At a meeting the other day, a prospective client asked me how Morgan gets information into its system on time, completely and correctly. I explained to him that to achieve this, we devised what we call the “perfect shipment,” an innovative quality assurance program.

Our Perfect Shipment initiative began about three years ago, after I had attended a conference during which the W.W. Grainger concept of the “perfect order” was discussed.  A “perfect order” is achieved when a set of criteria are met.

Out of that we at D.W. Morgan developed our own criteria for the “perfect shipment”:
1.    In our system within 30 minutes
2.    Picked up on time
3.    Client informed of delivery status
4.    No damage claims
5.    Timely proof of delivery
6.    Invoiced within 24 hours of completion
7.    Minimum profitability level achieved

We’re not perfect yet, but we are closing in on that holy grail. For the most recent period, we scored 87 percent, and we now average 85 to 90 percent. A significant improvement over our first year, during which we–ahem–scored 6 percent. And to think: Our customers liked us back then!

The stumbling block in achieving the perfect shipment, we found, came from the lack of a corporate-wide vision within the company’s divisions. Individual employees were focused on their tasks, but they were not invested in the big picture.

We told our drivers, “Don’t be late and don’t break it!” But that’s all they saw as being important. When it came to filling out shipping documents and updating the system, they were chronically late, which led to late billings and customer annoyance.

The accounting department was focused on billing, but the clerks didn’t see the bottom-line value of each shipment. Thus, we lost money on some shipments.

To address these challenges, we invested in a company-wide training program, and we offered quarterly incentives to the employees based on how well the company performed in terms of perfect shipments. We rallied the company around that single perfect-shipment number and instilled the notion of teamwork. Accounting began talking to the drivers, and the drivers began asking accounting, “How are we doing”? The number of perfect shipments shot up dramatically.

Even so, while we are pleased with 87 percent perfect, we are not satisfied. We continue to shoot for that perfect score.