NewStream Enterprises, LLC is proud to congratulate our shipping and warehouse team for their hard work and dedication in enabling us achieve a 100% on our year-end inventory audit. Cleaning and organizing, as well as shutting down production the day before, are all part of the audit preparation process. Our employee owners stayed open later than normal this year in order to get the most products out as possible, closing at 2 p.m. Because production was running over schedule, the team was required to get everything on the dock shipped out, counting all returns, cleaning and organizing, and putting away all items arriving on the dock that Friday.
Due to the pandemic situation, the team was short a quarter of their team members. However, they took matters into their own hands and stuck it out. Our warehouse team devoted their time to the project by working until 9 p.m. on Friday night and returning at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning, with the support of the leadership team and a few volunteers, to tie up loose ends before the auditors arrived at 10 a.m. on the same day.
Although the team has been very busy, we were lucky to have the opportunity to sit down and chat with Warehouse Manager, Taylor McCarty, and Warehouse Supervisor, Lindsay Slone, about the process, their team, and what this milestone means for NewStream.
Q: What were the main challenges that your team faced during this project?
Taylor: The biggest challenge, I think, was waiting for production to finish their operation which had run 4 hours over shut off time due to the unexpectedly huge product volume, so that we could begin counting.
Lindsay: … And despite extended build times from production and later-than-normal shipment hours, inventory was still being received until midday the day before the audit. All of these challenges translated into a constantly shifting list of parts that needed to be counted by Saturday morning.
Q: That had to be a lot of pressure. What was the team’s reaction to the situation?
Taylor: Our team did not hesitate to work extra and put in a lot of effort in the weeks leading up to the audit to prepare. Despite the challenges, everyone has the same goal of completing the project successfully. You know, teamwork makes the dream work, and I’m proud of how well we handled this challenging situation as a team.
Lindsay: … We banded together and helped in other areas to clean, organize, and count. Without a doubt, we have a team that strives under pressure, and I am very proud of that.
Q: That’s fantastic. You all have done an excellent job. So, what does this success say about our company?
Taylor: I would say it is the importance of being an employee owner. If we didn’t have employee owners who owned the work they were doing, our audit would not be successful.
Lindsay: We understand that everything we do on a daily basis has an impact on the company’s performance. Therefore, the success of the audit and the completion of the month proves that everyone here has an impact and a stake in the outcome.
In addition to recognizing the shipping and warehouse team’s outstanding efforts and performance, we’d want to give a particular shoutout to Taylor and Lindsay for leading their teams to success, as well as all of the volunteers who worked tirelessly to make this happen!
Great job, team! We’re very proud of what you’ve accomplished, and we appreciate your team’s contributions to our company and our purpose of helping our customers in loving their supply chains.