There’s lots of potential danger in supply chain operations: work at distribution centers involves using heavy equipment to pick, pack and move products at an extremely fast pace. Walmart’s U.S. division achieved dramatic safety improvements with a daily training solution that provides personalized short quizzes on safety topics, helping change on-the-job behaviors of more than 100,000 associates at 150 DCs. Recordable incidents at eight DCs decreased by 54% during the pilot program, and voluntary participation rates have consistently topped 90%.
Walmart Canada is seeking to replicate those results by deploying the Axonify training solution. The implementation is part of a $3.5 billion investment designed to improve Walmart Canada’s e-Commerce operations and will be used specifically to reinforce critical safety concepts for 5,000 supply chain associates working at 10 DCs across the country.
When the solution is completely deployed, “we can create a
single touch point for all the associates,” said Francis Lalonde, VP of Transportation
at Walmart Canada in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “If we need
to focus on one particular aspect of safe working for everyone, we can push it
via Axonify.”
However, Lalonde expects the biggest benefits to come from
the fact that each employee’s training is personalized — not just for their job
role, but also for their individual strengths and weaknesses. During their
downtime, employees can review three- to five-minute training modules and
answer quiz questions. “If you’re good with answering one type of question but
not another, the AI module figures out who is doing well, in which parts of the
business,” said Lalonde. Questions are designed both to reinforce what’s
already been learned, and to add to each employees’ safety consciousness and
expertise.
Lalonde may be the ideal person to improve safety in Walmart
Canada’s supply chain. “I worked in explosives manufacturing years ago, and
that’s where I got exposed to world-class safety,” he said. “Manufacturers tend
to be better than retailers on safety, because it’s easier to focus on a small
group in manufacturing. In explosives, we could do $500 million in
business with just six people, but you need many more people in retail
to do the same. My goal is to ‘retail-ize’ this type of safety approach in
order to hit home with all the frontline folks.”
Single Point Of Connection Across The Enterprise
With the single point of contact Axonify provides, Lalonde
and other Walmart Canada executives can quickly track and analyze user participation,
determine who is using the program as well as spot potential problem areas in
terms of safe operations. “They can track across the entire population and
understand who has seen the training and who knows it,” said Carol Leaman, CEO
of Axonify in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “Instead of it all
being disconnected, there’s one global point of connection for everybody.
That’s particularly needed with the disruptions that are happening in 2020.”
The deployment, which began earlier this summer, will
include information about dealing with COVID-19. Lalonde wants to use the
system to identify who is struggling, and in which areas: “You might be
struggling with material handling equipment, but are OK with personal
protective equipment [PPE]. This solution makes everybody stronger in multiple
areas.”
The solution also includes a gamification element and a safety-oriented
leaderboard to take advantage of employees’ innate competitive nature. “When I
was in the U.S., there were serious competitions for bragging rights about the
leaderboard,” said Lalonde.
After the DC deployments, Walmart Canada plans to expand its
use of Axonify to its truck drivers and others involved with transportation and
logistics.
