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So, your warehouse is full! The warehouse manager is all over you, there having to work hard at replenishment or bringing product down from the reserves and over fill all the pick locations just to make room for all the pallets scheduled to come in today! An then you have merchandising calling every ten minutes trying to bring in just one more trailer, saying just let me get one more load on the schedule. And of course, the forklift drivers are asking you have you lost your mind. All the while everyone’s forgotten that you actually have no control, absolutely zero say as to what loads are going to be taken or crosses the dock today. Welcome to the world of an Inbound Dispatcher or Scheduler! I’m Marty with Warehouse and Operations as a Career and today let’s talk about that role for a little bit. It was pointed out, by a couple of people, that we’ve mentioned the position a couple of times, but we’ve never given the proper warnings to run from the position itself. Eric and Kathrine shared their stories, really their frustrations with us so I thought I’d share my story as well. I loved my time at the window. And it being the that position that drives all our freight coming into the facility you’d think it’s a pretty simple task, right? I mean you simply take phone calls for inbound appointments, schedule them on a first come basis until that days’ time slots and pallet counts are full and then switch over to the next day and start scheduling it, on and on until that weeks full. In theory that’s the job description. However, every industry I’m familiar with has its busy season. Those few months where merchandising builds up inventory levels to match the outbound needs of their customers. And then we can see those buy in’s, maybe a vendor has a sale on a line of paper goods or disposables, so our procurement teams buy up to save on the cost of goods. That’s a point I’ve never really understood. From a simple op’s perspective, op’s being expense driven, if we save a Nickle a case on the purchase yet the warehouse has to handle that case additional times, store it in a bigger slot or have to move that pallet 3 more times, how does anyone state that we saved money? Merchandising saved money, the company spend the same or more on that buy in. Anyway, all that’s a whole show on its on, back to todays topic though. Our warehouse is going to occasionally reach max capacity and no operations plan is going to keep it from happening, nothing I’ve ever seen anyway. And its understandable really. Merchandising and procurement works off of sales figures, which are forecast from our customer base and trending histories. We need to have inventory to meet the customers needs. Oct, Nov, Dec, may be the peak season for a lot of the items we carry. Jan, Feb and March they may hardly move at all. So those departments are of course demanding, that’s a little harsh, I’ll say encouraging us or nudging us to get their loads on a fully scheduled day. Remember now, they’ve already orders and purchased the load, its coming, a driver is on the road with it. We may have a day or so we can work with, but a driver is expecting to get unloaded and head out to pick something else up. We simply have to make it happen. I over heard a facilities manager telling a vp of operations last how it had an 8a, a 9a and a 10 o’clock appointment, all three were like 15 miles apart and the vp told him that’s why we’re in Op’s, we can make miracles happen! Anyway, where was I, I was pointing out merchandising is just doing their jobs, every department has an agenda they have to follow. In the examples we just spoke of there may be very little they could have done differently. And then we have to warehouse managers asking us what in the heck we’re doing scheduling so many cases and pallets for. Many times, their being pushed just as hard by their bosses to get in special loads through out the day as well. We’re at the window because we love that kind of pressure, you have to too be good at it, and yes, we do have to make miracles happen occasionally. Thank goodness our operations teams usually have our backs. Our unloaders, receivers and putaway teams always set up on those days and make the impossible happen!
So, I got involved as an inbound dispatcher by volunteering as the backup. I was friends with the full-time scheduler and he definitely made the job look easy. It was going to pay me a little bit more, very little I like to add, to just fill in if he got super busy or needed a day off so I figured, 1 – I could learn something new and 2- I’d be making a little more each hour. Well, all worked out well for the first month. I was trained well, I got to cover for his lunches and breaks, pretty much a great gig for me. Until my friend, found a new job, and just up and quit one day. My agreed too back up position turned into a full-blown full-time job for the next 2 years. Being me though I immediately found myself a back up and started her training almost immediately.
