Labor is the number one cost in warehouse and distribution operations. As a result, many supply chain businesses are using labor management software to track, measure, report and plan labor activities to increase efficiency and reduce operating costs.
Labor is one of the highest costs for supply chain operations. A successful workforce requires companies to navigate a delicate balance between a sufficient number of staff and the level of performance efficiency. In order to keep operating costs low, supply chain professionals look to technology for visibility.
There are many complex ways to calculate the efficiency of an associate's performance. The outcome can vary depending on if they are measured by efficiency, utilization, etc. This can be a time-consuming process with gaps in visibility and accuracy.
In today’s environment, supply chain operations struggle with absences, seasonal changes and unsatisfied employees. An engaged employee can mean the difference between a productive and counterproductive warehouse.
High turnover disrupts operations, raises costs and decreases productivity – often due to demanding work conditions, low pay, limited growth opportunities and ineffective management. Reducing turnover involves improving workplace conditions, offering competitive wages and enhancing leadership strategies.
Our Labor Management solution is designed to help you measure performance and utilization objectively. It enables you to plan, measure and view labor activities within your organization.
Visibility tools provide real-time data on associate performance actuals versus standard, KPIs and utilization. Our solution allows you to detect inefficiencies and take corrective action.
Plan workforce requirements, monitor resources across functional areas and align labor capacity with warehouse demand.
Calculate labor and equipment standards, configure travel times and capture direct, indirect and lost-time activities, including personal time, fatigue and delay allowances.
Give associates mobile access to real-time performance feedback and support a more self-directed workforce.
Track performance and utilization, identify trends by department, shift, individual or activity and integrate with time, attendance and payroll systems.
Our Labor Management solution helps companies allocate and utilize their resources to optimize operations. Infios’s easy-to-use solution displays performance metrics on a mobile device, enabling associates to benchmark their historical ratings and set personal goals.
Enable a self-directed workforce
Associates empowered with performance indicators are able to take greater ownership of their work and benchmark their improvement, resulting in higher morale. Monitor their expected against actual performance through a mobile device and provide direct feedback throughout the day.
Get the most out of your WMS
By integrating a Labor Management solution with your Warehouse Management System (WMS), you can create a comprehensive labor planning and monitoring platform, as well as manage work demand.
Built-in integration
All of our solutions offer a high level of configurability, allowing you to change your system to meet your needs without expensive, time-consuming custom code modifications.
A labor management solution is a software system designed to optimize workforce productivity and efficiency within warehouses. It helps warehouses effectively manage labor resources by providing insights into employee performance, task allocation, and workflow optimization.
By using an Labor Management solution, warehouses can reduce labor costs, improve operational efficiency and enhance overall productivity.
A Labor Management solution helps improve employee performance by providing real-time visibility into labor metrics such as productivity, efficiency and accuracy. By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and providing actionable insights, it enables warehouses to identify areas for improvement and implement targeted training programs. Additionally, features like performance feedback and incentive programs can motivate employees to achieve higher levels of productivity and efficiency.
While a Warehouse Management System (WMS) focuses primarily on inventory management and order fulfillment, a Labor Management solution complements its capabilities by optimizing workforce performance and efficiency. By integrating with the WMS, an Labor Management provides additional functionality such as real-time labor tracking, task allocation based on employee skills and availability and performance analytics. This expanded functionality enables warehouses to better manage labor resources, streamline operations and ultimately improve overall warehouse performance.
Workforce management is a broader term that covers scheduling, time and attendance, HR planning and compliance across an organization.
Labor management is more specific to operational execution, particularly in warehouses and distribution centers, where it focuses on measuring productivity, tracking task performance and optimizing how labor is allocated to work demand in real time.
In a supply chain context, labor management typically refers to the operational layer, connecting directly to warehouse management systems (WMS) workflows and fulfillment activity rather than broader HR functions.
The most important features include:
Real-time performance tracking against defined labor standards
Resource planning and monitoring across shifts and functional areas
Time and attendance integration
The ability to drill down by department, individual or activity
Mobile visibility so associates can see their own performance in real time
Integration with your WMS so labor planning is connected to actual work demand
Reporting and analytics that help identify inefficiencies and trends over time
ROI from labor management software typically comes from productivity gains, reduced overtime, better workforce planning and lower turnover driven by a more engaged and fairly measured workforce.
Productivity improvements of up to 50 percent have been reported by Infios WM customers, and labor management adds a further layer of optimization on top of that foundation. The payback period depends on operation size and current inefficiency levels, but for most warehouse operations the combination of cost reduction and performance improvement delivers measurable returns within the first year of deployment. Capabilities such as the Infios Associate Coaching Agent add to this return by automating the performance analysis and coaching that supervisors would otherwise do manually, driving more consistent workforce productivity without adding management overhead.
AI moves labor management beyond static standards and periodic performance reviews toward continuous, data-driven optimization. It can identify patterns across shifts, tasks and individuals, flagging inefficiencies before they compound.
AI also improves task allocation by matching the right associate to the right activity based on skill, availability and current workload. Over time, the system learns from operational data to refine labor standards and planning accuracy, improving throughput without adding headcount.
The Infios Archer, takes this further at the individual level. Rather than relying on supervisors to review data manually and deliver coaching when time allows, the agent analyzes labor and operational performance data, identifies coaching opportunities for every worker and generates personalized feedback and suggested guidance that team leads can deliver during or after the shift. The result is more consistent, timely coaching for every associate without managers having to run the analytics themselves.
Within Intelligent Supply Chain Execution, labor management is part of the connected execution layer that links order, warehouse and transportation operations. Rather than planning labor in isolation, Infios Labor Management connects workforce capacity to the work demand flowing through the WMS, so that staffing decisions are informed by real-time order priorities and fulfillment requirements.
As Intelligent Supply Chain Execution evolves, the intelligence layer will increasingly coordinate labor, automation and transportation decisions together, so that every resource is deployed where it has the most impact at any given moment.
Whitepaper
Learn how innovative technologies, like Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) and Voice-Directed Working (VDW), can be used to improve operations suffering from labor challenges
eBook
Discover how to unlock improved performance and profitability by placing people at the center of your supply chain execution, while delivering an enhanced customer experience
Blog
Human Augmentation Series, Part One: Challenges
Learn how innovative technologies, like Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) and Voice-Directed Working (VDW), can be used to improve operations suffering from labor challenges
Discover how to unlock improved performance and profitability by placing people at the center of your supply chain execution, while delivering an enhanced customer experience
Human Augmentation Series, Part One: Challenges
