In this text, Roy Harmon extends his discussion of productivity from the factory to the 21st century warehouse. Harmon illustrates real-life applications of important warehousing improvements in over 50 companies throughout the world and presents state of the art warehouse designs for high-quality, fast, low-cost customer service. Truly superior warehousing, Harmon argues, entails maximum utilization of all logistics assets, such as manpower, facilities and equipment; multi-functional warehouseman teams with complete responsibility for an area of the warehouse, including receiving, stocking, packing and shipping; modular warhousing designs for fast, non-disruptive additions during peak seasons; and increased hours and days during which expensive equipment is utilized by adding night and weekend shifts.
In the 1970's, manufacturing and warehousing Accenture consultant, Roy Harmon, worked with Yamaha Motors, in Japan, on the design and implementation of company-wide productivity improvement projects that achieved astounding results, doubling productivity. Upon returning to the United States, he began a worldwide campaign to bring the Japanese techniques, with improvements, to the Western world. Starting with Germany's Siemens, and followed by many of the largest companies in the world, Harmon traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, heading productivity improvement projects and training the Accenture consulting firm's personnel in the methods he used. At the time of his retirement, 2,000 Accenture consultants were specializing in his techniques, around the globe.
In 1989, Roy decided to leave a legacy of his lifetime experience and began to capture it in a series of four books. The first two were translated into German and published by Campus Verlag as "Die neue Fabrik"and "Das Management der Neuen Fabrik". His last two books, "Reinventing the Warehouse" and "Reinventing the Business", published by The Free Press, are among the titles that have been translated into several languages including, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, and Korean.
In 2008, MakotoTakayanagi-san asked me to assist in the preparation of the English translation and publication of his book. I began the initial editing and subsequently writing some original materials such as the book's glossary and index and a new beginning entitled, "Management Perspective". I didn't dream that my work on the book, and its publication and promotion, would span a year between the start of editing and culminating with its publication. The book, "Supplier to Worldwide Toyota Factories: Made in Japan", published by WingSpan Press in 2009, appears on over 100 websites of 27 countries.
