Warehouse Receiving

The flow of material for any warehouse begins with Receiving. What sets Houston’s Receiving Department apart from similar warehouses is that not only do we schedule regular daily deliveries, but we also have the flexibility to accept unscheduled deliveries.

Product delivered is a combination of goods for resale, samples and internal usage. Purchase Orders (PO’s) can be thousands of mixed items or full truckloads of a single item.

Methods for delivering the product are just as varied as the product itself:

• Parcel – Packages received via FedEx or UPS.
• Less Than Truck Load (LTL) – Only part of the shipment is being delivered to Houston’s. LTL can range from 1 pallet to 22 pallets from various shippers per delivery.
• Full Truck Load (FTL) – The entire truck load is dedicated to Houston’s.
• HTrans – Houston’s utilizes its own trucking company to back haul freight to the warehouse.
• Intermodal – This is the transportation of freight in a container using multiple modes of transportation (rail, ship and truck). Shipping intermodal allows product to move around the clock.

Once the product hits the dock, Houston’s simplified and automated process ensures that product is received quickly. Virtually any item can be received, stocked, and on a customer’s order the same day.  Houston’s failsafe against lost product on the dock is to consider product received only when it is physically in the pick slot.

Mike Buddrius, Director of Warehouse Operations, is constantly looking for ways to streamline processes. He foresees that in the future Houston’s will be broadening the use of Print on Demand and incorporating voice technology.

Even with added technology product doesn’t receive itself.  Mike both compliments and acknowledges their hard work, “Houston’s Receiving crews are knowledgeable, skilled, self-motivated and require very little direction. The Wilsonville location has employees that have been with the company for 10+ years.”

In our Wilsonville location, Receiving Supervisor Brenda Hart remembers using handwritten tags and data entry into the system before product was available for customers. Once inventory technology became available, it sped up the receiving process and product was available almost immediately.

“One thing that stands out with the Receiving crew in Oregon are the years of experience on the team,” notes Brenda. “We have employees with 17 years to [just] 7 years with the company. They have knowledge of the products and the vendors. You can also see the pride they put into their work. We have been putting in some long hours yet everyone continues to have a positive attitude.”

Recently a driver with a trucking company commented to Brenda that, “He was impressed with how nice and helpful everyone was on the receiving dock. It was his third week with the company and he said it was the best place he had delivered to so far.”

While the Kansas City crew has less time on the dock, Day Shift Supervisor Sherman Dodd notes, “The crew is more than Receiving, we wear many hats during the day. Most are fairly new and they’ve done a great job learning the receiving process. They have meshed together well. I’m pretty proud of them.”

This has been an incredibly busy season for the Receiving crews and they are putting in the hours to prove it. Houston’s thanks you for the dedication and hard work!

The post Our Roots: Warehouse Operations – Part 1: Receiving appeared first on Houston's Blog.

Houston’s IT department is inextricably interwoven with everything that Houston’s does as a business. Where other foodservice operators generally outsource to contractors for programming services, Houston’s does just about everything in-house.

Houston’s IT provides a level of knowledge and service that supports both the company and many of our customers. Outside contractors don’t typically spend the time to learn the details of an individual job process. Our IT department works directly with employees, departments, operations, drivers, and merchandisers to hone in on their specific job functions and enable them to work more efficiently and accurately.

Houston’s was not always so tech savvy. In 1985, a Honeywell mainframe computer about the size of two refrigerators was purchased. The nightly backup took six of the large reel-to-reel tapes (think movie projector) and a person had to stay all night and change them when each one finished. An upgrade came along in 1992 to an IBM computer. This one only took one tape to do the nightly backup.

Gary Lass, Houston’s IT Manager, was then a contractor who provided IT support. When an issue arose, the common response was “Call Gary!” In 2000, Gary joined Houston’s permanently and within three years Houston’s was automating warehouse functions. Also, Receiving, Order Picking, and Inventory Management began using portable scanners, streamlining warehouse operations and reducing inventory and picking issues.

