Greenway Logistics warehouse automation
Cost savings slide with two hero panels, before and after
A saving is a difference, so a cost slide has to show both numbers and prove they were measured the same way. This one puts $412k before and $268k after warehouse automation at Greenway Logistics, a fictional third party logistics provider, on two panels that match line for line.
What is on the slide
- Headline
- Picking Cost, Before and After, with the line noting the same warehouse and the same volume twelve months either side.
- Before panel
- $412k annual picking cost over two shifts, error rate 1.8 per hundred lines, 14,600 picker hours.
- After panel
- $268k on one shift with a conveyor, error rate 0.6 per hundred lines, 9,100 picker hours.
- The saving
- $144k a year, which the slide leaves the reader to compute from two numbers that are large and easy to subtract.
When this is the right slide
Two panels are right when one number sits either side of a change and the audience needs the size of the gap rather than a breakdown of what produced it.
What to swap it for
Comparison: Before/After Metric Panels. Swap to the four panel before and after layout when more than two measures move and each one needs its own pair of figures.
What this slide shows
The headline reads Picking Cost, Before and After, with a single line beneath stating that the two figures cover the same warehouse and the same volume twelve months either side of the automation project. Two panels then fill almost the entire canvas. The left panel is filled in the theme's brand colour and carries $412k at billboard size, the label Before Automation, and two sentences: annual picking cost over two shifts, error rate 1.8 per hundred lines, 14,600 picker hours. The right panel is filled in the secondary colour and carries $268k, the label After Automation, and the same structure: same volume on one shift and a conveyor, error rate 0.6 per hundred lines, 9,100 picker hours. There is no arrow between the panels, no percentage badge and no third panel for the difference, so the two figures are left to be compared directly, which is what a two panel layout is for.
Who this slide is for and when to use it
Project closeouts, capital expenditure reviews and any meeting where a spend has to be justified after the fact. The audience already knows what the project was, so the slide spends nothing on describing the conveyor and everything on the two figures either side of it. It works badly as a proposal slide, where the after number is a forecast and deserves a scenario range rather than a confident panel. It also works badly when more than two measures moved. Four changed metrics on two panels means eight figures in two blocks of text, and at that point the before and after metric panels layout, which pairs each measure separately, is far easier to scan.
How to adapt it
First, put the same supporting measures on both sides in the same order, even when one of them barely moved. A measure that appears on only one panel reads as selection. Second, name the period on both sides. Annualised figures hide seasonality, so twelve months either side is a stronger claim than a quarter compared with a quarter, and the framing line is where that belongs. Third, resist adding a percentage badge. The reader can see that $268k is roughly a third less than $412k, and a badge saying minus 35% adds a third number to a slide built on two. If the project is still a proposal rather than a result, keep the layout for the day it is finished and use a scenario chart in the meantime, because a forecast in a billboard sized panel reads as a promise.
What makes this slide work
The panels are matched line for line
Both sides carry a cost, an error rate and a picker hours figure, in the same order and the same units. A before panel with three measures and an after panel with one would let a reader suspect the missing measure moved the wrong way, which is the suspicion a savings slide has to defeat before it can be believed.
The comparison conditions are stated
The same warehouse and the same volume, twelve months either side, is the sentence that makes $412k and $268k comparable. Without it, a saving could be a quieter year rather than a better process, and the whole slide collapses into an assertion about two unrelated periods.
Quality moved with cost
Errors fell from 1.8 to 0.6 per hundred lines while hours fell from 14,600 to 9,100, so the reader can see the saving did not come out of accuracy. Cost slides that show only money invite the question of what was traded away, and answering it inside the panel is cheaper than answering it in the room.
Questions people ask
Should a cost savings slide show the saving itself?
Not as a third number on this layout. Two panels of $412k and $268k let the audience make the subtraction, and the difference gets stated out loud or in the next slide's headline. Adding a saving panel would make three figures compete for attention and would repeat arithmetic the reader has already done.
How do you prove the two periods are comparable?
State the conditions in one line, as this slide does with the same warehouse, the same volume and twelve months either side. If volumes did change, normalise to a per unit figure, such as cost per thousand lines picked, and say so. A cost comparison between two different volumes is not a saving, it is a coincidence.
What supporting measures belong beside the cost?
The ones that would have been sacrificed to get the saving. In a warehouse that is accuracy and labour hours. In a contact centre it would be answer time and resolution rate. Two supporting measures per panel is the practical limit here, and both must appear on both sides to be worth anything.
Is it better to show annual or monthly figures?
Annual, when the change is structural and the audience approves budgets annually. Monthly figures are noisier and invite a discussion about seasonality. Whichever you choose, use the same basis on both panels and name it, because an annual before against a monthly after is the oldest mistake on a cost slide.
When should this become a table?
When four or more measures moved and each one needs its own before and after. At that point a four panel comparison or a table with before, after and change columns keeps each pair together, while two prose blocks force the reader to hold three numbers in memory as they cross from one panel to the other.
Can this layout show a forecast saving?
It can, but it will be read as a fact. Billboard sized figures carry confidence, so a projected after number belongs either in a scenario chart with its assumption or in a panel clearly labelled as a target. The safest use of this layout is a result, once the twelve months on both sides have actually been measured.
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