To insure that system planning will accomplish the company’s objectives, system planners, developers, and logistics managers must avoid turning assumptions and/or presumptions into facts. The old adage – “garbage in equals garbage out”, is more truth than fiction. Planning based on “funny” numbers can yield disappointing results.

Assume versus Presume

These two terms, assume and presume are nearly synonymous and many dictionaries include one in the definition of the other. The element that is most common in the definitions of these two terms is acceptance without significant investigation. Both have definitions that refer to the taking on of roles and duties not only the formation of opinions or assessments. There is the obvious difference in the “as” and the “pre” in the words. These are significant and shouldn’t be discounted. “As” means “toward” and “pre” means “prior to”.

So, assume can be used to refer to when a thought or opinion is held without reason. This could be based on past experience, for example. It can also refer to when an individual takes on or takes over duties or roles. One of the differences of these two terms is the use of assume to communicate acting or pretending. This might be when an actor assumes a commanding role for example. It’s an interesting difference and illustrates the difference of the prefixes.

Presume also can refer to when something is believed or an opinion is held without the requirement of proof. It can also refer to taking on duties or roles, though it is sometimes defined with a certain amount of arrogance. There is also a connotation of legality and some definitions of presume define it as a legal term as in the ‘presumption of innocence’.

The distinctions between these words are slight in many cases. Despite that there are a number of cases that may merit one or the other for proper usage. Take these into consideration when you are choosing whether to use assume or presume. Better yet, try not to assume or presume anything when planning operational or systematic changes.

Finding the Real Problem

For those of you who are currently tasked with making operational and/or systematic changes, you may now be facing your greatest challenge – sorting out assumptions/presumptions and getting down to the facts. The following includes two of what I believe to be the most common examples to beware of:

1. The first example is a type of assumption that says the “Suggested Problem” (such as inventory costs or customer order response times) is technologically fixable.

Inventory costs, for example, might be caused by inflated (or inaccurate) sales projections. Or it could be there’s an unusually high rate of returns for certain items, and those returns aren’t calculated against projected inventory levels.

 

In the case of response times, if the company wants 90 percent of orders filled and shipped within 24 hours and it typically takes 18 to 20 hours just to get the order approved and downloaded to the DC, there’s not much you can do even with the most efficient physical processing system.

 

In these situations, all you can do is try to calmly point out opportunities for improvements in other areas to make your area more efficient. And, in fact, better communications between departments can lead to great improvements in efficiencies such as faster response times and more accurate sales forecasting.

2. The second example is a type of presumption where the “Suggested Problem” is the real problem. It’s this type of presumption that is most dangerous. It’s where presumptions are mistaken for facts.

Let’s say the presumption is that order fulfillment takes too long because the packing area is inefficient. Is this really the problem? If, say, you have six packing stations, each equipped with a hand-held scanner to verify the shipment, perhaps fixed-location or wearable scanners might improve operations by as much as 10 percent (depending on the number and type of items being packed).

 

But, could the process be improved more dramatically by scanning and verifying the shipment as it’s picked directly into the shipping container? In some applications, this could eliminate as much as 50 percent of the activity in packing and could significantly streamline order fulfillment. It might even allow you to assign some of your packers to picking.

 

If you accept the presumption that the problem is in the packing operation as if it’s a fact, you miss the opportunity for making broader improvements.

Take another example - returns, which in many companies is a significant factor. Here the assumption/presumption might be that you need to streamline returns by allowing customers to use the Internet to generate returns labels complete with bar codes. It’s true that scanning these bar codes can facilitate returning material to stock and adjusting inventory or directing returns to an appropriate processing area in the case of defects or damage.

But, if those data aren’t (or can’t be) shared with Accounting, Sales and Marketing, they’re not being used properly (or completely). Whether the data are shared upon receipt of the returned item or taken directly from the Internet depends on how the company operates. Here again, if you presume that the returns processing area is the only place you need to make improvements, you may be missing an opportunity - and possibly overlooking the root cause of the problem.

Final Thoughts

The danger in accepting assumptions and presumptions as fact is that it instantly narrows your vision and that can be costly. Working on solving surface issues that are not the real underlining problem, is like spinning your wheel – it will generate some heat and noise, but not much traction. But worse yet, it could lead to bad decisions – the career changing kind.

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