Wal-Mart Distribution Centers Benefit From Quick Start

Essential to Wal-Mart's successful retail model are the tremendous distribution centers that serve the hundreds of stores across the state and surrounding areas. Georgia is home to five such centers-Statesboro, Macon, LaGrange, Monroe, and Douglas. Quick Start has been active in preparing most of the workforce at four of the five locations. A typical distribution center is more than one million square feet, or the equivalent of 10 Wal-Mart retail stores. (That's about 24 football fields.) More than 250 dock doors serve the fleet of Wal-Mart trucks that wait in the vast parking lots surrounding the buildings. At the LaGrange center, which serves stores in Georgia and Alabama, 500 tractor-trailers of merchandise are loaded and shipped in a day. Ronnie Moffitt, the general manager of the LaGrange Wal-Mart Distribution Center, explains that a majority of the merchandise one sees in a Wal-Mart store goes through a distribution center first. This volume necessitates the 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week schedule. The LaGrange facility has approximately 800 employees who come from LaGrange and a surrounding 40 mile radius. Quick Start has been instrumental in helping train the workers at these new facilities, and Georgia's Department of Technical and Adult Education has been inspired to create a certificate in warehousing and distribution for Georgia's technical colleges. "I can recommend Quick Start as a training program to other companies. They definitely exceeded our expectations in the training plan," said Moffitt. The Monroe Wal-Mart Distribution Center, which celebrated its grand opening in July 2000, is unique because of its refrigerated space. A 127,000 square-foot freezer at the facility can hold about 10,000 pallets-room enough for 58 million popsicles! Though not as large as the other Georgia distribution centers, the facility cannot be described as "small." It covers approximately 420,000 square feet, or about nine acres. Quick Start trained 353 people for this facility. At the 1.5 million square-foot Statesboro facility, Quick Start trained 644 people in 1999-2000. Thanks to the pre-employment training program designed and delivered by Quick Start, turnover rate has been substantially reduced. DTAE Certified Warehousing and Distribution Specialist Certificate The course is approximately 160 hours and qualifies for the HOPE Grant. Included in the program are an introduction to warehouse environments; understanding key warehousing and job functions; methods of inventory management; use of scanners and data entry; work-place personal and interpersonal skills; and handling systems unique to warehouse distribution, such as conveyors, pallets, and mechanical drives, and powered industrial trucks. Warehousing simulations are an important part of the training. Below: pilot phase model. Among clients served across Georgia with this type of training are Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Pep Boys, Lowe's Inc., and Best Buy.

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