Now employees, customers, and vendors can access data using a number of methods. Sean Utt is our website and special systems programmer and database architect. Features on our website include the ability to:

• Browse product and inventory levels in both warehouse locations
• Place quick orders
• View invoices and credit memo’s
• Download price lists and MSDS sheets
• Print flyers and other product resource materials
• Obtain vendor sales data

Sean also designs data files that can communicate with our customer’s and vendor’s computers to stream live data. Our Sales teams also have the ability to source data on the road so conversations with customers contain real-time information.

Diverse technology requires diverse personnel. Gary notes, “There are literally hundreds of operating systems in use around the world. Many of those have dozens of subsets that differ in significant ways from one another. The operating systems control how the programmers interact with the system. Features and controls vary from system to system, from the big mainframe systems, down to your smartphone, and everything in between.  There are hundreds of jobs in IT and people in the IT arena tend to specialize in one or two disciplines over the course of their careers.”

Gary Pierce specializes in the hardware, including phone and computer systems, the portable scanner units, and other equipment used out in the field. The team recently completed a project to update HTrans truck tablets to a web-style interface. This allows our HTrans drivers and customers to make notes regarding deliveries or returns and convey them back to the office. Also joining the team is Manuel Magana, who will be assisting on various projects including a proposed update to our VOIP system.

Plans for the future are always geared toward automation where we can gain efficiency and reduce operating costs. We can be assured that we have an IT department that has the specializations needed to support Houston’s diverse technology needs.

Fun Fact #1: When the Wilsonville location opened in 1998 there were over 5 miles of computer and phone cables pulled throughout the building. Today, with advancements in technology we use less than half of the original cable.

Fun Fact #2: To date there are 10,900 programs and 1.13 million lines of code.

The post Our Roots: Information Technology appeared first on Houston's Blog.

HTrans was founded in 2002 after the tremendous growth experienced in previous years, what was once a one-man local delivery route expanded into its own transportation company within Houston’s. HTrans was the solution to helping facilitate customer growth and delivery of products. In the fall of the following year we opened our new warehouse in Kansas City and promptly started making deliveries from the second location.

Today, drivers typically work long days and start when most of us are still in bed. They must be prepared for all weather conditions and, worst of all, traffic! Our drivers are trusted with access to customers’ facilities outside of business hours. They pick up checks, return product, and perform other tasks to ensure that the customers’ needs are met. Drivers are the final check to make sure that the right product is delivered to the right customer at the right time. This requires the right equipment. The financial structure put in place by Bill Paolo, Sr. Executive Officer, allows HTrans to lease the newest and best transportation equipment available. Our trucks are on the cutting edge of industry technology making them both environmentally sustaining and economically efficient.

Dwayne Johnson, HTrans President

Dwayne Johnson, HTrans President since 1995 states, “In the face of very hard work, we are extremely proud of our drivers.” Within the transportation industry, the norm for a driver is to stay with a company 6 months to a year. For HTrans, nearly two-thirds of the drivers have been with the company for 10+ years.

Dwayne is always keeping an eye on customer growth and the potential for another route. He anticipates that growth will continue into the distant future and pledges that HTrans will constantly adjust and expand to accommodate the needs of Houston’s.

Stay tuned next month for Our Roots: IT.

In case you missed it: Our Roots: Merchandising 

Fun Facts:

• HTrans consists of 36 drivers and 40 routes.

• Trucks are equipped with GPS satellites as a highly valued customer service tool.

• In March 2017, the pool truck case count delivery was the highest in the history of the company.

• HTrans makes more than 30,000 deliveries PER YEAR.

• HTrans picks up from about 45 vendors PER WEEK.

• The fleet turns more than 60,000 miles PER WEEK which equals to 3,000,000 miles PER YEAR.

• Dwayne Johnson started with Houston’s as a delivery driver in 1994. He began as one half of a sleeper team making deliveries to Sacramento.

• Paul Kent, KC Supervisor has been driving since 2003.

Bonus Fact:

Greg Dann, Sr. VP of Merchandising was a delivery driver for 3 years before moving to the sales desk.

The post Our Roots: HTrans Inc. appeared first on Houston's Blog.