Cape Girardeau, Missouri HWI 050914

Cape Girardeau, Missouri     HWI 050914

                ^{The first couple entries I titled as part 1 and part 2.  I have decided to add some additional entries and not use the part #, instead I will place the date that I began to write the note. It is easier for me.}

                It now seems amazing that we were able to effect the HWI start up at Cape as well as we did. Most of the employees had never worked in a warehouse setting. The three management personnel were not a team. In truth, the office manager and supervisor (being married) worked (conspired) as a team against the manager. The manager wasn’t a people person.

                I was a well-trained warehouse person but I sure wasn’t trained as a lead person or supervisor. I knew warehousing and I did not mind instructing others. In other words I would take charge and at times I acted like the north end of a south bound horse.

                I was presented with a homemade sign. The sign, hand painted and was on an old scrap piece of walnut. Dawson Young made the sign and gave it to me. I put the sign on the wall and it was in each of my offices. It is still displayed on the manager’s office wall in the Waco Center.  The sign reads, “Rudeness is the little man’s imitation of power”. I should note; the word imitation was spelled with two “m”.

                The building was finally completed and we had offices, break rooms and toilets. The receiving office was divided into my office and then the receiving office. Wow, I now had my own office.

                The new fork lifts were delivered, serviced and ready for use. The receiving team and the stocking team were assembled for our forklift safety and operation training. Pete was showing us the controls and the basics of safety. The fork lifts were the type were the operator would sit down to operate. They would lift a pallet 15 feet and that was how high the racks were.

                We were standing in a semi-circle around the front of the lift. Pete activated the control to raise the forks. The forks without a pallet were raised to a height of about 6 feet. Pete then explained that we should never walk under raised forks, with or without a load. At that moment the forks fell like a ton of lead to the floor. The forks falling, and the loud noise when they hit the cement, got everyone’s attention.

                The forks falling was an accident. The fork lift had a defect and was repaired. I must say it got our attention and I don’t think any of those present during the train session ever walked under raised forks.

                Any staff that operated a fork lift had to quickly learn to maneuver through and around the tow line carts. It should be understood that the tow line had the power to push a forklift and if it caught the lift at its side could have turned it over. 

                The receiving operators would take a pallet from the trailer he was unloading and while the tow line was moving drive in between the carts. As the tow line pulled the carts the operator would place the pallet on the cart and maneuver away from the cart without ever hitting the following cart. 

                The tow line carts could be set to divert from the main tow line into a side spur. This way the receiving staff could send a cart to a particular stocking section. This seemed like a good process but it had some problems.

                If there was anything left on a spur and if carts were set to divert to that spur, the carts would push anything in its way, out of the way. The tow line was left running over lunch and there was a couple carts that were left on a spur. During lunch other carts diverted to that spur and the carts pushed each other into a rack. A portion of the rack was literally knocked down. We learned tow not allow anything to be set on the spurs and to shut the tow line off during lunch.

 

Don Ford