The Perfect Order: Right Condition

The fifth of Dr. Marien’s 8Rs of his Customer’s Bill of Rights is the Right Condition. Per his original article, the Right Condition was described as:

Customers want their products ready for use or sale with no loss or damage, no moisture, and no overages with the right identification (such as barcoding or RFID tags on cases and pallets). As described above, many customers want the right pallet configurations or right returnable containers to provide quick acceptance and positioning of the product for use or sale.

Does the shipment being delivered meet the buyer's performance requirements as to use or crossdocking or quick transfer to floor sale or use? Are specific requirements as to barcoding, RFID, or other data capture technologies plus other packaging/unitization being met? Are products properly protected so as to be received without tampering? These are some of the questions that must be addressed by negotiating teams.

Like the examination of the other of Dr. Marien’s customer rights, reviewing the Right Condition requires a multi-perspective assessment. Whether raw materials, components, or finished goods, the product delivered should be ready for the purpose intended. Whereas data mostly drove the rights up to this point, I think that we need to get our hands physically on the issue with this customer right.

Explainer: Defining the Right Condition

Ensuring that the goods are delivered in the right condition requires, first and foremost, that the goods themselves are produced to the quality standard that they are expected to perform. Some quality attributes related to the Right Condition are:

• Does the product perform as it should, meaning does the product do what it was designed, advertised, or supposed to do?
• Does the product perform as long as it should, meaning does the product live up to or last as long as the minimum life expectancy?
• Does the product perform as well as it should, meaning does the product meet minimum usability promises or guarantees, explicit or implied?
• Does the product perform as safely as it should, meaning does the product work or function without causing harm to the user, others, or damage to its surroundings?

As I have stated before: just because you outsource a process, it does not mean that you can outsource the responsibility. If there is no quality testing of (inbound) goods, then you are not fully focused on ensuring that your customers receive your own (outbound) products in their Right Condition. Inferior ingredients can cause manufacturing machine damage, and have a ripple effect in the finished good, manifesting into a more severe problem. Make certain that you don’t pick products from the quarantine area, and that you don’t pick products that have expired or gone beyond their recommended use date. And for goodness’ sake: don’t let your products get damaged while in storage. Keep your warehouse organized with proper shelving and bins to accommodate your products. It does absolutely no good to receive quality merchandise to only let it get damaged while in your own facility due to poor handling and storage, and then ship out to customers in a less-than-perfect condition.

The Right Condition requires that packaging protects the goods throughout the transportation process. The product box and the shipping carton need to be designed for both form and function, especially if the product box is the shipping carton. If you are using separate shipping cartons, determine the appropriate size: excess packing material costs money, but not enough can cause the product to jumble around in the carton. All that excess space is easily crushable when boxes get stacked by transportation carriers. Shipping carton cardboard wall thickness and carton size design is not just a random afterthought, it is a skillful part of overall product development.

The Right Condition should consider other aspects such as item serialization and lot/batch identification. As Dr. Marien stated, this customer right of condition focuses on the “use or sale” of an item upon receipt. If the products have expired, or will expire by the time they are received, they are no good. If the products contain a substance that was recalled by a supplier, they are no good. If during the conveyance of the products they become spoiled, e.g., exposed to moisture or high heat, they are no good.

As is common in retail supply chain vendor compliance requirements, sometimes cartons are palletized, sometimes they are floor-loaded (no pallets) when shipped via truckload (TL) or less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments. And TL and LTL carton labels will be different than small-package carton labels. Whether the goods are for use or the goods are for sale, the right condition of the goods means the right configuration of the goods from a logistics perspective needs to be ensured as the goods are conveyed from the right source to the right destination.

With a clearer perspective of the fifth customer right, the Right Condition, we can move on to the sixth customer right. Up next: The Right Time.

SC
MR