5-S The Wild Way: Maynard Helps Wild Oats Implement Productivity Improvements

Founded in 1987, Wild Oats Markets, Inc. is a leading natural and organic foods retailer in the United States. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, the company operates 100 natural food stores in 25 states and Canada.

For years, customer service has been a key ingredient to the company’s growth and success in the industry. To further enhance service, Wild Oats management wanted to improve productivity at the front end of its stores, where customers pay for their groceries. The company’s goal was to check out customers more quickly, while maintaining the same high level of service expected from its stores.

In conjunction with improving front-end productivity, Wild Oats wanted to develop engineered labor standards, which would then be used to enhance the implementation of the Kronos Workforce Smart Scheduler™ system. The standards would be used to provide more accurate staff scheduling information and provide better customer service during busy times of the day.

To assist with the project, Wild Oats selected H.B. Maynard and Company, Inc. to help them improve front end productivity and develop Engineered Standards.

On the Front End with 5-S

To help Wild Oats meet its front end goals, Maynard recommended a 5-S initiative. 5-S prepares an organization for lean operations, requiring a culture that is willing to review and change existing processes and methods, with a focus on waste elimination. 5-S helps to create an environment that is clean, orderly and safe, while opening the company culture to change and instilling new discipline.

The 5-S initiative began as a pilot project at the Wild Oats store in Fort Collins, Colorado. By implementing 5-S tactics, Wild Oats felt it could create a more visual work environment that reduces search time, simplifies employee training and lays the foundation for further improvement at the front end of the store.

For example, employees at the Fort Collins store used the 5-S tactic “Sort and Remove” to clear the front end of unnecessary materials. This allowed employees to reclaim valuable space, recover lost items and identify poor bag ordering procedures.

With a clean, organized work space, employees created set locations for all necessary items, with visual instructions for returning the items. This eliminated lost time spent searching and reorganizing items that do not have “home” locations, allowing employees to immediately see if an item is out of place.

One of the key benefits of 5-S is that it sets the foundation for continuous improvement. To support and motivate employees, Wild Oats consistently communicated the benefits of 5-S through store and company newsletters and a 5-S communication board, which is located in the employee break room. Store directors also provided rewards to show their appreciation for employees’ 5-S efforts.

“5-S really helped to change our store’s culture,” said Mike Glass, Service Manager and 5-S store champion at Fort Collins. “It made all of us think about how we can improve our work and find ways to be more efficient. Most importantly, it helped us focus on improving the customer experience.”

Best Methods Come Naturally

With the implementation of 5-S, employees clearly identified Best Methods that could be introduced at the front end. Focused primarily on scanning and bagging procedures, company and store personnel tested various methods for speed, scanning accuracy and employee comfort. Best Methods were then documented with visual method sheets created in StandardsPro® software.

Some of the improvements at the Fort Collins store included:

• Changing the plastic bag locations, which eliminated unnecessary bending and walking;
• Using the proper bag holder, which allows the cashier to use both hands while bagging groceries in plastic bags;
• Using a scan and bag approach to avoid double-handling of products.

It was estimated that these methods alone would yield a seven percent labor savings for the Fort Collins store, and larger savings in stores that bag a higher percentage of groceries in plastic bags.

Wild Oats also discovered it could decrease customer throughput time at check-out by 23 percent by using courtesy clerks to bag items instead of cashiers. In addition to speeding customer service, courtesy clerks are paid at a lower wage rate than cashiers, leading to further potential labor cost savings.

Mitch Orland, Director of the Fort Collins store, likes the improved customer focus: "Because we are a natural foods store, our employees generally spend a lot of time answering customer questions. By using courtesy clerks, we can continue to provide a high level of personal attention to customers while moving them through the check-out process more quickly.”

Setting the Standard for Service

With 5-S implemented and Best Methods in place, Wild Oats and Maynard personnel worked together to develop engineered labor standards. This involves creating engineered standard times for cashier and courtesy clerk activities, and validating the standards.

Engineered Standards are used to determine the store’s current level of productivity and can be used to calculate a baseline productivity level to compare all stores. The productivity level is a measure of total hours required based on Engineered Standards, compared to the total hours paid to front end employees.

From this baseline information, Wild Oats will be able to more accurately schedule employees, which can help to decrease labor costs while improving customer service during the store’s busiest times of the day.

Taking the Next Steps

With productivity improvements in place at the Fort Collins store, Wild Oats has begun the rollout of front end 5-S tactics at five more Colorado stores, and will be implementing 5-S throughout the entire chain in 2004.

To assist the company, Maynard consultants developed a 5-S roll-out plan, which also included strategies on implementing 5-S in other areas of the store, such as the back room. For example, it was estimated that Wild Oats could reduce excess product inventory in its back rooms through various 5-S strategies.

"Thanks to Maynard's help, we are well on our way to improving productivity and, in turn, customer service," said Peter Hall, Manager of Industrial Engineering at the Home Office in Boulder, CO. "We look forward to further improvements as we roll-out 5-S, Best Methods and Engineered Standards to more of our stores in the near future. We are sure 5-S will become The Wild Way!"

5-S Results for Wild Oats

IMPROVEMENT ACTIVITY	PROJECTED RESULTS
Improve front end bagging and scanning procedures using 5-S and Best Methods	Seven percent savings in labor costs
Use courtesy clerks to bag groceries at the front end	Decrease customer throughput time at check-out by 23 percent; improve potential for labor cost savings
Develop Engineered Standards	Implement baseline productivity level to more accurately staff stores and compare productivity levels across stores