THERE IS A HELL! - - - IT IS CALLED RETAIL THE WAREHOUSE

THE WAREHOUSE
My father, after being demobbed in 1948 from the Royal Engineers took a job as a stores
superintendent at The Crown Agency in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and then for Caltex
(BAPCO) based in Awali, Bahrain. I can therefore claim having grown up in a supply house
environment. I spent countless hours as a kid observing multitudes of goods, the bad and
the ugly of warehouse working and management. I am probably the only person you’ve
ever met who has vacuumed warehouse shelves. This task given to me by, one my father
and two by various employees at the very, very, very large depot at BAPCO which
engulfed not only the articles required in the offshore industry, and the oil refinery at Sitra
for BAPCO but also covering many private areas of the private and military sections on the
island of Bahrain. Everything (well nearly everything) back then was funnelled through
BAPCO into the island.
I ventured into many other line of employment, but all the various professions I
undertook, be it as a Cartographer, Commercial Diving, Ocean and Underwater
Engineering section or the mobile GSM construction section I always had some connection
to a warehouse and/or store environments and naturally logistics and therefore decided to
write an article about The Warehouses.
The erratic demands of customers make maintaining a warehouse a never-ending battle,
but here are a few tips I’ve found useful over the years:
When I see a warehouse/stock-room my first questions I ask myself is “What does this
warehouse say about the dealership and or the company? Actually, when I visit a
restaurant, my first port of call is the bathroom (WC) and I also ask a similar question
“What does the bathroom say about the cleanliness and operation of the place?
So here are my tips for a warehouse:-

CLEAN THE PLACE

It is amazing what you’ll find in the warehouse when
you just clean it on a weekly basis. Mystery inventory
such as: returned goods, damaged goods and special
buyouts won’t have any place to hide.
Beyond the ability to move more quickly in the facility,
your team will begin to develop a greater sense of pride
in their workplace. Remember, this is the place where
all your cash is stored. You want a team that protects
your cash from the outside threats of salespeople, truck
drivers, and manufacturer reps.

GIVE PERSONNEL AN IDENTITY

Your warehouse employees work with your cash all day long. Make shirts for them that
say "Vault Security Team" or "Vault Management Team" or something similar that signifies
the importance of what they do.
This does a couple of things. First, it reminds them that inventory has value. Second, it
helps identify those people who belong in the warehouse.
dodie ste®eo p®odu©tion ™

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