Using On-Site Surveys to Develop Your Shipping Profile

A key step in defining all of the elements that encompass your company's shipping profile is completing qualitative and quantitive survey questionnaires. To complete these questionnaires, you have to perform individual and group interviews and data gathering and analysis on site. Completing them on site presents certain challenges, but if you take the time to see the questionnaires through to completion, or hire a qualified third party to complete the questionnaires on your behalf, the results can allow you to:

- determine whether or not your company's different locations and departments are conforming to standards and meeting expectations,

- obtain accurate delivery lead times (the times between orders and deliveries),

- determine each shipping location's ability to cope with order quantity changes,

- examine the quality of your current shipment and notification technology and give you the ability to qualify alternatives,

- find out whether or not you have the internal support required to integrate and/or update new technology and processes,

- assess the ease, accuracy, and speed with which your company handles billing, and

- develop a complete understanding of the technical specifications retired to manage, consolidate, and package shipments and their components.