Mary Ann Tindall never loses sight of the patients and customers she and her team serve.
In Mary Ann Tindall’s 30+ years in supply chain management, purchasing, distribution operations and project management – including successfully navigating her fully-staffed Detroit, Michigan, Cardinal Health distribution center through the COVID pandemic – she has learned that employee engagement is always invaluable. “Getting to know employees and their families is key to sustaining a culture built on caring for others,” she says. “The result of our work is what can help and inspire others to want to grow and learn.”
Tindall joined Cardinal Health’s Detroit center when it opened in 2017. Today, the 275,000-square-foot facility employs 140 employees and stays open year-round. It is home to 166,087 square feet of bulk and travel aisles and 36,740 square feet of dedicated Special/Low Unit of Measure space. In addition, it contains over 60 pieces of power equipment with onboard computers and 11,432 square feet of battery-powered industrial truck (PIT) parking and maintenance areas.
“We track over 54,000 product locations via our AIMS Warehouse Management System and process over 27,000 customer orders per month, with an average nightly pick volume of 11,000 pieces,” Tindall explains. “The facility has 22 dock doors and utilizes Penske Transportation to manage our dedicated private fleet, with 23 drivers serving both acute and ambulatory customers throughout all of Michigan, northern Indiana and northern Ohio. We process one ton of cardboard daily and deliver product via 330 delivery carts to our customers nightly. We also support Baxter Renal and are equipped with a frozen drug freezer and refrigerator (total 3,357 square feet combined) and a 4,755 sq. ft chemical vault. Our LUM (low unit of measure) operation “ValueLink” operates six days a week.”
Effectively managing such an extensive operation depends on growing employee engagement to drive process improvements, she continues. “We focus on Lean Hoshin Planning and employee engagement to drive process improvements down to the floor level, where we receive ideas and suggestions for how to improve efficiencies, safety, ergonomics, quality and bottom-line costs. Over the past three years, we have implemented 75% of our employees’ ideas and the number of employee suggestions has tripled. Our documented history (by employee and category) helps enable direct recognition for each employee!”
The voice of the customer
First and foremost, Cardinal considers the Voice of the Customer, she says. Indeed, Tindall is astutely aware of the quality of her team’s work and its impact on patients. That said, without its employees, the distribution center cannot fulfill its commitment to customers and patients – hence the second voice, Voice of the Employee. “Together, we work to get the right product in pristine quality to the hospitals we service each night,” she says.
Next, Cardinal listens to the Voice of the Process to determine ways to make its employees’ jobs easier and more efficient. “We ran Kaizen events and Gemba observations to improve processes,” she says. “Finally, Cardinal looks at the Voice of the Business,” she notes. “Collaboration and communication with our customers are key so that we can align our strategy and set stretch goals to serve the hospitals and their patients. We’ve made changes to our inventory forecasting, analytics, segmentation and transportation strategies to become more agile, maximize customer fill rates, reduce storage and handling costs, and utilize our warehouse space more effectively.
“By focusing on the customer, employees and processes, we can drive improvements to our Voice of the Business, she continues. “For staffing strategy, we stay ahead of turnover and find creative ways to keep a pipeline of candidates. In our facility we have run several stay-to-play raffles and contests to have fun and keep productivity levels up. We measure productivity and share performance with our employees as we set ourselves up to succeed in a competitive environment.”
2020: A new world
In March 2020, the pandemic hit and the world went silent – or so it seemed. Food, medical supplies and more were in high demand and short supply. As much as Tindall and her team wanted to support their customers and patients, it wasn’t easy. “We felt the direct shortage of PPE supply to our customers and saw volumes drop as elective surgeries were cancelled,” she recalls. “We then had to manage through a period of lower volume and reduced hours until hospital departments opened again. Like everyone, we wore masks all day, every day. In fact, we continue to wear masks due to heavy COVID transmissions rates in Southeast Michigan. It was an adjustment on everyone’s part to work in masks, along with the fact that we are essential to care and consistently worked the front lines throughout the pandemic.
“The freeways were empty early on in the pandemic and it was an unusual and uncertain time, as we did not know how many employees might contract COVID,” she continues. “We spent a lot of time modifying the facility to be compliant with social distancing rules (adding lunch breaks, installing touchless faucets, adding cleaners, reducing in-person meetings, removing conference room chairs, putting up plexiglass cube barriers and asking questions at our gate for entrance). We had several employees directly impacted by COVID-19. Employees dealt with loss of family members and many were sick themselves.”
