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Welcome to Warehouse and Operations as a Career and the 2nd quarter of 2019! I’m Marty T Hawkins and I appreciate you checking in with us today! So how’d the last 13 weeks treat you? I hope it was Productive and Prosperous, did you stick to your plan, obtain all those 1st quarter goals? We’ve received so many messages about pay increases and advancements made, keep up the good work! If your plan was a little more aggressive and your still working it, stick to your plan and you’ll see results! The important thing to remember is don’t get discouraged, stay true to your plan and success will come, we’re in it for the long haul, it’s a career we’re chasing, we have 38 more weeks to work it this year. We’re all going to successful, we’ve got a plan right?
Ok, What do we want to talk about today… I had a few questions about Inventory Control, Driver Checkin and the Returns Positions so lets start there today. All of these are kind of linked anyway, I mean they all deal with our companies financial departments. Depending on what industry your in or what kind of product you’ll be working with the specific SOP’s or standard operating procedures will of course be a bit different but overall I think we can talk about what the job could entail.
Lets look at the Driver Check-in position. In a smaller facility this may just be an additional task we’ll be assigned each day, where as in our larger operations it’ll be a full time position, maybe it’ll be its own department even. I’ve see facilities that require 3 or 4 people manning the docks to assist our drivers as they return from their daily routes. Think about a distribution center that sends out 100 loads each day. As those drivers are out making their deliveries, they’re going to be making adjustments to customers invoices, maybe accepting partial pay’s, adjustments to credits owed the customer, accepting money orders, checks and even cash. If you’ve ever been or known a delivery driver, Oh my gosh, the horror stories they can tell of how a salesman may have missed giving a customer a credit on a return or forgot to apply a discount to an invoice and how of course the driver gets the lecture from the customer. Now it’s the drivers responsibility to get authorization to make any adjustments to an account but its going to happen, and its going to happen daily, hence why we need the driver check in task. There’s some really slick systems today. If our company utilizes a connected WMS or warehouse management system our drivers may have a electronic tablet that can collect signatures, apply return or adjustment codes, some of these can even accept payments as well! But what I see out in the field mostly are the old school paper invoices, I think in the distribution and delivery fields we’re still catching up to the world of possibilities. Anyway, so our drivers will be making those adjustments with pen and paper. Drivers are in a hurry all day, you can imagine what those invoices can look like after being carried around in the cab of a tractor for 10 hours! So our driver has delivered his or her whole load, made all their stops and returns to the warehouse to turn everything in. We’ll be their first stop after backing in at the dock upon their return. The driver check-in clerk works closely with the transportation department, its drivers and Supervisors, but they also will need to be able to communicate with the sales team, they’ll need to sort out any credits and discounts given and adjusted. We’ll also be working with, and maybe even reporting to our financial departments, AP/AR etc. I know one medium sized facility where the Driver check-in clerk reports to the CFO. It’s our job to reconcile those invoices with the customers account, dig the particulars from the driver and then report any and all discrepancies. The driver check-in position is very important. It’s a great lead-in task to the world of inventory control or a career in to accounting too.
As a returns coordinator we may work closely beside the driver check in person. Our driver may have some product returned by the customer for a refund or credit to their accounts, maybe the warehouse has mis shipped an item, or the warehouse might of mis loaded something, or the driver could have damaged a case. Our drivers will inevitably be bringing product back. And that’s where we’ll step in as a returns clerk. Again, in a smaller house we could be the check in person and the returns clerk but the duties are pretty much the same as the larger more defined role houses. Returns departments are responsible for the disposition of the return. If the merchandise is in good shape and resaleable we’ll need to make sure the count is added back into the inventory so it can be resold. If it’s damaged, dated or maybe out of its original packaging, otherwise cannot be restocked it’s our job document it disposition. Many houses may donate items or sale them to discount houses. If we determine its to be restocked by us we’ll follow the stocking procedure at our facility to get back to the pick location and putaway. A piece of that procedure will be notifying Inventory Control to ensure it’s count is added to the Inventory. The returns department can be one of those first positions for us. Although I wouldn’t consider it a general labor position, it is a great starter job for those that like paperwork and can keep things organized and enjoys following directions. We’ll get a little exposure to other warehouse positions and quite possibly a little equipment usage like and electric walkie or rider jack. From here we can easily move into a Warehouse role, or into transportation or maybe into the financial side of the business like Inventory Control!
