Improved site management methods help meet growing demand

 

Golden West Foods operates the UK warehousing and delivery system for one of the largest chains of fast food restaurants in the world. Golden West is part of the RHM food manufacturing and distribution business. The popularity of the restaurants and their aggressive programme of expansion create intense pressure for Golden West. They must be able to fulfill orders accurately, on time and to extremely high standards of quality and food safety. This is particularly crucial for temperature-critical goods, which Golden West both stores and distributes. Within their Distribution Centres time scales are short, volumes are high and growing, pressure is intense and much of the work is routine and repetitive. In this environment, best practice working procedures are business-critical-information. They must be clearly defined and accurately communicated to employees.

 

To help the company maintain and improve the quality of their working methods, Information Transfer and Mitchell Management Training worked closely with Golden West Foods. I.T and MMT researched site management methods and transport services to identify best practice, which all staff should use. The 2 consulting companies then developed a comprehensive set of Work Instructions to communicate this information to groups of warehousemen, drivers and office staff.

The drivers' work instructions, for example, covered starting a run, delivery to the store, collecting goods from warehouses, changing trailers and ending a run. Clear step-by-step procedures included health and safety information, instructions on what to look out for, and actions to take when things go wrong. To help build staff knowledge, work instructions were accompanied by Training Modules and Assessments, used by the trainers to train staff and validate the training. These provided trainers with the skills to train their colleagues, and the confidence to use the materials both to deliver standardised training and assess performance.

 

The initiative was very effective, and highlighted some key issues within supply chain management. The experience of working with the groups of trainers in Golden West demonstrates how relatively easy it is for organisations to improve their effectiveness by harnessing the knowledge held by a workforce that is often doing very routine work.