need them to be. And it feels like all the work isn’t going to get done.

You’ve seen the words “pick and pack” floating around on job boards or in work descriptions, but what exactly does that mean?

Companies in the US have faced challenges finding workers for the past few years. This is partially due to the pandemic, but inflation, commodity prices, and shifting expectations about work are trends that will continue to make the labor market challenging.

It’s unfortunate, but sometimes a worker is going to leave you out to dry. When you found them through an on-demand labor platform like Veryable’s, there are a few things you can do in this case.

You’ve heard how easy it is to post an Op on Veryable, but it’s obvious that your involvement with the platform doesn’t end there. So what comes next when you’re using an on-demand labor platform?

When you need workers, you don’t want to spend so long finding them that it slows your business down. At the same time, you want to take time to vet candidates so that you get good workers instead of bad apples. So how do you balance these two priorities?

So you find yourself understaffed. It happens to everyone, especially when it’s hard to find workers and the labor market is competitive.

Imagine this: you drive in to work expecting everyone to show up for their shift and planning how you’re going to finally get ahead for a day and start tackling your backlog. Then when you get to the morning huddle, two of your 20 employees aren’t there. This ruins the productive day you had envisioned.

Whether you are a business or an Operator on the Veryable platform, one of the first things you’ll notice is the Operator reliability rating. That sounds like something you’d want to score highly on, but what does it mean?

You’ve heard of Veryable and you’ve heard of on-demand staffing solutions. What you might not have known is that the two are different in a few key ways.

The past year has presented many challenges in the supply chain. A boom in e-commerce, unemployment fluctuation, labor participation, and commodity prices have contributed heavily to the volatility of the economy.

Imagine it’s the busiest month of the year and you can’t take on any more orders because your employees are maxed out with their workload. You’ve all had your fill of overtime and if anyone has to call out, you don’t know how you’ll make it through the week.

As someone in charge of who comes in and out of your building every day, you’re rightfully concerned about their safety and anything that might jeopardize that. There’s a lot of thought put into who you hire and work with every day, because the right people make a big difference.

Your operation cannot seem to get over the workforce hump and hit its stride because people keep walking out the door, which is holding back productivity and preventing you from growing the business. Across the United States, distribution and fulfillment centers are experiencing turnover rates of 50% on average, while others are experiencing even more dramatic turnover rates approaching 100%. 

You’ve probably wondered before what the best way is to attract workers to your business with on-demand labor. It’s not always easy to tell, especially if you’re used to scheduling workers by the week like most companies are. However, on-demand labor gives you the option to post daily work opportunities, so how are you supposed to know when to use this option?

Your organization likely shares a common thread with most others – the goal of making a profit. This may be your goal for its own sake, or your organization may need to generate profits to enable its pursuit of other goals. You’ve probably got things that are holding you back from this, but sometimes it’s hard to know what these constraints are and how to eliminate them.

We’ve talked to hundreds of operations leaders, so we know you probably think that on-demand labor will take a long time to set up and test. If you’ve worked with traditional staffing agencies, you’ve probably spent hours just getting started. And that time doesn’t even reflect the whole process happening behind the scenes that you didn’t have control over.

If you’ve used Veryable, then you’ve had to select workers for your Ops. If you haven’t used Veryable, you might be used to staffing agencies selecting workers for you. Maybe you’ve asked yourself why Veryable doesn’t select workers when staffing companies do.

If you’ve looked for labor on a short-term basis before, you’ve probably used temp staffing. So when you heard of Veryable, we’re guessing your first thought might have been something like, “How is this different from temp staffing?”

So you’ve started using on-demand labor and found a worker you are particularly impressed by. You might be asking yourself if it’s okay to hire this person, or if it will cost you anything to do so. 

Sometimes businesses aren’t seeing the results they wanted from on-demand labor. While some things are certainly out of your control, we know that there are best practices that you can follow to be sure you’re doing everything to get the performance you want.

In a perfect world, each Operator you accept will be exactly who you need to support your Operations. While there are thousands of great, highly skilled, and reliable Operators working on the Veryable platform, you might encounter some others that are not a great fit at your business. 

Maybe you’ve heard of on-demand labor and you thought it sounds like a great solution for finding workers when you need them. But what goals can you achieve in a logistics operation with on-demand labor?

So you’ve heard of on-demand labor, and you’re almost ready to try it out, but first you want to know what type of work these workers can actually do. Maybe you’re looking for specialized workers, but you don’t have a need often enough to hire someone full-time. Or maybe you’re looking to support your existing skilled workers by bringing in workers to help with setup and cleanup tasks.

If your company regularly gives out overtime and your workers have come to expect it, you might be hesitant to adopt any solution that would wipe this away for fear that your employees would get upset about their lost income and quit. Likewise, if you’re already having employee satisfaction problems, you might hesitate to test the waters with any labor solution that might cause concern about job security.

