What Makes a Distribution Center Tick with Jason Hooks

June 4, 2019

What Makes a Distribution Center Tick with Jason Hooks

Jason Hooks is the assistant manager of SanMar’s Preston distribution center located just outside of Seattle. A self-described “cheerleader,” he works with the center’s pickers and packers to ensure that customers receive exactly what they ordered on time.

In this episode, Jason discusses the ups and downs of working out of a relatively small warehouse, explains how new technology has made order picking even more accurate, and recounts some of the distribution center’s furrier visitors.

THE FINER DETAILS OF THIS EPISODE

  • Jason lays out his responsibilities managing our distribution center.
  • What brought Jason to SanMar and how he made his way up the ranks to where he is today.
  • What staff at the Preston center do to facilitate their “family values” culture.
  • How Jason navigates language barriers leading his multilingual team at the Preston center.
  • Why size and location are obstacles the distribution center needs to work around.
  • The new technology that allows warehouse staff to pick orders with even greater accuracy than they were able to before.
  • How Jason sees distribution technology changing even further in the near future.
  • Jason explains what the “PSST” acronym means and how the system benefits SanMar distribution.
  • How the distribution center team measures success.
  • The biggest piece of advice Jason has for customers looking to receive their orders on time.
  • What our distribution centers hope to achieve in the near future. The unusual pests the distribution center staff are forced to bear with at times.
QUOTES
  • “A lot of my day is just making sure that things are going okay.”
  • “Every day’s a little bit different and I think that’s one of the things that keeps them coming back.”
  • “Any email that needs to reach a large audience is going to be in both English and Spanish. I want to make sure that people get the message.”
  • “We’re looking to be able to service more customers on a daily basis and we’ve been able to do that!”
  • “The material handling world is evolving really, really rapidly.”
LINKS


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