Welcome back to Warehouse and Operations as a Career, the Podcast about Operations, by Operations men and women. We try and bring you a little information each week about warehousing and transportation, 2 fields within our industry that you won't find a more passionate group of people to connect with than our WAOC group! I\u2019m Marty and I appreciate you listening in with us today. We grabbed the mobile equipment and headed over to the Distribution Training Center in Oak Cliff Texas today to answer a few questions and talk about a couple of warehouse positions, some of them being those how do I get my foot in the door type positions too. We may hear a little warehouse noise and some horn honking in the background as there\u2019s a couple of 29cfr1910.178 classes going on just on the other side of the office wall here.
\nSo, each year about this time we hear from several listeners regarding breaking into the field or what\u2019s my next step, maybe a few where should I go from here kind of questions. What better place to discuss those topics than over at the DTC. We\u2019ve mentioned the distribution training center a couple of times last year but I think this is the first time we\u2019ve recorded from here. The distribution training center is owned by Belmar Integrated Logistics, a national sourcing company, they use it for a lot of their PIT or powered industrial truck certification instruction and many different training courses. I\u2019ve been instructing one such class here the last two weeks. I\u2019ve really enjoyed working with all the new talent and discussing so many Op\u2019s topics with them!
\nBefore I get too far off topic to rein myself back in let's get to a few of those questions, WAOC, how would you suggest I get a job in the warehouse? Well, with that being a bit of a broad question I thought we\u2019d talk about a few positions they instruct over here and I\u2019ll point out a few of my favorite get a foot in the door type tasks!
\nLet's start with the freight coming in the door and see how far we can get today, maybe we\u2019ll make it all the way through to the shipping positions and transportation!
\nTaking that path, Unloading or Lumping would be our first topic. I think this is a great get our foot in the door job. It\u2019s the first step in the supply chain, regarding bringing product into a distribution center or DC, requiring very little if any experience. If you are willing to work hard and learn not only how to move cases but learn to read purchase orders and break down sheets you\u2019ll have the opportunity to work with ti/hi\u2019s and be around pallet runners, receivers and maybe even forklift drivers. A P.O. or purchase order is what your merchandising department has ordered. The breakdown sheet will tell you how many sku\u2019s or items are on the trailer and how to break them down and how many finished pallets you\u2019ll end up with. You\u2019ll identify and separate those items, stacking them on pallets with the proper TI, or how many cases are on each layer and the HI, meaning how many of those layers you place on the pallet so it can fit into its designated slot for picking or storage. We\u2019ll want to alternate each layer so the configuration tie\u2019s or locks the freight onto the pallet. That way the pallet of freight is built sturdy & stable, otherwise, if we just column stacked everything it\u2019d just fall over when we moved it! The work is hard, but the pay can be very much worthwhile. A lot of our larger corporate companies will contract out the unloading to a third party. One of the incentives to unloading or lumping is piece pay. We\u2019re paid by the piece we unload and maybe there\u2019s an additional pay piece for finished pallets too. Meaning the quicker we unload one trailer, the sooner we can start another one and so on. That money can add up quickly and before you know it, we\u2019re all wrapped up and done for the day! Some days can be long, but some can be short. Now, I consider this position a skilled task,