Welcome again to Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I’m Marty and we’re grateful you stopped in for a visit! I’ve gotten way behind on a couple of questions and I thought we’d try and catch up this week. First off I’d like to talk about the Receiving Position today. In the distribution world our freight comes in on trailers or containers, usually, if merchandising has their days on hand figured correctly, by appointment and arrives on time to be unloaded. As we’ve discussed in earlier episodes, a driver will check in and either unload his or her freight themselves or hire an unloading service to break the load down and stage it for the Receiver. I mention all of this because all this actually can fall under our responsibility as receivers. In most facilities, especially the larger distribution centers, the receiver is tasked with not only receiving the product but will oversee the entire front dock or front of house responsibilities. I visit several DC’s each week and the receiving process is pretty consistent thru-out the industry. I thought we could just walk through the day in the life of, the receiver.

Of course we’ll be arriving on time for our shift, and our first task will be to punch in on the time clock right. A quick story, I think I’ve mentioned something like this before, but a young gentleman forgot to punch in one morning last week so his time was skewed by almost half a day. His supervisor and payroll missed the correction and he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. Well on Friday, at like 5pm he noticed his check was a little light. Of course he was upset, and although it was explained it’d be taken care of next week and that, after all, it is his responsibility to punch correctly, and/or at least notify his Supervisor of any corrections needed, his solution was to just not show up for his shift Saturday. The NCNS was recorded and now he’s seeking employment. He however feels he got his point across I guess. Anyway so we’ve punched in and we’re wearing all our required PPE’s. We’ll probably start out stopping by the Inbound Check-in desk and review or pick up our copy of the Load Schedule for the day. We’ll verify all the first wave trucks are in their doors and go pull their PO or Purchase Order sheets. The Purchase Order is what we’ll be verifying the items purchased, the correct quantities, colors, pack sizes etc, that what was shipped is what our merchandising department ordered. When each truck checks in they’ll present us a BOL or Bill of Lading. https://www.freightquote.com/how-to-ship-freight/bill-of-lading They explain that The bill of lading is a required document to move a freight shipment. The bill of lading (BOL) works as a receipt of freight services, a contract between a freight carrier and shipper and a document of title. The bill of lading is a legally binding document providing the driver and the carrier all the details needed to process the freight shipment and invoice it correctly. It’ll include information like:

What's in a freight bill of lading?

Names and addresses: The full names and addresses of both the shipper and receiver (consignee) should be legible and easy to locate on the document.
Purchase orders or special reference numbers: These numbers may be important to your business or a necessary reference in order for freight to be released for pickup or accepted at delivery.
Special instructions: Here is where you will note instructions for the carrier that are not extra service requests like liftgate or delivery notification.
Date: This is the pickup day, and it may be needed as a reference to track your freight or when you reconcile shipping invoices.
Description of items: Shippers should note the number of shipping units, the dimensions and weight, as well as information about the material and its makeup.
Packaging type: Note whether you are using cartons, crates, pallets and/or drums when shipping.
NMFC freight class: Freight classes can impact the cost of your shipment. Freight shipments are broken down into 18 classes based on weight, dimensions, density, storage capability, ease of handling, value and liability.
Department of Transportation hazardous material designation: Hazardous shipments must be clearly cited and special rules and requirements apply when shipping.

Freightquote.com has a really nice sample freight bol for you to look at, again WAOC isn’t affiliated in any way but I did like their information, you ought to check them out!

SO we’ll take that BOL along with our PO and walk the dock checking that the stacked pallets have been configured properly, meaning they are stacked with the right ti and hi, remember what we’ve learned, a ti is how many cases are layered on the pallet and the hi is how many of those layers is on the pallet or how hi it is. A ti/hi of 7/5 would be 7 cases per layer and 5 layers hi. It’s our responsibility to confirm the pallet is of one item or sku or stock keeping unit. Just for information a sku is usually a string of 8 alpha numeric digits that we’ll be using in house, where as a upc or universal product code is typically a string of 12 numeric digits and is always the same for the product. We could do a whole show on sku’s and upc codes and barcoding, there’s so many barcode formats out there. So, anyway We’ve confirmed the items have been segregated correctly, stacked properly and the count matches our P.O. so now we’re ready to attach a barcoded tag to it on the lower right hand side OR scan a barcode which will automatically place it into our wms or warehouse management system. After we’ve checked the entire load, pulling out or notating any damaged cases we’re going to reconcile those counts between the purchase order and the bill of lading. If all the above doesn’t sound like a lot of responsibility we’re now ready to sign the drivers bol which essentially is like writing a check for that entire load. As a receiver, once we release the load, sign the bill of lading and hand it over to the driver we relinquish all disputes or claims with the load. And as a receiver we’re doing that all day long. I once made a $89K mistake on a load of meat, only about half the pallets we’re on the truck, I was in a hurry and just counted the pallets from across the dock. I handed the bol to the driver and went over to tag the pallets and saw immediately I was short. Luckily the driver had stopped off at the restroom and I was able to get the paperwork from him. I marked it short and helped him call the claims department to get it sorted out. I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened it I couldn’t have caught him!

All that brings me to today’s question “How long do I have to work here before I can be a Receiver, they make more money than I do?” Now he doesn’t mention where he’s working, it looks like he’s been a forklift driver for about 3 months though. I don’t know that there’s a timetable for such. I believe it’ll depend on how much responsibility we’ve shown our management team that we can handle. My suggestion was that he visits with his supervisor, let him or her know what his goal is, they may not even know he’d like to make that move? I can tell you though it’ll help to know every item ay your facility. Know how the paperwork flows, and who you can contact for help. We didn’t even speak to the possible regulatory concerns with receiving. Things like country of origin tagging, temperature recording, trailer condition report, os&d reporting or over short & damage claims. As receivers it’s our responsibility from the time it’s taken off the trailer until it’s placed in the rack by the fork driver. And that’s a whole lot of responsibility. As we’ve learned the more responsibility a position has the more money it’ll pay right?

Well there’s a little on the receiver task. I loved receiving, I lost a few nights sleep as a receiver but I really enjoyed the job & I’d encourage everyone not to shy away from it just because of the responsibility!

Please send us an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and share your receiving stories with the group. Better yet use @whseandops and post them to our Facebook and Twitter feeds. I’d love a good discussion about Receiving! Let’s all bring up a Safety Topic at tomorrow’s start up meeting and keep someone Safe for the day!