Receiving Dept. Makeover, Need Advice and Ideas

[alan802]

Ok gang, I need some help, ideas, motivation...whatever I can get.  Our shipping/receiving guy left in early december and we had to let his replacement go on Friday.  So generally, well lately, when someone leaves or gets fired, I have to pick up the slack.  I'm not real excited about this, I have shipping and receiving experience and I grew to hate it so I never told anyone here that I knew how to do it.  I'm not mentally ready for this right now but maybe in a day or two I will be.  Hopefully I'll get some motivation and ideas that will get me going but right now I'm just a little pissed and maybe a little lazy. 

We generally don't bulk order much, only the few smaller jobs per day get bulked into one PO to save on shipping, but the majority of our orders are above the free shipping level.  For the most part, the jobs come in a box, or two depending on the size of the order and I have to match PO's to our paperwork and then I begin to check in the merch.  Count it, label it with corresponding work order number and customer then I shelf it in the right spot.  I would like to know how other shops are doing this entire process.  I've heard of a "bin system" where jobs are bulk purchased so multiple jobs may be in one box, everything has to be sorted where as we typically have only one job per box.  Then as the jobs are sorted and counted, they are then put into a seperate bin per job and I'm assuming the bins are labeled with a work order number or something that distinguishes jobs from one another.  Then the bin is staged somewhere, maybe in a warehouse or by the machine, I don't really know.

We have a staging area that the box sits in until it's ready to be produced.  We label each box with the work order number, name of the customer, design name, and number of boxes total for that job.  I'll post pics of that and our receiving area later to give you guys a better idea.  I worked in the shipping/receiving dept at Sam's Club for a year so I'm no stranger to this aspect of the business, but obviously there are differences and most things were palletized per product and then labeled and staged above or around that area that the product is merchandised on the sales floor.  I'm basically trying to do what I did in the screen printing dept and make things work smooth and simple, minimize mistakes...be more profitable.  This obviously won't take as long as getting the screen printing running great, so I'm giving myself a few weeks to get this mess straightened up and streamlined and then I'll hire a clone of myself to keep this well oiled machine running.  I'll hire, train and make sure things stay the way we set it up.  Our guy that left in Dec trained this new guy for a week, and I'm quite certain the training was terrible, but the new guy wasn't going to cut it despite poor training so we had to do what we did.

I really don't know which direction I want to go in so I'm open to suggestions.  I'd love to know as many different ways to do this then use what I think is the best.  I'm assuming someone has already came up with the best way to accomplish this so I'm not expecting to re-invent this process, but I know there is a "best way".

So with embroider orders the jobs are staged on shelves, see pics, then the paperwork is handed to the embroidery production supervisor and the girls come out and pull the jobs off the shelf.  They match up work order numbers on their paperwork to the number on the box and take it back inside to their machine when they are ready for the next job.  Screen printing orders are handled roughly the same way.  The boxes are taken over to the screen printing building and put on shelves then layed out the day we plan to print them.  The staging is a little different from screen printing to embroidery but it's not that different.  I'd like to know if you guys "bulk ship" multiple jobs on one PO and have multiple jobs in one box and sort it out using "bins" or boxes or do you operate where you have a PO for each work order.  We try to bulk purchase all the jobs that are less than the amount we get for free shipping but for the most part, the majority of our purchases are shipped free and are essentially separated and just need to be counted and labeled then either staged or rushes are put on the production floor immediately. 

I may be overthinking this and maybe the way it is done is good and it should stay the same, but I find that hard to believe and there has to be better ways to do this.  One thing I would like to change now is how jobs are arranged on the shelves.  We have them alphabetically and by work order number, it's very confusing to most and I don't know if I could even explain it without a bunch of pictures and explaination.  Just understand it's not confusing once you get to know it but damn it doesn't make sense at first and even though I know it doesn't make sense, I haven't thought of a better, more simple way.  It's only been a few hours so maybe something will come to me soon.

Here are pics or our receiving department.