Speaking of Inventory Control, lets see, where to start. Inventory control, at least in our larger facilities may consist of two departments or segments of positions. Of course you have the financial side, responsible for the inventory, reconciling its in and out of the building movements, the cycle counting programs or the physical counts of every item. This group is responsible of putting items into inventory or taking items out of inventory or all adjustments due to damages, spoilage, lost product etc, really every adjustment to inventory except its initial entry into the building which of course our Warehouse Receiver position performs. This group usually reports to the CFO or their departments. Then you may have a Warehouse Inventory Control position. I held this position once for about 4 years. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot about, well a lot about a little I guess, the accounting responsibilities. I would get a sheet of all the short on trucks for the day and have to go out and count pick slots to see if they were a case heavy. If a driver gets to a stop and lets say they ordered 10 cases of green beans but there’s only 9 on the truck. He’s going to mark it or code it as short on truck on the invoice. At the end of the day the driver is going to tell the Driver check-in person that he or she only had 9 cases of green beans on the truck and the warehouse shorted him 1 case. The invoice to the customer is going to be adjusted so at this point the missing case of green beans is a loss to the company. A count would be triggered by the warehouse management system and I’d go out and count the slot. If it was 1 case over we could assume the selector had only grabbed 9 cases and I’d ask Inventory Control to add 1 case back into the machine, correcting our inventory count. If the slot count was correct, or had the quantity that the machine thought was there then we’d assume the driver had misdelivered it, maybe to another customer, meaning they may have received 1 more case of green beans than they had ordered and paid for. In this case transportation would be dinged for the cost of the case. It was also my responsibility to find lost product. If a forklift driver had scanned the wrong slot location during putaway or placed it in the wrong aisle or maybe the replenishment driver had placed a pallet into the wrong selection slot. I had to go throughout the warehouse and find those errors. Basically I had to have all the answers for the accountants when it came to what’d operations do with this product. I loved the job. I had the opportunity to work with the merchandisers, accounting, transportation and the warehouse. Inventory control is a great stepping stone in our plan. You can quite literally go in any direction within the company from here!
You can see how all three of these positions, Driver Check-in, Returns clerk and Inventory Control, work closely with each other, their all about reconciling inventory, monies and the finances. All from within the realm of warehouse. I’ve seen them all be filled by a newbie to the business too. It’s not uncommon at all to fill one of these jobs right from the street, no experience required. And they’ll all give us a little equipment experience eventually. I think their all three great 1st positions. And all three of them affords us the opportunity to explore different career paths while giving us experiences in three different fields.
Well there’s the ten-cent tour of a few great positions. I’ve worked all three of them, you won’t go wrong with having any one of them or all 3 of them in your plan. The important thing is to have that plan and know what your final Career goals are! If I can answer any specific questions on any of their daily task or where they can lead you please don’t hesitate to send us an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and I’ll reach out to someone performing the task, we’ll get an experts view and opinions!
Until next week, welcome to Q2 of 2019, write down 3 things you’d like to accomplish over the next 13 weeks and reach for those goals!
Oh, and if you haven’t checked us out on Facebook and Twitter, maybe liked and followed our feeds I’d greatly appreciate it. You’ll find us on both using that @whseandops. Maybe you’d like joing the Warehouse Equipment Operators Community group on Facebook as well? Have a Prosperous and Productive week ahead and Please remember our first task is and should always be Doing it Safely at all times!