Ear on Chicago; Food Distribution

This is the sound of a lift truck busily unloading a carload of food at one of the largest food distribution warehouses in the world. The central distributing division of consolidated foods located in River Grove on the outskirts of Chicago. Open only last February, this huge building, replacing three old warehouses in Chicago, consists of 576 ,000 square feet of floor space and handles over $55 million worth of food per year. The River Grove Center stalks enough food to feed one million people for 12 days. It is something of the sounds and the story of this enterprise that we bring you today, as we report on food distribution. Our guide today is Mr. Woodson Daniels and going along with us on the tour will be Mr. Allen Cummings. We're standing right now as we told you at the unloading docks and the sound you heard was that of a lift truck. Now Mr. Daniels tell us a little bit about this unloading dock. I noticed first of all that there are a large number of railroad cars here, probably 15 or 20 and out of each

one is coming some sort of food. You tell us a little bit about this operation. Well there's room here for 19 cars to be set at one time. We unload on an average of 50 cars a week. Now is this all the food unloaded by these lift trucks that go inside of the railroad cars and bring the food out? Is that it? Everything is palatized on a 40 by 32 inch wood pallet and it's palatized at the time it's being unloaded and hauled away with fork lift trucks and piled in its slot that's predestinated. Mr. Daniels that's one of the very things I wanted to mention. Now we're standing right before one of the cars that is being unloaded. We have some food and boxes coming off. Now how do you know what that food is where it came from and then once it gets here where it's going to go after you get it? Prior to receiving the car into our warehouse the purchasing department sends us a copy of the original purchase order and

that is a guide for the receiving clerk to use in determining how many pallets are required in that car. There's put on each pallet. Are you saying the receiving clerk? Does he get all of the paperwork? Is that it? He gets the paperwork, verifies the count and sees that everything is in order. If there's any damage goods in the car it is put to one side and we have a man in here at all times from the western wing and inspection bureau that takes care of any damage claims immediately. And then these boys on the trucks the one of which is going into the car right now take the goods and put them where they're supposed to go. On the what we call a stand -up lift truck it is low enough to go into the car. After he has pulled that out of the car and set it in the aisle

another high lift truck comes along and picks it up and takes it and piles it into the piles where it is supposed to be stored until it ships out to the customers. Well as long as we have one of the truck drivers right here we might as well talk to him for just a minute. John is it? Is that your name? Yeah my name is John. John what is this food you're lifting off right now? Slash yellow -clean peaches. Where do they go John? What about in stock or where they go in the wilds? They go over and learn to be shipped out as all this call for. You do a lot of this type of work every day I suppose. Eight hours every day sometimes ten. Okay John thank you very much. And by the way we were talking about a receiving clerk a little while ago and one of them is standing right over here. Jim could we talk to you for just a minute? Could you tell us a little bit about your work? Now we understood from Mr. Daniels that you're the receiving clerk and you get the paperwork and tell everybody where this food is going to go is that correct? That's right well I'm

not the only one here there's two other for buying me. Yes that's for all one man couldn't handle this so it lines up about 22 to 24 cars. One gang of one lord about two to three cars for day. Well now Jim we have some merchandise coming in right now off of these guards. What's going to happen once that gets here in the warehouse? Well from here we give it a number like here's some my dietic payers coming in now we give it a number and the more be lift driver comes and checks this number and puts it in a number in the racks for the auto pedals pickers to fill it. In other words this slot number one two two three a corresponds to something down here. It corresponds to the line with auto pickers are picking now. I see so those pairs that are coming in will go into that slot. That slot the auto picker will look for that slot when the auto comes in for that pair and you'll find it in that rack always in the same rack. Well that's simple enough isn't it? Oh there's nothing hard. I wouldn't say there's nothing hard about it. Okay Jim thank you very much for telling about your job.

