SHARE Prestaging Day

Today was prestaging day at SHARE. We had to get ready 16 particularly large orders in advance. The reason SHARE does this is because it helps make things go smoother on Distribution Friday and Distribution Saturday. Large customers can create bottlenecks in the split and bulk orders as volunteers scramble to fill them. By preparing these orders in advance, it helps prevent those bottlenecks, ensures the customers get their orders promptly, and makes it easier for SHARE to ensure they get the right number of the things they ordered. Preparing these orders can be a lot of work. First, you have to lay out pallets to place the order on. Second, you have to carefully place on the pallets the cases and sacks of items the customer has ordered. Third, you have to then fill the split part of the order. Splits are the number of items that are less than a case or sack. An example would orders for broccoli. Each case of broccoli had 18 bunches of broccoli. If a split order required 14 bunches of broccoli then, I'd take 4 bunches out of the case and place the case of 14 on the customers pallet. The last step is where each order is wrapped with clear plastic wrap (like Saran Wrap). What this does is hold all the boxes and bags in place so when the pallet is moved, they don't fall off.

Not all the items that are ordered by the customer are placed on the pallets during pre-staging. Some are held until the day the customer will pick the order up. These items are items that must remain frozen. One example would be salmon fillets, another would be chicken thighs. Usually, there are only 2 or 3 such items so it doesn't create any great problem waiting to hand these items out until the day the customer is prepared to pick up the orders. By pre-staging the big orders, the majority of the work is done freeing up people to work on other orders on the distribution days. It's a good system that works well for SHARE and its customers.