So you’ve logged into Veryable, seen bids on your Op, and you’re wondering if you should pick the “Ready to Work” Operators without any ratings yet. Maybe you asked yourself, “Are they a risky pick? How often do new workers turn out to be reliable?”

So you’ve started using on-demand labor, but you’re not so sure about how many people you should be adding to your labor pool. Maybe someone told you a number that was so high it shocked you, or maybe you’ve been flying solo and don’t know what you should be aiming for.

Once you heard of on-demand labor and the concept of a labor pool, your next thought was probably something along the lines of “That sounds great, but how long does it take?”

Uncertainty is plaguing everyone’s world view now with how the past year has unfolded and how that will project forward into the future. One thing is for certain, top operations leaders share similar concerns as they evaluate their business driving into 2021. In this recent Supply Chain Dive opinion poll, executive leaders voted on their top concerns:  

Sure, on-demand labor sounds like a great solution for finding workers when you need them. But what business goals can you achieve with on-demand labor?

A big question many managers have when they hear of on-demand labor is if it really means workers will show up at the push of a button. 

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive. That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Dallas, Texas in the most common roles in these industries. 

You’ve heard the term labor pool and have an idea of what it is, but now you are likely wondering: what level of commitment is needed, and is it worth it for me and my business?

Operations leaders across the country are wrestling with the issue of balancing their daily execution with finding time to drive operational improvements. The truth is that creating a labor pool is something we’ve seen plenty of clients utilize to solve this problem. The other truth is that creating a labor pool is a bonafide change to the way that most businesses have viewed their labor force, which is understandably a reason to be skeptical.

At Veryable, we operate an on-demand labor platform to solve the need for efficiently responding to changes in customer demand. We understand that this isn’t for everyone, but by the end of this blog you will be better equipped to make that determination for your business.

The big question is: should building a labor pool be an operational improvement priority?

When someone first hears about on-demand labor and the concept of a labor pool, they often think they can get out of the hiring game for good. It can be confusing at first when you’re trying to balance managing your full-time workforce and building a flexible labor pool alongside it, so the temptation is to just choose one or the other. We get asked if people should stop hiring completely once they build their labor pool to a large enough size to cover all their work. 

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive. That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Houston, Texas in the most common roles in these industries. 

Getting started with on-demand labor in your operation can go smoothly or it can go very poorly. You’re probably wondering what the best strategy is for getting the most out of an on-demand labor platform like Veryable, so you can avoid spending your time to get less-than-optimal results.

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive. That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for San Antonio, Texas in the most common roles in these industries.

So you’re new to on-demand labor, and you end up hitting a roadblock that you weren’t expecting. You’re excited about the potential of Veryable for your business, but aren’t so sure any more. What now?

When thinking through your operation and how to best organize it to complete the work, you’ve most likely weighed prioritizing labor productivity rates versus prioritizing labor availability. This is actually a critical question, and one with implications on customer service that are not fully appreciated across an operation. 

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive. That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Phoenix, Arizona in the most common roles in these industries. 

The safety of the people working in your building is a top priority. You’ve probably spent considerable time and money ensuring that your operations are safe and accident rates stay as low as possible. So it’s natural that you’d be concerned about safety when bringing in people you haven’t worked with before.

You’ve probably reached what you thought was the limit of how far your cycle times could be reduced. And when that happens, you start to wonder if there’s something else to be done so that you can deliver to the customer faster and quit feeling like you’re treading water just to stay afloat. 

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive. That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Atlanta, Georgia in the most common roles in these industries. 

You’re probably wondering where the workers for an on-demand labor marketplace like ours come from. You might be thinking, if they specialize in manufacturing work, why would they be using an app to find short-term engagements at many businesses instead of working full-time at one business?

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive. That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Nashville, Tennessee in the most common roles in these industries. 

If you’ve ever managed an operation in manufacturing or logistics, you’ve noticed that some workers get more done than others. You’ve likely heard jokes justifying a slow pace of work by saying “I’m paid by the hour.” People say there is always a bit of truth in a joke, so what’s the truth in the difference between being paid by the hour and being paid based on what’s actually accomplished?

You probably think you can’t afford to pay employees any more than you already do. It makes sense on the surface, but digging deeper, you have to ask what you could gain if you paid more and how that might affect your stance.

Imagine you are starting your morning on a Tuesday. You’ve got a cup of coffee and everyone is rolling up to work so you can push out a big order by the end of the week. Just as you’re leaving your office, you hear the phone ring. The call is for a big order that’s way above what you forecast for the week. 

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive. That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Tampa, Florida in the most common roles in these industries. 