You're welcome thank you. Just a moment ago we were talking about the delivery of pairs here to the warehouse and so now we've come to the exact location where they stacked the pairs. I tell us a little bit about this particular operation Mr. Daniels this is one of the high lift trucks about which you were speaking earlier is that correct? That's right. How high does this actually lift the goods? 152 inches. Well now we've followed pairs all the way over to this particular location. Be careful Eddie. Eddie's got a large stack of boxes up there two pallets and on each pallet I think are at least 12 boxes of some sort of paper. Now Mr. Daniels tell us about the variety of items. We had pairs, we had yellow cling peaches, now we have some paper and how many different items do you have? We have about 7 ,000 items in the warehouse. Is that right? Means that we pull

in about 40 ,000 cases a day and our average shipments are about the same. This fella's name? That's Adlasky. I had to wonder if we could talk to you for just a minute about your particular job. How many different boxes and how many movements do you make? Do you have any idea for day? Well it's about 250 loads a day and it's an estimate about it go up to 2 ,000 cases a day. What about this particular thing here? Is that a safety precaution? Well that I think is one of the best safety precautions over my head anyway. I might describe this this is an iron grating which is just about a foot above Ed's head here over the truck in other words if something comes down a box or something falls it won't hit him in the head it'll hit this iron grating which is just above is that right? That's right and it's good protection to me it is anyway because I've had cases fall on it and no harm whatsoever. Is that right? Well it's a simple safety device but I can see that it would be very effective

Ed. Yes it is it's really effective. Now what about the speed of these trucks can you move up and down the aisles pretty fast Ed? Oh I think they move pretty fast but we have to watch the people walking around here. Do you have a governor on these? Yes there's a governor that controls at the certain speed. How much how fast? Gee that I don't know I'd estimate 15 -20 miles something like that. In the IBM department we're going to talk to Tom Ryan who is the manager. Now in the old way of doing things when the order came in and correct me if I'm wrong when the order came in you would send it down to the warehouse it would be written out in a long hand and the man would go around and pick out each item is that right? Yes how do you do it now? After we pull the set of name and address cards the order and the set of name and address cards

goes to our key punch section. In our key punch section we punch for each item on each order the quantity and the code number. Each item in the warehouse is given a code number. The cards are first sorted down by code number. At the same time all incoming merchandise received in the warehouse also has a card punched. At the same time we sort down all the cards received for orders from our customers. We sort down the cards for receipts. The receipts and the detail cards or cards received from the customer are then merged against a master card. The master card has all the pertinent data about any item we carry in the warehouse. After the master cards are merged against the receipt

and detail cards they go through our electronic brain commonly referred to as the IBM 607 calculator. Those machines back here the big yes. Well now why don't we for example take a look at one of these sheets over here and you might explain to us just exactly what this machine is doing. Is this part of the process that you told us about a moment ago? That's right this is the last step in processing in order through the IBM department. We are printing invoices here for one of the four companies that operate out of this warehouse. On these invoices we print all pertinent data that would normally appear on any type of billing. That is where we are shipping the merchandise how it is to be delivered by what truck line. The customer number the territory number of the salesman the date. In the body of the invoice the first item that appears is the slot number.

The slot number indicates where that merchandise is located in the warehouse. In our warehouse we have at any one time some 7000 dry grocery items and trying to confine the walk of locating and picking this merchandise in the warehouse we use what is called the slot system. When we write our invoice we write the items on the invoice in slot number sequence. Now Tom would you tell us about your activity and controlling turnover of the items here in the warehouse. Well in controlling these 7000 items we supply to our buying department a stock status report. The information shown in this report is as follows. The balance we had on hand as of the previous week. The receipts for the present week. The sales for the week and the new

balance on hand. Tom did you ever stop to think at all of this information all of the detailed items in the warehouse. Everything that is done by this company originates in the mind of the house wine. Absolutely. We sit here and we operate these fancy machines. We constantly have to keep in our mind. It is brought to our mind by our executives, by our merchandise, by our salesman that all of this real fancy equipment that we have there are some people call it integrated data processing. Other people call it office automation. Doesn't mean a thing. If we can't do the type of job that eventually is going to sell our merchandise to the customer. Okay Tom, thank you very much for telling us a very interesting story about the IBM operation of Consolidated Food. Well we've come now Mr. Daniels to your special

storage facilities. Now I suppose that I could describe what's going on in there but I think I better ask you a few questions first. First of all, what do you have in your special storage facilities? What do you store in there? We have two coolers. One of them is devoted to the storage of cheese and margin and those things that require cold storage somewhere around 45 to 50 degrees. The other one is for dried fruits and shall nuts which requires somewhere around the same temperature. Well now it's just a little bit chilly in there but suppose we walk on in and take a look at the room and as we walk in as I told you a moment ago I could describe what's in here and the best description is to say it's cold in here but besides that they have large shelves of boxes of food stored one on top of the other. It's similar to the other side of the warehouse, the larger area where they have pallets stored up all the way to almost to the ceiling. Now as we look