It seemed there were more shared stories than not of friends and family who contracted the disease. And yet, Tindall’s team remained committed to serving those in need – their customers and their patients. “In spite of their fears of the unknown, the team knew there were customers and patients who depended on us to be professional and remain present to get our supplies to those in need,” she recalls. “Our employees would come to work and talk about seeing our Cardinal Health supplies being used at the hospitals and how this impacted them. We all shared a common experience of truly being essential to care and this made us stronger and more resilient. From a leadership perspective, we remained calm, consistent, proud, appreciative and grateful for our environment and our meaningful work.
“Once hospital and surgery centers reopened, we experienced surges in product ordering, fluctuating inbound volumes and employee/customer concerns. We immediately shifted our focus and utilized our strategies to assist customers in obtaining PPE, and then managing their customer-owned inventory of PPE. Our customers had been managing through high levels of donations, variations on products and spot buys whenever possible to ensure their employees had the critical PPE they needed. There were challenges in handling mass amounts of materials, and we were called upon to assist and relieve them of regulatory pressures, health and safety requirements, inventory handling and transportation requirements by merging this inventory into our own facility.”
For the most part, the Detroit team addressed supply and demand issues, such as helping customers keep product on hand for areas that were closed or addressing shortfalls of key items that weren’t being produced fast enough and/or were running behind in the supply chain. Safety was paramount, making it essential to add cleaners and retrofitting to touchless systems. And, as it became harder and harder to find essential workers who were available to work, she increased wages. “Thankfully, our staffing remained consistent and resilient to handle volumes during times when employees were out ill with COVID,” she notes.
“Our team is like a family, and we care about one another,” she continues. “We recently had an associate pass away and our team rallied to help with a GoFundMe page and to support the family in any way we could. We have held numerous fundraisers to support charities that are meaningful to our team members. When our employees experience family loss and financial difficulties, Cardinal Health supports them through our Employee Assistance Programs. And the company’s diversity celebrations and cookouts offer a positive boost as well.”
Flexibility and innovation
As was true for many, the Detroit team gradually transitioned into a post-pandemic era, one that is reminiscent of life as it looked 2 ½ years ago while still keeping an eye on the future. “During the pandemic, we focused a lot on building bench strength to ensure we had the necessary knowledge and talent to run the facility,” she says. “In the post-pandemic era this bench strength has now been accelerated and employees have been promoted into key positions. The speed of promotions and development is unprecedented. Collaboration with our inventory and transportation teams also continues to work well to not only speed up supply chain but also reduce end-to-end supply chain costs. We look forward to our opportunities with automation and the new environment this will bring to us in Detroit.”
Indeed, from robots to visual indicators, Tindall has stood by innovative technology that allows her distribution center to address changes in the healthcare industry, while ensuring her team can safely take advantage of new and efficient tools to increase productivity. The impending introduction of robots to the facility will help improve productivity, reduce employee ergonomic concerns and improve quality through visual indicators, she explains. “We also have added days of inventory on hand (DIOH) and modified forecasting techniques to deal with surges in PPE and other items. We store customer-owned inventory and assist our customers in managing the flow and product expirations. And we have developed programs and initiatives to help our customers manage their inventory par levels in their hospitals. Systems such as WaveMark™ Supply Management, Workflow Solutions, which provides a scalable platform that integrates with medical providers’ clinical and financial systems, and 2 bin Kan Ban, which uses two physical bins to manage inventory, usually of small but critical parts, have helped streamline ordering and utility room optimization.
“We continue to recruit and develop associates for future leadership positions,” Tindall continues. “Given the ongoing workforce shortages in the healthcare industry, we are cross training our associates to work in both hospitals, as well as at our distribution center.” And, by incorporating smaller delivery vans to transport inventory, the facility will improve its turnaround time and fill critical delivery requests.
“We must always look out for our employees to ensure we can bring our best self to work, each and every day. The most effective way to rally our teams is by involving them in developing new processes and programs where they can demonstrate and apply their ideas. We remained steadfast throughout the pandemic in articulating and living our values of integrity, inclusion, innovation, mission driven and being accountable.” And they intend to continue doing so moving forward.