Ants' Efficiency Inspires Supply Chain Experts

Ants have a lot to teach us about making assembly systems efficient. They have a method of transferring food back to their nest that is organized and efficient. The ants use bucket brigades whereby workers hand off food to one another until the food reaches the destination. Some businesses are currently altering their policies to more closely match the bucket brigade pattern of getting work done. Organizing the bucket brigade based on each worker’s speed is the key to improving efficiency. For example, the article brings up a model from CVS. The traditional model was to place the fastest workers in the beginning of the line to pick merchandise to fill orders. However, this caused bottlenecks and slowed down the faster workers. The solution was to place the faster workers at the end of the line. Whenever the faster worker finishes their work in the bucket brigade, they go back to get more work. This creates a sequence where each worker will give up work to the faster worker. The slower worker will start another order earlier and the system efficiency improves. Using this model, CVS has experienced a 34-percent increase in productivity without spending anything to implement the strategy.  Full article at Mechanical Engineering Magazine. 

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