we can see margarine biscuits, ballered biscuits, cheese, craft cheese and so on and I suppose that this is typical of the food that you have stored in here from day to day. That is right. We have just about every kind of cheese known stored in this area. Well Mr. Daniels it's about 45 degrees in here is that correct? That is right. You keep it constant all the time? Yes sir. 24 hours a day and do you have this particular room staffed with people all the time? Yes we are depending on the movement of the goods but there is one man in here for every shift. Sometimes two and in a very heavy rush period we may have three men in here one time. You say every shift in other words you work 24 hours a day in this warehouse? Yes sir. Is this one of the men that works in this particular room? Yes that's Joe Finzi. He's our cheese man for the day shift. Well suppose we can talk to Joe. Joe what some of the stuff you're doing this morning? Right now I'm picking orders that is I'm picking cheese

orders and I'm picking the items according to what's on the sheet and every item must be correct because when that storekeeper gets to this probably the item that he's looking for and should we make a mistake why he'd possibly be without it you know. Who's going to get this order Joe? Well I couldn't tell you because there is no customers name on here I guess they work by codes here so I do not know the customer that it is. Joe what about the temperature in here don't you get cold? Well I'm prepared for that temperature sir because due to the fact that working coolers for quite a while I generally wear heavy clothing and it doesn't affect me at all I keep on the move all the time so I keep warm. A moment ago we were talking about one particular order which was being stacked ready for shipment to one of the stores. We've come now to the center of the warehouse or the center of the shipping area of the warehouse to what is known as central control

and from this vantage point we can see almost every angle of the warehouse and well understand why they say that this is the largest of its kind in the world. We're standing just below an enormous toe line about which we're going to speak a little bit later. Only about 25 feet or 30 feet away from us are the truck loading docks. We're going to visit those in a little while. This is really a tremendous establishment but right now our purpose of coming to central control is to talk to Mr. Daniels about a typical order and what happens to it. So suppose we ask him the question what happens to an order when it comes in Mr. Daniels. It goes to the credit department where it is approved for credit passed to the IBM where it is billed and it then goes to the shipping office where all the orders are set up into loads and the router according to the stop. Each load

is marked up for a certain door. We have 58 doors or truck loading spaces at our docks. The order then is given to an order filler. He then brings the fills the order in through the racks when his floor truck is loaded. He hangs it on the toe line and marks the front of the truck for the door that it has been set up to load in. Now what part to central control this little office right here have to do with that entire operation. He has to determine which door it can be loaded in so that we don't get all the loads into one door. He keeps a record of the production for each order filler. He assigns the checkers to each loads. This is a very important job. Well I wonder if we could go in here and talk to one of these gentlemen who handled this very important task.

The central control. Merrill I wonder if you could come here just a second and talk to us. Merrill is sitting inside a small office which is billed of plywood in around in certain locations our windows. Now suppose those windows are important aren't they Merrill? They are. They have to see where what is going and see what is going and what is coming. I see. Well now what are you working on this morning? Freight cities and suburbaners. And what does that mean? That's all the everything we have in the city of Chicago. Suburbs. Suburbs. Some trailers. Well thanks Merrill there's the phone and I suppose you're wanted. I suppose so. I generally am. The sound you're hearing is that of the toe line. We told you we talk about it and now's the time to do it. Mr. Daniels just about how long is that toe line? 1380 feet. It travels at a speed of 90 feet per minute. It's

very important to the operation is it not? It certainly is. It's very important that it doesn't travel too fast and neither would we want it to travel too slow. Well I have always heard the story of automation and this is automation in fact isn't it? Something near that we think. This eliminated probably a number of men from doing that's their very same task that is pulling the carts around to the different locations and making sure they go to the right spot is that right? That is right. Well now I suppose the next logical step is to describe where it goes after it's loaded and gets on to the toe line. What happens after that? It goes around to the shipping doors and there is a man assigned to taking the trucks off of the toe line and rolling them into the door in which the truck is going to load. Well let's move over there for our next step. How's that? Now that we have come over to the loading platforms where the

