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Hello everyone, I hope all is well with ya! It’s been a wild few weeks for us hasn’t it? It appears to be getting better, a little better anyway, I’m hearing quite a few companies have called back staff and increased some of the 30 hour positions back to 40 this week! I’m still waiting on the dentist to start seeing patients again, I have to get in for a little oral surgery that was urgently needed the week all this stuff started. Some of my closest friends are still out of work, some aren’t sure they’ll be called back even. I hope everyone has their health and on the job front you’re doing fine. When I look around and hear from so many of you it makes my few problems seem quite mute. I hope next week is a fabulous week for all of us! So, we’re here to talk about Operations. Thanks for all the questions coming in, keep sending them and I promise we’ll get to all of them eventually! Let’s see, where do we start….
I made the comment a couple of weeks ago about how everything we see in the room we’re setting in had probably came to us through a warehouse distribution center and entered the transportation arena at some point. If you’re a long-time listener you’ll know that I started my career in distribution, food service distribution. Earlier I had worked a few jobs with heavy gas meter parts, and did a stint working with warehousing apparel for a large catalog chain and then I worked with disposable paper goods for a while. All distribution centers! Distribution was great to me and my family and I do probably lean a little biased towards distribution! But all those things in the room had to start somewhere right? And that was in the manufacturing and production elements of what we all do. I honestly believe any facet of operations is the place to work and that everyone one of those positions can be a good solid rewarding career ladies and gentlemen.
I love definitions so let’s look at Manufacturing – Manufacturing is the making of goods by hand or by machine that upon completion the business sells to a customer. The manufacturing usually happens on a large-scale production line of machinery and skilled labor. https://www.shopify.ca/encyclopedia/manufacturing
One report from the bureau of labor statistics stated that there were 12.85 million Manufacturing jobs in the US that employs 8.5% of the workforce. We won’t get into all the politics of downsizing and jobs moving overseas here today, yes it has shrunk and probably will continue to do so to some degree. But we as that workforce will have jobs. When a large Corporation moves a plant, I believe there’s 10 more startups that’ll be offering us jobs. I won’t get into the eb and flow of the economy but isent that how it works here. I do believe that for every position you hear about moving on, and yes, it’s bad for the person doing that job, but I think there’s another one created at another Manufacturing plant. Manufacturing is Manufacturing, whither its airplane parts to drilling equipment or a bakery oven to bicycles. products must be made. I have a 62-year-old friend, he worked 33 years in the aerospace industry and today he is with a startup manufacturing self-motorized bicycles. I guess you’d still call them a startup, he’s been with them for 4 years and there now the largest in the state.
And let’s look at production – Production – the action of making or manufacturing from components or raw materials, or the process of being so manufactured.
Over the last few years, I’ve had the pleasure to work with several production facilities and I’ve came to enjoy knowing every associate I’ve met. Talk about a hard-working team, production has to make it happen! Without all our Manufacturing and production teams us in the distribution field wouldn’t have any freight to move to begin with!
Through the state of recent events a lot of these positions have been deemed essential, can’t really tell you what that means though. I tried looking it up, but it appears any governor, federal agent or city judge can decide what is essential these days but for a lot of us it meant we kept going to work every day. And if you want to talk about an essential employee it’d have to be the nation’s truck drivers. Without them our store shelves would be bare right now! I personally want to give a loud shout out to those ladies and gentlemen, there the backbone of our end user society!
So, a long-time listener asked why or how I got to be so stuck on operations. There’s just so many other industries out there and warehouse work or operations as you call it is so physical? Well, I appreciate the question, and it’s a good one, so let me see if I can answer it. When I graduated from high school, I had some family obligations that made me postpone my higher education plans and I needed to go to work. I had been a DECA or distributive education student in my junior and senior years where I learned leadership, and marketing as well as innovation ideas. One could apply and get a warehousing job pretty much the same day, so I got a job. I was fortunate to team up with the right people and worked for some great mentors along the way. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it here today, what other industry can you enter into with no skill and little to no formal education and end up earning 100k a year as you prepare for those later years towards retirement? The work is a bit physical, but I’ve always enjoyed physical. I’m so thankful that I’ve always loved what I do. I can honestly say that there has not been one single shift that I dreaded getting ready for. Oh sure, I’ve been stressed and worried about what was going to happen on more than one occasion, but not once have I not wanted to go in for it. I think you’ve got to really enjoy whatever job you have; otherwise you’ll never be the best at it! I loved it, I was usually the best at it, and today I get to consult, teach and talk about it. I’m playing around putting a book together where I explain my experiences and the many opportunities operations afforded me and how anyone can create a successful career within op’s. I’ll make sure I get each of you a free copy when it comes out.
Well I strolled way off topic for the last few minutes, where was I going, oh yeah, we had a listener ask why operations? Today, when speaking with young men and women about their careers I share a lot about all the opportunities in Logistics. Global logistics, technologies, all the new software platforms that are being created and used to move goods by trucks, containers, the railway, and planes or ships, that’s the less physical aspects of operations. If one is fortunate and has the opportunity to complete one of the many degrees offered today towards the logistics fields, I believe they’ll always be a strong demand for those positions. The worlds markets depend on further efficiencies to move products that all nations and peoples rely on. Warehousing is not just chunking cases, and Manufacturing is not just assembling something, nor is production just producing an item. Engineers, developers, programmers and businessmen are the base for all operations in the world today. Transportation, the truck drivers of today deal with more computer systems onboard their rigs than they do with pressure gauges today and warehousemen are wearing computers on their wrists or are speaking into a headset to get their directions from a wms system. When asked why op’s, I must ask what is not op’s anymore?
Over the last few weeks, we’ve learned a little, or maybe we’ve been reminded of, what an essential employee is. Our healthcare workers, first responders, the grocery store stocker, the warehouseman and the truck driver, shoot all the operations positions we’re always talking about really turned out to be recognized as essential employees. And all the food preparer’s, the school cafeteria ladies, I know in my community they helped keep the less fortunate fed with meals. And oh my gosh, finally all the caring volunteers in our communities received some long overdue recognition they deserved. And maybe we’ve came to understand all the highly paid athletes, financial institution positions, Hollywood types may not be as essential as we once thought? Maybe families and friends carry a lot more weight now as essentials?
Well I didn’t wrap up as planned but we wrapped up with a few words of honesty anyway! I hope the audio was ok with you, I know the speech is off, I hope we can keep putting out the show each week until I can get in for my appointment, I guess we’ll see, just a little more of the unknown. But you know what, it’ll be alright either way, things are good!
We didn’t talk much about safety today, but it is our job 1, even if we’re at home, let’s all take care of the family like we’ve learned. Until next week, if you just need a quick op’s conversation hit us up on twitter or Facebook using that little @whseandops and we’ll carry on the conversation!