 The Keck Lab's on-line warehouse benchmarking system, iDEAs, is creating a buzz in various industry publications, as industry seeks to understand how to design and operate warehouses that perform more efficiently. iDEAs (Internet-based Data Envelopment Analysis System) uses the methodology of data envelopment analysis to compute a theoretically "most efficient" warehouse from a dataset consisting of many warehouses, and then compares your warehouse to this theoretically most efficient one. The efficiency
calculations are based on various productivity input and output measures. In contrast to traditional productivity measures, DEA allows one to consider
more than a single input-output pair, thus facilitating multi-criteria analysis.
Warehouse managers can access this system, currently available at no cost, at http://www.isye.gatech.edu/ideas/. Users can enter their data, let iDEAs perform its computations, and then compare their efficiency to that of the current dataset (approximately 200 warehouses).
The following industry publications recently have featured the iDEAs:
- “Benchmark Your Operation," in WERCSheet, p. 7, December 2001.
WERCSheeet is a monthly industry newsletter published by the Warehousing
Education and Research Council.
- “Real-Time On-line Benchmarking of Warehousing Gathers Steam," E-Mhove, URL: http://www.mhia.org/E-Mhove/display_news.cfm?objectid=4D653E90-5CDE-11D4-89B400D0B7444F12&keywords=benchmark,
2002. E-Mhove is a monthly on-line industry newsletter published by the Material Handling Industry of America, and is available at no charge
to registered users.
- Dyckman, Susan (ed.). “On-line Assessment Tool for Better Warehousing," in The Distributors & Wholesalers Advisor, Vol. 13, No. 8, April
15, 2001.
- “Online Resource Helps DCs Benchmark Performance, Creates Industry Database," Distribution Center Management, Vol. 37, No. 6, June 2002.
- “New Online Tool Benchmarks Your Warehouse vs Others," Inventory Reduction Report, Issue 05-02.
- “How Good Is Warehouse Performance?" Modern Materials Handling, July 1, 2002.
iDEAs is more than just an analysis tool for warehouse managers, though. According to Prof. Leon McGinnis, project director for iDEAs and Eugene C. Gwaltney Professor of Manufacturing Systems in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, the data can be used to determine interesting observations about the state of warehousing. For example, analysis of the first 150 datasets entered reveals that approximately only 20% to 30% of warehouses are operating efficiently. With this result, plus additional analysis, further research will be aimed at discovering "best practices" that are enabling this small subset of warehouses to be efficient relative to the rest of the population, so that those practices can improve the state-of-the-art in warehouse design and operation.
The report outlining this initial analysis can be downloaded from the iDEAs website. For further information, please
contact Prof. Leon McGinnis, project director for iDEAs, at leon.mcginnis@isye.gatech.edu. |
