From the routing desk to the cooperative's operations

Mandate

Bring distribution, transport and store operations under one accountable executive as member expectations and labour costs rose.

Outcomes

• Freezer recordable injuries reduced from 19 in fiscal 2022 to 8 in fiscal 2024
• Lot-code capture for chilled categories raised from 61 to 97 per cent
• Early delivery window share reduced from 64 to 47 per cent, with 14 tractors retired unreplaced
• Driver overtime reduced 18 per cent in the first year of window-based fees

Decisions in context

Our chief executive created this role when she concluded that distribution, transport and our own stores were each making promises to members that no single executive was weighing together. I lead six direct reports and attend the board's audit and operations committees to present on safety, food safety and capital spending. Much of the work concerns sequence. A member-services commitment becomes a delivery window, which becomes a driver's start time and a selector's shift length, and I try to see that chain before the promise is made. The three cases on this site come from this appointment, and each involved a decision that members, colleagues or a supplier disputed. I do not decide whether product is safe to ship. That authority sits with our director of food safety and quality, and I have kept it there through every incident since 2021.

Reason for the move

Current appointment, which I intend to keep while serving on one outside board.

Mandate

Run stores taken over from retiring members until buyers were found, and improve the services sold to member stores.

Outcomes

• Sold two stores to new independent owners while the operated portfolio grew from six stores to eleven
• Moved schedule posting to three weeks ahead and ended on-call shifts
• Kept every operated store open through 2020 with daily staffing reviews

Decisions in context

Running stores changed my view of every wholesale decision I had made. A late truck became a produce clerk waiting with nothing to do and then working past her scheduled finish. A short shipment became an empty shelf that a customer raised with a store manager who could not fix it. The stores came to us from members who retired without a buyer, and our purpose was to keep each town supplied until an independent owner could take over. Oregon's predictive scheduling law applied to us, and I chose to post schedules further ahead than it required. Through much of 2020 I reviewed staffing in every store each morning. I also oversaw the services we sell to members, from shelf planning to accounting support, and saw how differently a two-store owner and a twenty-store group judge the same service.

Reason for the move

Appointed chief operating officer when the chief executive combined distribution, transport and stores under one role.

Mandate

Run both distribution centres and expand perishables capacity at Troutdale without interrupting member supply.

Outcomes

• Completed the 2016 Troutdale perishables expansion within its US$41 million budget
• Raised ambient order accuracy from 99.2 to 99.6 per cent
• Opened the Kent reclamation area for returned unsaleables
• Added elected selector representatives to the distribution safety committee

Decisions in context

This was my first responsibility for warehouse work at scale, and it returned me to the kind of freezer I had worked in as a student, now from the other side of the office door. Both distribution centres were running near capacity, and the perishables building at Troutdale could not hold the produce and dairy volume members were ordering. I led the expansion, which added cold rooms and dock positions while the building kept shipping every night. I also opened a reclamation area at Kent so that returned unsaleables were sorted for donation, supplier credit or disposal instead of accumulating in a corner. Supervisors had run the safety committee alone; I added selectors elected by their colleagues. Looking back, I did not act on freezer hours in this period, although the injury trend behind the 2022 cap was already visible.

Reason for the move

Asked to lead cooperative-operated stores and member services as the number of stores taken over from retiring members grew.

Mandate

Reduce empty miles and stabilise service to members in Alaska.

Outcomes

• Reduced empty return miles by 14 per cent by collecting supplier freight on return legs
• Aligned Alaska order days with barge sailings, cutting missed sailings from 22 to 5 a year
• Introduced trailer temperature recording on every refrigerated lane

Decisions in context

I joined from a dairy company, and the first lesson was that our customers were also our owners. A route change that would have been a routine notice at Fenwyck became a conversation with a member who might sit on the board. I rode to member stores for my first three months, including a week in Alaska, where the barge sailing from Tacoma decided what we could promise stores in Anchorage, Soldotna and Homer. Missed sailings had been treated as bad luck. Most came from order cut-offs that did not match the sailing schedule, so I changed the cut-offs and agreed fixed order days with Alaska members. I also began collecting supplier freight on return legs and recording trailer temperatures on every refrigerated lane, a practice that later made federal food transport requirements straightforward to meet.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead both distribution centres.

Mandate

Reduce returns of out-of-date product and stabilise route costs.

Outcomes

• Reduced returns from 6.8 to 3.9 per cent of delivered value over two years
• Moved driver commission from delivered volume to net sales after returns
• Rebuilt 64 routes around the hours stores could receive

Decisions in context

Dairy taught me that returns are usually an ordering problem that appears later. Fenwyck drivers stocked our products on store shelves and took back anything that had reached its code date, issuing the store a credit. When I compared returns by route, the highest were rarely in the weakest stores. They were on routes where drivers set order quantities, because commission was paid on delivered volume rather than on what customers bought. Changing the commission took two years, a long negotiation with the drivers' union and a transition period in which no driver's pay could fall. Returns fell from 6.8 to 3.9 per cent of delivered value. I also rebuilt routes around the hours stores could actually receive product, my first experience of a delivery window as a cost that somebody else had chosen without seeing it.

Reason for the move

Joined a larger wholesale operation with long-haul transport and barge lanes.

Mandate

Plan daily delivery routes and later run the night loading and dispatch shift.

Outcomes

• Moved planning for 85 routes from paper maps to routing software
• Agreed later delivery times with 120 restaurant customers whose windows reflected habit rather than need
• Cut night-shift overtime by about a fifth by spreading early departures

Decisions in context

I arrived as a planner with an engineering degree and the belief that routing was a mathematical problem. It was partly that. The rest was learning why customers asked for the delivery hours they did. A hospital kitchen needed product before breakfast service. Many restaurants asked for seven o'clock simply because a previous supplier had come then. As night distribution supervisor I lived with the results: loaders working against the clock, drivers leaving in the dark and overtime that nobody had decided to spend. I spent many afternoons telephoning restaurant managers to ask whether a later window would work, and many agreed. That patient work reduced overtime more than any software change did. Those afternoon calls are also the origin of the delivery-window fees I brought to the Hollisford board more than two decades later.

Reason for the move

Moved to direct-store delivery to learn store-level operations.