Shivalik
Monday blues are very real-- you know it, I know it, we all know it! However, turns out it not only affects employees returning to work after a nice weekend but also impacts Amazon deliveries. Researchers say that the supply-chain performance gets hurt due to Monday blues.
A professor of decision and technology analytics in Lehigh University's college of business named Oliver Yao discovered that the process interruption that happens when operations are closed over the weekend, along with human factors just like the "Monday blues," hurt supply chain performance on Mondays.
Meaning that an extended time between when a sale order is received and when it's shipped, also as more errors so as fulfilment, said Yao who worked with researchers at the University of California and the University of Maryland.
To reach this conclusion, Yao and colleagues used a dataset of about 800,000 transaction records that were gathered during a 12-month period from the US General Services Administration to look at variations in operations performance by days of the week.
They also analysed order and fulfilment data from one of the largest and most important supermarket chains in China.
They found the "Monday Effect" was indeed prevalent and significant.
On average, for example, the time between receipt of a sale order and shipping is 9.68 per cent longer on Mondays than other weekdays.
Weekends create bottlenecks at distribution centres that are dealt with on Mondays as orders are processed, picked, staged and shipped to customers.
Humans completing processing activities are impacted by adjusting to returning to work, more susceptible to errors and less efficient said the study that was published the journal Information Systems Research.
Most supply chain managers are unaware of this impact but they will take steps to counteract the "Monday Effect."
Strategies include increased staffing on Mondays (or any day coming back from an opportunity , including holidays), fewer Monday meetings and non-fulfillment activities, better training, additional pay or mood-lifters like free coffee or motivational talks, and double-checking Monday work.
The best way to reduce the Monday performance gap is integrating technology solutions, like automated order processing systems, said Yao, who found using electronic markets can improve Monday performance by 90 per cent, which is a significant figure.
For example, technology reduces the Monday performance gap by 94 per cent in order-to-shipping time, 71 percent in complete orders fulfilled, and 80 per cent within the portion of shipments that have incorrect numbers of products.
"Technology is more helpful in substituting for labor when humans are more prone to making mistakes," the researchers said. "Computer-to-computer links avoid potential human effects resulting from the weekend break."