The inbound dispatch position let’s look at a few of their duties, I guess. Our job descriptions may go something like:
Usually a 1st shift position we’ll be their early. I used to come in an hour before the warehouse shift to start checking in the inbound drivers. There’d be a line of tractor trailers lined up on the street upon my arrival each morning. As drivers would arrive throughout the night, they’d just park behind one another. It’d be a mad rush to the window once I sat down and turned on the light. I never really understood the pandemonium, we worked off of a schedule. Although I could check in anybody, I was assigning doors to the 5 a.m. wave. If I knew you had an 11 am, I’d check you in but it’d be a rare occurrence that I’d be able to help you out at 5 a.m. Kind of off topic again, but it was funny how many bribes were offered to me, everything from lunch, or product like steaks and appetizers for the house to out right cash. Everyone wants to get unloaded and back on the road, that’s how they make their money. Don’t ever take a bribe like that, be ethical at all times. That $100 or case of steaks, is never going to be worth your yearly salary!
I’d check everyone in, and assign doors to that first wave, if a 5a didn’t show I’d give his door to the first one in the next wave. I was working at a fairly large facility, we ran about 50 doors between the dry, cooler and freezer areas so I’d have to really stay on top of when a door was finished being worked or was open so I could get another driver into it. Working with about 120 inbound loads one could figure that as a full-time job.
While all that’s going on, we’ll need to be taking those phone calls to schedule loads for the week. I worked off of a 2-week schedule, I’d accept appointment 14 days out. Now some facilities, especially if they have a strong logistics department may have someone else that’ll schedule most of the inbound for us. That takes the calls away from us but also removes a little bit more of any perceived control of the case counts and pallet counts we don’t really control in the first place from us.
We’ll also need to be taking payments from the drivers if our company does not utilize a 3rd party for the unloading. If we’re fortunate enough not to have to mess with that, count your blessings. Most drivers pay with an electronic check, there’s several companies out there and our facility will have an account with most of them. Its time consuming though, it can take 5 minutes per check, and heavens forbid mis punching one single digit cause you have to start all over again. If your facility accepts credit or debit cards that’s great, but with the fees associated with them I don’t hear of many places making that switch just yet.
I mentioned earlier how our warehouse teams have our backs and can pull off miracles for us. Typically, we’ll have a hard number of cases and pallets to schedule too. That number is based on what our receivers can physically get received and our forklift operators can get putaway within the shift. If our company, or our product line I guess I should say, can hold to that hard line, anybody could do, and enjoy, the position of inbound dispatcher. But in my experiences, that’s just not going to happen. People have to take off, receivers, forklift operators, and drivers are going to get held up, reschedules are a frequent occurrence, weather delays are common, and merchandising is going to have those loads they just have to get in. The job is challenging but can be very rewarding as well.
One of the great things about the position is we get to touch so many other tasks and departments. We’ll be working closely with our operations management teams, Inventory Control, receivers and forklift operators, almost everyone and every position in the warehouse. We also will be working sis by side the merchandising team and their logistics people. I know two people that left the position of inbound dispatch and moved into sales. Several have gone from the warehouse into merchandising. One close friend of mine, my 1st backup at that position is now the vp of merchandising for a clothing company. I parlayed my 2 years at the window to move into Inventory Control, the warehouse side of it and on to being a receiver. I think it’s a great position to have under our belt or have a little experience with. Just the organizational skills alone that we’ll develop will help us throughout our careers. I think I learned most of the customer service skills I possess today in that position. Learning how to walk a driver off the ledge that’s been lied too by everybody concerning the load he or she is carrying and help resolve their concerns definitely taught me a lot. And learning how to work with merchandising and being the referee for operations was priceless on down the road. Bottom line, I’d encourage you to accept the position if its offered, even volunteer if you have a chance. Its going to challenge you, your going to have some frustrating days but you’ll learn from it more than likely love it!
We’ll that’s it for today, I shared a few more of my opinions, I’m supposed to say experiences I guess, and I hope I answered a few questions or thoughts about that position for Eric and Katherine. If you have a topic or comment you’d like to give me just send me an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and we’ll get back with ya! Until next week, please be ethical and safe in all that you do!