What I Do (at Work)

As the leader of my customer’s sales pod, my job is to ensure parts flow smoothly through all the levels of the material chain: from the mill to the customer’s production line. My customer is one of my company's largest accounts. I direct two co-workers, and work with several others to facilitate the process. What follows are the details of what I do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

Requisition raw material master coils from Nucor Charleston & Decatur. A once or twice a month chore, where I determine need based on current inventory and customer forecast. There are 18 different master coil variations that make over 250 different parts: different thicknesses, chemistries, and widths. At the beginning of February I will order coils to arrive in March. As needed, I also order five or so smaller-use sizes from other vendors.

Maintain a buffer stock of finished parts at our partner fabricators. About once a week I compile an inventory for each of the seven main vendors who fabricate parts, and more than five smaller vendors. When needed, I direct fabricators to ship parts to painters. Often these smaller partner vendors are great at making a part, but not so great at coordinating customer orders. That’s our job.

When the supply of a part falls under a designated minimum level, I initiate an internal production work order to cut the specific raw material to make more. Several parts can be cut at the same time, from the same master coil. The trick is to only cut needed sizes. These orders usually take about a week to cut, package, and ship. Other material involves two or more production processes, and require more advance planning. Some coils are stored and processed off-site; these must be handled separately, and require more hands-on attention. These work orders are also used as a vendor purchase order and a way to receive finished parts.

My company stores about a week’s worth of each part in our customer’s Augusta plant, handing over needed parts one container at a time. Our workers there are on the go all day, and they call on me and my group to trouble-shoot any problems they have. They attend plant meetings, and are the first to learn about production changes. We relay this information to our partner fabricators.

Every day my team member advises each partner vendor which replenishment parts need to deliver to our Augusta storage area. I review each day’s releases to make sure no part level has dropped dangerously low, perhaps due to a customer surge in production. In some cases it is necessary to coordinate an immediate same-day delivery. Based on various logistics, some hot-shot shipments are easier than others. Each hot shipment requires numerous phone calls to the customer, our workers, the vendor, and the freight carrier…all along the way.

I also communicate with the customer regarding forecasts, new parts, problems, and other matters. Some issues are relayed to our fabricators, and others involve my coworkers in quality, sales, purchasing, accounting, credit, or pricing. At month end I compile the total shipments and issue a steel surcharge invoice. Since this surcharge is over a hundred thousand dollars (and audited by the customer), this is a task I do not delegate.

Management expects overall inventory levels to remain low: this too is my responsibility. Since I took over these duties, I have been able to cut overall inventory in half: a drop of over three million dollars. Aged, slow-moving inventory is also tracked: these levels have also dropped, even though the customer requires us to stock slow-moving parts.

Most prices stay in effect the entire year. Some change quarterly, and others are priced by order. I am involved in the quarterly and annual pricing meetings, and when prices change it is my responsibility to make sure all current orders invoice correctly. I also make sure each part is costed correctly. If a cost is too low, large dollar variances are created. These variances show up in the pile of open work in process orders. I must make sure older work order dollars are balanced and closed out…another monthly task.

My previous position was to train and maintain the entire Southeast on these work orders. In addition to Georgia, our Atlanta office is now responsible for Florida and Tennessee. I still try to keep an eye on the various work order accounts. There are advantages to this, as sometimes favorable cost variances can be found and used for the betterment of the organization. Knowing this, my boss sends special projects my way, saying they need to be “weaseled”. Likewise, I am the Southeast’s go-to guy for work order questions and problem-solving.

When the Chattanooga contract accounts were recently transferred down to my fellow Atlanta contract sales group members, the number of training and logistical questions I’ve received increased. Fortunately a great deal of these came during my customer’s holiday shutdown, so I had the time. As usual, there’s never enough time to get everything done.