Book Industry Study Group

Book Industry Study Group, Inc.

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REGISTRATION FOR THE 2006/07 WAREHOUSE BENCHMARKING CYCLE IS NOW CLOSED. Email Angela Bole (angela@bisg.org) for information about the 2007/08 cycle.

--- Book Business reports on BISG's Warehouse Benchmarking Program (February 1, 2007) ---

How good is your book warehouse performance?

Do you have a lot of room for improvement, or are you very close to "best in class?" Until recently, these questions have been difficult to answer without expensive benchmarking studies.

Now, however, the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG) is pleased to be able to provide data envelopment analysis (DEA). DEA is a relatively new approach to evaluating system performance. It enables one warehouse to be compared to a cohort of "peer" warehouses, not based on averages, but based on "best performance." DEA has been implemented in an internet-based tool, iDEAs.

What is the Warehouse Benchmarking Program?
The warehouse benchmarking program is a web-based application that allows warehouse descriptive and operational data to be entered and compared across a group of book industry warehouses. Specific data is visible only to the warehouse entering the data. The resulting score is like a SAT score for warehouses - it has both an absolute value (how good you are) and a relative value (how you compare to other warehouses). The application also analyzes the magnitude of potential improvement in standard productivity scores (such as lines picked per labor hour) and supports identification of best practices.

Who can participate?
Participation is open to all book industry warehouses.

What are the benefits?
The warehouse benchmarking system enables you to to quickly benchmark your warehouses' operational performance relative to a large sample of other warehouses.

Your warehouses are compared to others in your peer group: the book industry. The resulting score takes into account the industry's unique warehouse attributes, such as the volume of returns processing, handling of new releases, value added services, and more.

You can enter data in multiple sessions and continuously edit your data.

Once you enter data, benchmarking results are received in about two minutes; best practices analysis will be available after all the participants have finished entering their data.

What are the specific deliverables and when can I expect to receive them?

The Warehouse Benchmarking participant will receive immediate feedback when they use the online tool including an efficiency score and several partial productivity measures. They will also get a pie chart that describes the sources of inefficiency for the partial productivity measures. These are all part of the website and available immediately.

The iDEAs team will also write a 40-page report that details efficiency for the entire industry and will give each participant a better feel for how they compare to their peers. The iDEAs team will also look for correlations between efficiency scores and practice and/or attributes in order to give the user an idea of what practices and attributes are correlated with high efficiency for the book industry.

2006/2007 WAREHOUSE BENCHMARKING TIMELINE

How can I sign up?
Registration for the 2006/2007 Warehouse Benchmarking Program cycle is now closed.

Check back for details on the 2007/2008 cycle. Or email angela@bisg.org for information.

Where can I find more information?
INTRODUCTION GUIDE: http://www2.isye.gatech.edu/bisg/userguide.pdf

WHAT KIND OF INFO IS REQUIRED?: http://www2.isye.gatech.edu/bisg/questionariebisg.pdf
PRESS RELEASE: http://www.bisg.org/news/press.php?pressid=18
WEBSITE: http://www.isye.gatech.edu/bisg/

EMAIL info@bisg.org