When you shop for something, you look for ratings and reviews by other people. In the age of the Internet, that’s just how it goes. But even before the Internet, word of mouth was how people decided between Bill’s shop or Bob’s. 

There are three words that scare operations managers everywhere: free two-day delivery. This phrase wraps up the Amazon effect and slaps a bow on it. Customers are starting to expect reliable on-time delivery of whatever goods they want with little extra cost, and they’re expecting it to happen faster than ever before.

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive. That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Miami, Florida in the most common roles in these industries. 

The idea of automation in manufacturing has caused many people to sound the alarm about potential job elimination, and for others it sounds like a necessary step toward more efficient production and less labor-intensive processes. There are strong opinions about automation that differ depending on who you ask. But one thing is clear: automation is already picking up speed.

If you’ve been in management long, you’ve probably encountered a situation where you suspected a worker of drug use. And if you’ve been tasked with hiring employees or selecting independent contractors, you have weighed the decision of whether to drug screen before the work or wait to see if something gives you cause for concern.

That’s a big, costly decision. So how do you decide?

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

It’s a huge ordeal to move into a new facility. Manufacturing leaders have spent many long nights worrying about the details of this kind of project, so we’ve provided a guide on what to do when you’re moving manufacturing facilities.

US Manufacturing is lagging behind the overall economy in growth, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). The sector is seeing limited growth, however, with a PMI above 60%. 

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive. That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Indianapolis, Indiana in the most common roles in these industries. 

In today’s world, Lean is being challenged as never before due to higher customer requirements and the digital revolution of Industry 4.0. The challenge to keep up in the landscape leads to the questions: Are Lean principles in conflict with the digitization that is Industry 4.0? Are Lean principles in conflict with serving your customer in the manner in which they have requested? The short answer is mostly no, and we’ll dig into the alignments and variances below. But, in order to keep up in today’s world, Lean does need to evolve to match today’s quick response, digital environment.

As with any new tool, you want to be certain you’re getting the most from your investment when using Veryable to find on-demand labor. 

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive. That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Memphis, Tennessee in the most common roles in these industries. 

If you find yourself overstaffed, it’s probably because at some point in the year, you will need the number of workers that you have. You don’t want to get caught understaffed when a big project comes up, so you take what seems like the lesser of two evils and hire more people than you really need throughout the rest of the year. 

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive.

That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Chicago, Illinois in the most common roles in these industries. 

When you need more workers to get the job done, but you know you won’t need their help in a few months or even weeks, that’s a tough spot to be in from a hiring perspective. Thus the temp agency was born. But what exactly does a temp agency do, and how can it help your business?

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive.

It’s something manufacturing leaders dream about: one day, a huge order comes in for your products, and you’ll be sitting on a gold mine once you ship everything out to your happy customers. Depending on how prepared your company is to handle the spike in demand, this could sound like a good dream or a nightmare.

You’ve probably heard of Lean before. It’s the thing everyone is talking about, but nobody seems to be able to explain when you ask them about it. Is it a book? Can you do it without a teacher? Do you have to join a club to learn its secrets?

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive.

No matter how hard you try, it seems like the busy season throws more at your business than you’re prepared to handle. Every year, it’s a scramble to grab the extra cash that’s being thrown your way if you can meet your customers’ seemingly insatiable, seasonal demand for that precious period of time.

If you’ve used on-demand labor for a while, you’ve probably heard the concept of a labor pool mentioned at least once. And maybe you’ve decided you want to implement this model at your business, but you’re thinking it can’t just be as simple as “build a labor pool.” What does that even mean?

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive.

It is difficult to understand how much money different forms of hiring will truly cost your company. What most people really want to know is whether you should handle it all yourself, or pay someone to manage some or all of your hiring. Many even wonder if they should choose another option entirely, like staffing agencies or on-demand labor.

When you’re first looking into on-demand labor, it’s a bit intimidating to consider all the ways this new model might or might not work for your business. You probably want to know what might go wrong. Even if you’re not thinking about it now, we know it’s important for you to be aware of the problems that could exist with a solution like ours. 

When you’re planning for the year ahead, trying to match up your labor to an unpredictable demand cycle creates frustration that is often palpable. Maybe you have lofty goals to meet, but have limited resources. You want to capture all of the demand you can without over-hiring. But how do you do that without perfectly predicting the future?

You’ve heard of on-demand labor, and maybe you’ve been looking for a solution to add flexibility to your operations. But it isn’t always easy to take those first few steps. So, what’s the right way to start using on-demand labor?

Scaling your manufacturing business is hard work. You know that you will have to spend money to achieve this goal, but maybe you aren’t sure where your money would produce the greatest return on investment. Perhaps you’re even wondering if there are ways to scale without spending.

Confusing rules around worker classification might have kept you away from engaging with independent contractors before, but now that the regulations are being made more clear, maybe you’re ready to try it.

