Project Background
FlexCart, a mid-sized e-commerce retailer, wants to replace manual warehouse picking routes with a new rules-based routing process in its primary fulfillment center in Columbus. The change is expected to reduce average pick time by 12% before the holiday peak, but it affects daily operations, training, reporting, and WMS configuration.
You are the program manager leading the rollout across operations, engineering, and training. The core team includes 10 people: 1 PM, 3 operations managers, 2 WMS engineers, 1 data analyst, 1 QA lead, and 2 training specialists. Leadership wants the change live in 8 weeks because the holiday inventory build starts immediately after.
Key Stakeholders
The COO wants the efficiency gains reflected in Q4 margin targets. The warehouse director wants minimal disruption to daily throughput and is concerned about frontline adoption. The engineering manager wants to avoid risky WMS changes during a period with limited support coverage. The finance partner expects the project to stay within the approved budget.
Constraints
- Budget is capped at $95,000, including training materials and temporary labor
- The warehouse processes 18,000 orders per day and cannot tolerate more than 2 hours of operational disruption in any week
- Only 2 WMS engineers are available, and one is allocated 30% to a separate inventory audit project
- The routing logic depends on barcode scanner firmware updates that the device vendor will deliver in week 3
- The new process must be piloted, measured, and fully launched within 8 weeks
Complications
- The warehouse union has requested advance review of any workflow changes that alter picker productivity expectations.
- Historical pick-path data is incomplete for 15% of SKUs, making baseline measurement less reliable.
- A senior operations supervisor is skeptical and prefers the current manual process.
Your Task
- Outline the top risks in this operational change and how you would assess them.
- Build an 8-week execution plan with milestones, dependencies, and launch criteria.
- Recommend a pilot and rollout approach that balances speed with operational stability.
- Define success metrics and leading indicators for the first 30 days after launch.
- Explain what trade-offs you would make if the firmware update slips by 1 week.
