FoodLogistics.com |

ALEXANDRIA, VA: A newly released report, commissioned by theInternational Association of Refrigerated Warehouses, offers an in-depth look at measuring operating efficiency in public refrigerated warehouses (PRWs). The 2006 Productivity and Benchmarking Survey Report is a critical tool for warehouse companies that are seeking efficiencies to consistently offer lower costs to their customers. Benchmarking is a key technique in the problem-solving process, allowing warehouse operators to compare individual warehouses with external standards used by others in the industry. This report discusses key trends affecting the cold storage warehouse, measures current productivity results, and offers suggestions on how to improve warehouse operations.

“Achieving results on the bottom line is important to all IARW members, and this survey sheds light on the critical factors that lead to success,” explains IARW President & CEO Bill Hudson.

Participating companies throughout the United States and Canada provided survey results from a sample of 108 warehouses that were used to compile the data for this report. The refrigerated warehouse space represented by the participating companies is approximately 648 million cubic feet of space, or 35 percent of total IARW North American member space. Participating warehouse financial results were evaluated using Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) as the key financial performance measure. Each participating warehouse was then ranked by EBITDA results from lowest to highest in an attempt to determine which performance measures may contribute to greater profits.

In addition to calculating the overall average of all participating warehouse’s results, range result averages were calculated to report the average results of the low, middle and top performers based on EBITDA using quartiles.

The survey found that (EBITDA) improved when: • Size of warehouse operations increases (economies of scale). • Costs as percent of revenue decrease. • Revenue per employee increases. • Throughput pounds and cases per hour increases. • Pounds shipped per month increases.