It’s that time of year when every business that engages in the holiday retail dash is ramping up operations. Everybody is competing to hire hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers to meet holiday demand.

But some parts of the seasonal hiring are way different in 2020. The coronavirus has expanded the timeline for the holiday dash beyond the traditional timeframe. Scaling up to capture your share of the increased demand during this season is a huge boost for many businesses. If you’re hoping to fill higher order volumes in Q4 this year, you likely find yourself asking, “How can I compete in the holiday hiring spree?”

Operations managers are facing labor issues daily related to recruiting, retention, utilization, and performance. Maybe you are facing these challenges and making trade-offs so you have the right amount of labor to meet your production schedule. Doing so is a balancing act that requires some out-of-the-box thinking.

Have you ever stared ahead at a busy next week and just knew that it will be a challenge with overtime on the rise, and the very real possibility of people taking unscheduled days off? If so, you’re not alone. Solutions to these problems have typically been to allow overtime to rise or risk customer dissatisfaction by pushing out customer promise dates.

As an Operations Leader, you’re tasked with keeping products moving efficiently through your operation. But, half the time you are putting out fires related to missed deliveries, extended lead times, and rework - which probably originated with workforce issues related to turnover and callouts.

You know that as soon as a few individuals don’t show up for work one morning, you’re thrown into scramble mode to cover their shifts and redistribute the work. Unfortunately, this can lead to missed deadlines, and your key performance indicators are shot for the week. 

If you’re in manufacturing or logistics, you understand how important balancing labor costs and productivity is to meeting your goals. Pricing models for on-demand labor can be confusing, and businesses like yours need to know if this new labor model can cut costs and fuel growth. Maybe you’re asking yourself if it’s even worth looking into on-demand labor.

Meeting production schedules and keeping costs down are difficult in the face of changing demands. The ever-present challenge of keeping good workers adds to the battle manufacturing and logistics companies fight every day. Labor constraints can bottleneck your operations, resulting in lost production time and potentially lost revenue as you are left to improvise a schedule and put out yet another fire for the day.

If you’ve ever engaged with independent contractors for a project, you likely understand how difficult and confusing worker classification can be in the United States. 

On-Demand labor has emerged as a new labor model for manufacturing, logistics, and other supply chain operations. Many businesses are adopting this new way to adjust capacity in response to demand, but you might still be asking, what is on-demand labor, and what problem does it solve?

You’ve just gotten a 10% increase in orders, 1 employee is out on a scheduled vacation, and another two have called off for the day. Now you find your operations team is short and you’re scrambling to make sure you can fulfill orders. What are your options?

When you’re in operations, you're always thinking of the future.  Whether it’s for the next shift, next week or next quarter, you’ll need to create a forecast that will help you prepare for the demand coming your way.  And for all businesses, there is a common practice of how those operations plans are created.  You look at historical demand, take the average, and build your forecasts off that.  

The US Department of Commerce's GDP analysis of manufacturing estimates the industry represents ~11% of the economy and has 1.4x multiplier effect for every dollar spent.  Those figures are already quite significant; however, this article outlines research from the MAPI showing that the US manufacturing sector’s economic contribution is actually 32% and has a multiplier effect of 3.6x for every dollar created. Suffice to say, US manufacturing creates significant economic contribution to our national economy as a whole, as well as local economies across the country.

US Manufacturing is resilient and has never been in a better position to reclaim what was previously given away, as discussed in Now is the Time to Take It Back.  Outsourcing inherently introduces significant risks to service and quality, and the calculations typically used to make the case to outsource are highly inaccurate and overstated; even a 20-30% miscalculation would single-handedly negate any potential savings.  Any remaining cost gaps can easily be solved for by leveraging lean methodology to eliminate waste.  This concept of Leanshoring is already happening around the country, led by those willing to do the work by aggressively and creatively finding lasting solutions that solve the real problem all businesses face: waste. 

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.  I bet you didn’t think I could fit a quote from Mike Tyson into a blog about labor planning.  But the truth is, this quote really hits home for me when it comes to designing labor models and demand forecasting.  

What's in your toolkit?

Have you ever tried to fix something that required a tool or a part, but once you had the tool, you still couldn’t solve the problem?  I’m flashing back to trips between my house and the hardware store, after getting home and via trial and error, realizing I needed a different size, different brand, or different tool altogether.  

Fool Me Once…

There’s an old adage, “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…shame on me”.   Side note, I can’t help but read that in George W Bush’s accent and chuckle.  Looking at the world around us, it’s safe to say industry and society were collectively taken by surprise.  The effects are evident across everything from the price of crude, to the number of jobless claims, to the visible impact on the supply chain.  Despite all of that, manufacturers and distributors are still being called on to answer the bell and produce and deliver goods with minimal disruption.