Here is a pic of a bunch of smaller jobs on the shelf.  Most of these were bulk purchased and then separated but not all of them.  I'd love to bulk every single job that's under the free shipping limit even if it means more work for the receiving person.






View of the check-in table and computer with shopworks and UPS shipping stuff.

[ericheartsu]

i for one am very excited to see what everyone posts on this thread. I've been looking for a more efficient way to do this for a couple of months. so thanks in advance

[T Shirt Farmer]

Alan,

 we inventory pretty much the same way. Our orders print on 4 part NCR paper, each copy is color coded and pre labeled with Sales Order, Purchasing, Work Order and Pick List. When the rep prints out the approved order they distribute the appropriate copy  to each department for processing.  I highly encourage you to stay with 1 PO for each order as it makes inventory a much easier process when you are sifting thru 30 cases to find which ones belong together on a particular order.  We also use the sale order number as the PO number again to make matching up orders and boxes easy. We hand mark each box as you do with name - order number  but also tape the pick list on box #1 of each order and circle the garment info as it is picked complete, makes seeing shortages easy. The good thing with the 4 part form is all departments are looking at the exact same information with exception to pricing which only appears on the sales order, all other copies have pre printed Chinese block out over the price area of form. Looks like you have a great system in place and hats off to you for wanting to better it!!

[Printficient]

A good job separator that is used in a lot of shops that I go into is a laundry basket for each print job. You place the blanks in the basket along with the paperwork and stack them on a shelf.

[alan802]

Alan,

 we inventory pretty much the same way. Our orders print on 4 part NCR paper, each copy is color coded and pre labeled with Sales Order, Purchasing, Work Order and Pick List. When the rep prints out the approved order they distribute the appropriate copy  to each department for processing.  I highly encourage you to stay with 1 PO for each order as it makes inventory a much easier process when you are sifting thru 30 cases to find which ones belong together on a particular order.  We also use the sale order number as the PO number again to make matching up orders and boxes easy. We hand mark each box as you do with name - order number  but also tape the pick list on box #1 of each order and circle the garment info as it is picked complete, makes seeing shortages easy. The good thing with the 4 part form is all departments are looking at the exact same information with exception to pricing which only appears on the sales order, all other copies have pre printed Chinese block out over the price area of form. Looks like you have a great system in place and hats off to you for wanting to better it!!

We do the same thing, except we only have 3 copies that get dispersed.  I've only spent a day back there and I think it can be better but I do have some respect for how it is done now.  I used to think it was garbage and needed my touch but it really is pretty good as it is.

[inkbrigade]

I hear you on wanting to make this a better system. As much as i'd love to order one PO per box from our suppliers it's not gonna happen. Combining orders to get free shipping is hard to pass up. 

We basically do the same thing as you. Except we do less volume. So when we get deliveries they are stacked and counted and laid out on tables. Production order is set on top of the stack and that's where it sits until it gets slid onto a shirt cart and moved to the press.

[Flying Colors]

Alan-

I think I may have a few things that could help. It would be easier if we talk on the phone to cut down on the questions back and forth over the forum. I'm around tonight for the next couple of hours and all day tomorrow.

Mark
734-546-2581

[inkbrigade]

Mark, was it you we talked to at ISS about the CTS? Thanks again for all the info!

[alan802]

Alan-

I think I may have a few things that could help. It would be easier if we talk on the phone to cut down on the questions back and forth over the forum. I'm around tonight for the next couple of hours and all day tomorrow.

Mark
734-546-2581

I'll give you a call today my friend.

[Flying Colors]

Yes, that was me at the Douthitt booth. It was great meeting both of you and good luck with your upgrades.

Mark

[ericheartsu]

Alan, what software are you using that gives you sheets for all your departments?

[alan802]

Alan, what software are you using that gives you sheets for all your departments?

Shopworks.

Sorry Mark, I really didn't get much time to do anything besides count stuff and put out fires all day.  I'll try again tomorrow... is that cool?

[Flying Colors]

Yea for sure, anytime call 734-641-1300 - that is the work line.

Mark