Situation
A distribution center was operating below service, productivity, and cost expectations. The visible symptom was low OTIF performance, but the underlying issues included labor productivity, warehouse flow, overtime, slotting, replenishment, premium freight, and carrier management.
The challenge
OTIF performance was well below board-level expectations.
Labor productivity varied by shift, zone, supervisor, and task type.
Overtime was being used as a normal operating mechanism rather than an exception.
Warehouse layout, slotting, replenishment, and staging created avoidable touches and congestion.
Premium freight and mode-mix drift were being used to recover preventable execution misses.
What was done
Assessed service, labor, layout, inventory, transportation, and management-system drivers.
Recommended a daily control tower covering order aging, fill exceptions, labor plan attainment, dock schedule adherence, and carrier execution.
Defined immediate slotting, staging, overtime, and premium freight controls.
Built a phased roadmap for labor standards, warehouse flow redesign, mode governance, carrier scorecards, and KPI ownership.
Outcome
Provided a board-ready path to recover service and reduce operational volatility.
Identified how to improve labor productivity, reduce overtime, control premium freight, and strengthen inventory reliability.
Reframed the issue from isolated warehouse or freight problems into an integrated operating-system reset.
Confidentiality note: This case study is based on a real work sample and has been rewritten to remove sensitive company, customer, vendor, and financial details while preserving the business issue and improvement logic.