The Question is Do You Want to Do It

Warehouse and Operations as a Career

Everyone having a great week out there. I certainly hope so! I’m Marty and welcome back to Warehouse and Operations as a Career. I have an old friend that always said work is work, that’s why they don’t call it fun. I always disagreed with him. Work is work but it has to be fun, to a point I mean. If you know me at all you know that I believe we have to enjoy our jobs if we have a chance to turn them into a career. Most of us will be needing to work another 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, depending on our ages of course. Can you imagine doing something for that long that you don’t enjoy!

I thought of all that because I’ve received a lot of questions about some warehouse and transportation positions and how to advance within them.

One person wrote in that they wanted to be a diesel mechanic but that any trade schooling was out of the question because of the upfront cost. I know a good friend that that started out as a driver helper and ended up as a mechanic for the same company. Before I talk about that though I’d encourage anyone interested in a trade like that to check out your community colleges, churches and city groups. They all from time to time have access to grant monies and scholarships for such. And a lot of companies have training programs or will pay for such training as well.

The friend I mentioned had been a driver helper for about three months for a large foodservice distribution center. An opening came up on the fuel island and he put in his request. The position of fueler does pretty much as it implies! This organizations drivers would come in from their delivery routes, back up to the docks and unload any returns, turn in any credits or adjustments with their invoices from the day’s deliveries, deposit any cash and checks into the reverse ATM and then drive their tractor and trailers over to the fuel island to be refueled. The fueler would top off the tractor and refer tanks on the trailer and then go stage them to an assigned door to be loaded back out by the night crew for deliveries the next day. He loved this new task as it was a day shift position verse his old night shift driver helper job.

Working the fuel island was located down by the fleet shop. Part of his job was to mention anything the driver had notated on his post trip sheet to the mechanics and turn those slips into the fleet director. After about 3 more months he had asked if he could help out with the PM’s or preventative maintenance work that is done on the equipment after so many miles each week. There’s a lot of small things involved in a good PM. Things like checking and changing light bulbs, checking tires and uneven tread wear, maybe even changing or rotating tires, checking hoses, maybe even belts etc. The director liked his initiative and started letting him take direction from a couple of the more knowledgeable mechanics when he was all caught up with the fueling.

After about 6 months of doing that a PM mechanic position opened up and he was promoted again. To make a little longer story short, within 2 years of starting with the company he had gone through several courses achieving several certifications such as air lines mechanic, brake mechanic ect, and was enrolled in a diesel mechanics class paid for by his company. Today he has been with that company for 17 years. He’s been offered a supervisor’s role many times but he loves being a diesel mechanic and has turned them down each time! Now I made that sound a little simplistic. He worked and studied hard over those first few years. He invested in himself. He took a lot of night classes. And he purchased a lot of tools, a few each week, until he had quite the toolbox built. He had a goal, planned it out, and today has the job of his dreams. For him, going to work each day is fun. By the way, he wouldn’t want me saying it but he’s helped several young men and women enter into the fleet world and become successful and accomplished in their goals as well.

Another individual wrote that their order selecting experience had been as a small parts picker in a conveyor belt aisle picking small parts for autos and aircrafts. More like wiring components and electrical parts. They had electric rider pallet jack experience from a previous employer and had just recently taken a job with a distribution company. They stated that the productivity requirements were much much higher than their parts picking job had ever been and they were afraid they were failing. The question was what is the secret to being an order selector in this productivity setting.

There’s honestly not a secret. The question is do you want to do it. It’s hard. It’s going to require focus. It’s going to require work. With all that being said let’s look at what we can control.

First, we need to realize that time is our enemy! Our productivity is basically measured by how many cases we selected in an hour. Even if we’re being measured by percentage, you can put a CPH or cases per hours figure to it. Moving product is called direct time. Other things like taking a break, or lunch, or restroom breaks are indirect time. We are measured and held accountable for our direct time. To me that has always meant selecting right up to break time. That means not stopping 3 minutes early so I could walk over to the breakroom early. Using the restroom while I am on break or lunch instead of stopping and going later. And when I was finished eating or finished my break I would be back on my pallet jack when the direct clock started ticking again. Another big time waster is gossiping in the aisles while selecting. I shouldn’t say gossiping but talking is a real productivity eater. Another important thing is to work smarter and not harder. Look through your batch or cases to be selected. Are there any aisles you can avoid driving down. Drive time is a serious waste of time if we can avoid it. It can take a whole minute or more to navigate down an aisle. If we don’t have any cases to select in that aisle that drive time will do some serious damage to our CPH or selection percentage. I’ve seen new selectors work on just those few things and double their productivity averages. Define your cph goal, plan for it and achieve it.

This week I received at least 5 phone calls from individuals wanting to get their PIT cards or powered industrial truck certifications for the forklift. I want to state again ladies and gentlemen, please do not pay a service from the paper or periodicals your hard-earned money for that card. Your company will give you the certification for free. Holding a card in your hand does not give you the experience to pick up 2000 pounds on a pallet, run it across the warehouse and safely place it 20 feet into the air in the rack and its location.

Be that employee, come in on time for every shift, do a good job, and let your supervisor or manager know what your goals are and they will work with you, train you for your next step. They probably need forklift operators and what better person for the job than someone already familiar with their operations, product, rules and procedures. There are no short cuts to becoming an equipment operator. Set your goal, know what you want to operate, target a company to work for and get your foot in the door with a G/L or utility position. Set your goal, plan it out and you’ll become that forklift operator.

Well that’ll wrap up another week for us here at Warehouse and Operations as a Career. Please share a thought with us at [e-mail] and feel free to ask any questions on the Facebook and Twitter feeds using @whseandops.

Until next week please be safe, what we do can be dangerous, and we all have someone wanting to see us after our shifts are complete.