10 TIPS
As manufacturers, distributors, and retailers prepare for peak season across their entire supply chains, implementing these tips will help with reduced risk, higher customer satisfaction, and more consistent execution of every step in the order process. Preparing for Peak Season
1 OPTIMIZE DOCK CAPACITY BEFORE ADDING TRANSPORTATION CAPACITY
8 PLAN FOR TEMPORARY BOTTLENECKS Focus resources on constraints that have the greatest impact on performance, such as receiving, picking, packing, or shipping. Plan to recruit, onboard, and train temporary labor well before peak season begins to keep pace with heightened demand. Consider how you’ll adjust shifts to meet these increased volumes. 9 PREPARE WAREHOUSE SPACE FOR INFLUX To accommodate increased days-on-hand, consider using trailers or offsite storage for overflow inventory, particularly bulky products or high-volume SKUs. Evaluate whether higher inventory levels will stress reserve storage capacity, inbound dock availability, appointment scheduling, or transportation flows. Ensure cycle counting strategies and processes are in place to minimize errors and keep product visibility high throughout peak season.
Adding more carriers isn’t the best way to combat capacity strain and maintain on-time delivery during peak season; in fact, most delays happen at the dock, not on the road. Instead, make small changes to appointment scheduling and order release timing and use your TMS and warehouse data to identify potential overloaded shipping windows, dock congestion, and trailer queue times before peak hits.
2 MANAGE CARRIERS BY PERFORMANCE, NOT NETWORK AVERAGES Assessing carriers based on network averages can be risky, because a carrier that performs well overall may create problems at specific distribution centers. Review on-time pickup, dwell time, missed appointments, and loading efficiency by facility to ensure a more accurate performance forecast. 3 ALIGN TRANSPORT DECISIONS WITH WAREHOUSE CONDITIONS Base peak season routing decisions on what’s happening inside the four walls, not just on the road. Companies that do this move more volume and maintain service levels better than those that base decisions on freight volumes alone. 4 VALIDATE PICKING CAPACITY Make sure your employees, processes, and systems are prepared to take on extra capacity and continue meeting SLAs. Run picking
distribution center, such as carving out fast-pick areas or putting slow- moving SKUs on sale well in advance of peak season to create space in your pick faces. Consider what changes you might need to make to product allocation and slotting to run most efficiently during peak. 7 BUILD A PARTS REPLACEMENT STRATEGY When a part goes down in the warehouse, it’s not as simple as just ordering a new part, especially during peak season. Identify your critical components, do parts assessments prior to peak season, and proactively replace parts that are near end of life.
capacity modeling to see if you can complete a large number of orders outside of your normal picking process. Do this modelling well enough in advance that you can implement the necessary operational improvements ahead of peak season. 5 PERFORM EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE An unexpected equipment or system outage can halt production. Ensure you have all spare parts in case of an outage, and perform routine maintenance to keep your hardware and software in working order prior to peak. 6 ADJUST ALLOCATION AND SLOTTING STRATEGIES Peak volumes often require certain adjustments in the 10 USE PEAK SEASON DATA
TO IMPROVE NEXT YEAR’S PERFORMANCE Use the weeks that follow peak season to strengthen future planning, budgeting, and operations. Analyzing what worked, where bottlenecks occurred, and how effectively returns were managed can help you enter the next peak season with fewer risks, lower costs, and stronger operational performance.
SOURCE: BRITAIN PAVLIC, SR. DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION, AND BO THOMSON, VP OF CONSULTING, ENVISTA
8 Inbound Logistics • September 2026
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