trucks are loaded from the toe line we're going to introduce a man that we said earlier was accompanying us on our tour and that's Mr. Allen Cummings. Why don't you tell us the story of how these trucks are loaded Mr. Cummings? Well I think we could best tell a story by interviewing one of the gentlemen who actually handles the checking out of the orders as they go out these doors. This man's name is Morris West. When the order gets to this point let's say you don't have a certain item in stock. What do you do about that? Well we make out a slip for a short chaser and the chart chaser checks on it to see if we have it in stock or if it's just out of line. Then after the short chaser gets the particular item involved that may be out of stock do you go ahead and load the truck? We usually always wait to put it on the order before we let the truck drivers have it but sometimes we can let it go for the driver to give them later on. When does the driver become responsible for the merchandise? After the man that

gives the load out to the driver and counts the pieces and gives it to the driver it's the responsibility of the driver then to count it over again to see that he has the amount that is marked on the case. Thanks very much Mr. West. Now we're coming down like for you to tell us before we go any further about something that's very important to your warehouse I know and that's fire prevention. As you drove up to the building this morning you most likely noticed a tremendous water tank outside of the building. That tank stores about 200 ,000 gallons of water. We also have a water tower which contains another 100 ,000 gallons. Now if we should have a fire in any part of the warehouse the whole warehouse is completely sprinklerized so that the whole sprinkler system does not go off if just one part of the warehouse catches on fire. Needless to say with all of the water that we have available should we have a complete fire here you may rest assured that the fire would be put out very

quickly. Also you may notice if I may tell you just for a moment that we have a tremendous number of pieces of equipment in the operation of the warehouse here. This equipment naturally requires maintenance. We have a very capable maintenance staff who completely renovate the trucks and do the motorwork and we do our own gassing and oiling so that minimizes the time spent on breakdown time. There's one more thing which is very interesting and I think we ought to mention in passing. A little while ago while we were talking to Mr. Daniels and I think right now he has a message there was a loud speaker we heard his name called over the loud speaker that he had a long distance phone call. That's a very interesting thing. How does that work? Well that comes out of Mr. Daniels control office because of the immense size of the warehouse we can save a lot of steps. We have telephone

stations posted around the warehouse so that if he as a supervisor of the warehouse happens to be some thousand odd feet from his office he doesn't have to run back and forth in order to answer the phone and also it's used excuse me to page the order pickers and also to page some of the warehouse supervisors rather than having to leave the office and waste a lot of time on foot. That's one of the most important things as I see it in the warehouse isn't it the saving of walking? Well that's why we have so completely mechanized the whole operation. There's an awful lot of time consumed in handling of this merchandise and because we have a very low cost operation here the time element eliminating time of handling individual cases is of prime importance. We want to deliver merchandise as fast as we can to our customers

and in order to do so we have to have everything operate at the maximum efficiency. We have come out of the office of Mr. John M. Sartre who is president of the Central Distributing Division of Consolidated Foods. Mr. Sartre we've just taken a tour of this fine warehouse and I know that you have had a great deal to do with its construction and with the operation of the warehouses it is today. Now what do you first of all explain to us once that we've now seen the operation tell exactly what what it does for the company. Well about a year and a half ago the executives of the corporation decided that instead of operating all of our divisions in the Chicago area in three separate buildings it would be an economic move to consolidate them in one large center. So plans were developed for this building and as you've already

been told it has 576 ,000 square feet of floor space. The important part of this building is based upon the 20 -foot ceiling which gives us 11 ,250 ,000 cubic feet the largest building of its kind in the industry. Now this warehouse service is a very large area does it not? Yes the bulk of the business of all the distributing units are in the Chicago or suburban area but we have salesmen in every state in the Union. Is the company have other warehouses than besides this one that we've just made a tour with? Yes the company has processing plants and warehouse distributing warehouses which number about 40. How many people do you employ here? We have 465 people in this building not counting the sales staff on the outside which consists of 310. Now one important question that I wanted to be sure

to ask you we toured your IBM department and there's a maze of machines in there and it's an amazing operation. Now how did this come into being and how much of a part does it play in your operation? Well in an organization of this size controls are very important. To operate this business with the old -fashioned methods that were used in the organizations when they were under their own roof we could not get the control so we went to IBM and in eight months of study and testing we developed what we call a batch building device with the IBM machines playing the important part. It was developed on a basis so that it could take care of any type of selling that we would do. Without IBM we would not have control. We have absolute control of inventory we know every day how much inventory we have

we know every morning whether certain items are out of stock. As a matter of fact we know every morning what our gross profit has been for the day before. Well that's an amazing operation at IBM Department of this company and we want to thank you very much sir for allowing us to tell the people the story of the distribution of food and we want to thank you for allowing us to go through the consolidated foods corporation warehouse.