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And another weeks flown by, I’m Marty T Hawkins with Warehouse and Operations as a Career. I appreciate you listening in again today! Over the last several weeks we’ve been talking about the many different positions or tasks in the warehouse. I want to thank everyone for sharing their experiences with the group and sending in your questions, I’ll make sure we get all those answered as soon as we can get to them. Last week we talked about the Putaway position so naturally I was leaning towards it’s opposite or the Replenishment task today. We’ve been talking about the Inbound jobs the last couple of episodes so replenishment will be a good segway into the Outbound shifts.
Ok, the task of replenishment is another great opportunity with the forklift. It’s an outbound task, meaning we’re working with the shipping side. Order selectors, loaders, transportation. As we’ve learned Inbound is all the Receiving and storage tasks and Outbound is the shipping positions. In the larger distribution facilities, our outbound jobs may be on the 2nd or 3rd shifts. I always enjoyed working the outbound jobs. You come in, you know the case counts and the number of loads and you can just get after it, wrap it up and go home. I always joked that when we leave after our shift there’s nothing to carry home with us, nothing we have to worry about, or nothing was left undone until the next day. When that last door closed everything was done. There are no do overs on that shift, you learn early on not to have errors on the outbound side. Errors, there’s a whole show on its own. Anyway, we’ve been kind of walking through the task so let’s start their as well for the replenishment task!
We’re going to arrive early, attendance is even more important on these shifts, we’ve got product to ship and it’ll take all of us to get it accomplished. So, we’ll show up a little early, get dressed with any required PPE’s or our personal protective equipment, punch in, ladies and gentlemen that’s an important step, that’s how we get paid. You can say that’s really our first responsibility of the shift. We talked a few weeks ago about how hard it is for our Supervisors or the payroll department to fix our errors when it comes to missed or incorrect punches. Next, we’ll probably head back to the equipment area and pick up our forklifts. Anyone want to guess what we should do next? I’m sure we all said our pre-trip equipment report. With us all being experienced equipment operators, as typically the replenishment position is going to require that experience, we know it’s the rule. We’ve already learned about the 29cfr1910.178 standard here in the states and know that as equipment operators we’re responsible for checking out all the safety aspects of our equipment before operating it. Now we’re off to our Startup, pre-shift or Safety meeting so we can do a little stretching, get those muscles warmed up and the blood flowing a bit. This is where we’ll probably talk about our case counts, maybe some people will get their aisle assignments and the Supervisor can share maybe last nights productivity and errors with us. As we’ve learned the outbound or shipping shifts are generally going to be based on pure productivity and safety. A lot of equipment will be running around, people are going to be working, selecting, counting and replenishing just a few feet from each other. I typically find most positions can be paid out by the piece, or pallet, or even the load, depending on the task. I hope we never put productivity ahead of safety on any shift, but especially this one. We’ll all need to work as a team to get the job done and all leave with out an incident!
Alright, from here we’ll probably head to our aisles. Oh, one more thing about our startup meeting. Speak up and participate in’em. Getting noticed by our management team is what we’re after right? We want to be that person that’s on their mind, we want to show them that we’re involved. They need to know we’re after that next step or promotion! OK, so we’ve headed to our assigned aisles. If we’re at a smaller facility our task may be to just go start restocking all the pic slots. We’ll be taking products and pallets down from the reserve and storage locations and filling up all the pick slots for the selectors. Our job is to keep them filled so the selectors never arrive at an empty slot. That can slow the whole operation to a halt. That can create an opportunity for errors too. If the selector has to come back later to grab a case that wasn’t there the first time around, it may never make it back to the rest of that order, creating a short on truck!
In the larger facilities we could be working with a WMS or warehouse management system. We’ll have either a handheld RF scanner or a forklift mounted unit that can actually direct us to the next reserve location to grab a pallet and replenish a particular pick location with it. You’ll love these systems, they’ll help keep us one step ahead of the selectors. I loved’em because they’ll help keep our productivity up, and if we’re on a pay by piece or pallet program there making us more money as well! So as an example, our WMS will show us a list of locations we’ll need to grab over the next few hours. We may have a little discretion as to when we drop each of them, but it’ll be important that we stay ahead of our selectors. So, we’ll chose one from the screen, travel to the location, scan the slots barcode or the pallet tag to confirm we’ve lifted it, and carry it to the pick slot. Some houses will have the order selector pull the empty pallet from the location for the replenishment drivers. That makes it easy for us if we’re right on time but usually, because we’ll be trying to stay just a little ahead of the selectors, we’ll need to get off the lift, maybe grab the last couple of boxes, place them to the side, pull the empty pallet and place it out of our way. Now we can get back on the lift, place our full pallet of product, scan the location or the pallet tag confirming we’ve completed the replenishment, add our couple of cases that were left to the pallet and grab that empty pallet to stack it with our other empties and go get another one. That’s a little more work than our counter part on the Inbound side isn’t it. They have some pretty physical aspects to their task too, but I believe we do stay a little more active than the 1st shift. We’ll need to keep those locations filled for all the order selectors, that’s the only way our loaders can get those orders loaded on the trucks and the drivers dispatched!
There’s a lot more action on the 2nd or 3rd shifts. That’s where we’ll be utilizing more powered equipment, and more bodies to get the job done. Safety has to be our number 1 priority. We’ll be working closely with selectors on pallet jacks, loaders on the docks, maybe even inventory control or quality control in our aisles. We have to be the enforcers of the safety rules ladies and gentlemen. Don’t let anyone get to close to our lift areas, make them stay back, don’t let them dart under a lifted pallet etc. It’s our responsibility as an operator. Oh, and we have to make sure we place those pallets properly in the racks and slots too. We don’t want anyone getting hurt because of a poorly placed pallet.
Before we know it all the slots have been replenished, orders pulled, and all the trucks are loaded out and the dock doors closed. We’ll carry our forklift back to the staging area, plug it in if its electric or turn off our fuel bottle if its propane. I always completed a post-trip equipment report myself. It wasn’t required at my facility, but I wanted to document any scratches, or lack thereof, etc. I just kept my own file. As always, we need to document anything out of the ordinary operationally with our equipment, if it’s not right don’t drive it.
I was asked after last weeks show on the putaway position which forklift task is better, replenishment or putaway. Their honestly two different opportunities. If you’ve listened to all our shows you know how I feel about the 2nd shift. I loved working it, you spend less money and can typically earn more money. I feel if our goal is to take advantage of every opportunity and advance within the industry, we’ll need to have an understanding of how the Outbound or night shift works, it’s duties, by spending some time there. The replenishment position will hone our forklift skills. We’ll learn how to work closer with others and I promise you you’ll learn how to be productive, cut out any wasted travel time and better use your movements to be more efficient. The putaway position will teach us the Inbound side of things, how the product is brought into the warehouse. I don’t feel one is any better than the other, I think we need them both, we’ll need those experiences to advance and meet our goals!
Well there’s a little on the replenishment task, visit our Facebook and Twitter feeds using @whseandops and share your thoughts or experiences with the group. And as always feel free to shoot us an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com with any questions, comments or topics that you’d like us to talk about. Until next week, please look before moving that first inch, be aware of your surroundings, and operate your equipment safely. We all have loved ones waiting on us when we get those doors closed!