Job and Position Context

The EDC in Bleiswijk is the main European Distribution Center in Europe, shipping to customers on the European continent, Africa, and the Middle East. Inventory is received from manufacturing sites and suppliers from all over the world.

The site is ISO9001 and GDP certified, and a ThermoFisher Zero Waste site.

The EDC ships > 1mn orders per year out to customers and other ThermoFisher sites.

It holds > $ 50mn of inventory stored on > 66K different bin locations, spread over ambient, cold room (+5C) and frozen (-18C) walk-in areas, and -80C and -170C freezer chests.

Stock is stored as item numbers or SKUs (Stock Keeping Units), and most SKUs are also lot controlled. Both SKU and lot number need to be handled and recorded throughout the warehouse processes.

There are 4 separate ERP systems in which stock and inbound & outbound orders are registered: SAP, Arrow, and E1 with WMS. This spread of complex processes over the different systems makes stock management, cycle counting, and all administration of orders very complicated and exciting.

Despite this, stock accuracy is kept over 97.5%, and shipping accuracy is over 99.7%. These accuracies are critical, since customers' research can depend on getting the accurate SKU/Lot delivered consistently throughout their projects.

All employees at the EDC are required to perform their tasks in accordance with the EDC QMS, and to participate in a number of EH&S, PPI, and Lean activities:

• Reporting potentially hazardous situations in the SHED reporting tool
• Daily Tier meeting with their teams to discuss yesterday's results and planning for today
• Participate in 5S initiatives and checks to keep warehouse and offices organized and efficient.

Job Content

Key Areas of accountability/responsibility

Within the Warehouse Support team there are 4 specializations, each with their focus on a separate area of resolving issues: Inbound, Cycle Count, Stock Management and Packing & Outbound Support (POS).

The main tasks for a specialist WS POS are:

• Resolve stock issues discovered by picking when processing outbound orders: Check stock in applicable systems, perform stock checks, and when needed, adjust allocation of the order line and/or adjust stock on the picking location in the system(s). Hand over resolved order to picking, so they can complete picking the order.
• Monitor systems for orders that should print for picking but don't: Failed at Wave report in WMS, status < 565 in E1, VL06 for picking screen in SAP.
• Assist customer care and OM with issues in orders not releasing, or not progressing through the system after packing.
• Support packing when dispatch notes don't print, and contact customer care or finance to release holds on orders.
• Support CC with requests for cancellations or changes to orders that are already in process in the warehouse.
• Assist packing with system issues that prevent an order from progressing in the ERP systems or in shipping system Trax.
• Perform regression testing of ERP systems when IT is planning changes to the system.
• Supervise the shared mailbox for issues and questions from OM, customer care, QA, and other departments.
• Run reports at day end to report back to the operation the number of orders/orderlines shipped that day, and which orders remain open, for the operation to take action on.
• For most of these tasks, a quick and high-quality resolution is crucial for the order to ship to the customer accurately and on time, adding pressure to the execution of the tasks.

The Senior specialist is a more knowledgeable team member, experienced on all the main tasks, who can train new colleagues and serve as an advisor to the other WS specialists.

• Responsible for giving input for creating and updating work instructions for POS to the coordinator or team leader, if they don't do this themselves.
• Participates in global or local projects on behalf of POS when required.

Authorities

The senior specialist WS checks and corrects stock where needed in all systems. Stock corrections have a financial impact, and the senior specialist is authorized to make corrections for discrepancies that have no clear root cause for a value up to $1000. If a root cause is clear, the limit is $2000.

For corrections related to intercompany shipments, all necessary corrections can be made without a value limit.

The senior specialist WS can contact other departments within the EDC, planning, customer care, service, QA, etc. either as part of the regular process, or for resolution of issues.

The senior specialist is responsible for checking if IT needs to be contacted when a system issue is discovered, to confirm if it is really an IT issue or rather a business issue.

The senior specialist WS has an impact on the speed and quality of service to our customers, either directly by correcting orders so they can move on in the process, or by checking and correcting stock so it is available to ship to customers. The impact of mistakes can be significant because of consequences to product quality and speed of delivery to the customers of the items they need for their operations.

A Senior WS Specialist can initiate and change work instructions in QDMS for their main specialization.

Complexity of the Job

The resolution of issues requires checking and collating information from multiple systems to assess if the stock of a specific SKU/lot or on a specific location is correct or not, and the ability to deduce what might have happened from historical data in the systems when stock is incorrect, or when orders have not progressed through the systems as expected.

Questions that come in from other departments often require investigation of activities in multiple departments, and deduction of root cause and resolution. If the root cause is not clear for system-related issues, the specialist WS will contact a senior specialist, who may in turn contact a Business Analyst or IT to help investigate.

A Senior WS Specialist basically performs the same tasks as a WS Specialist, but is more experienced and knowledgeable, meaning they will often tackle more complex issues and more sensitive communications.

Knowledge and educational level

Minimum of MBO level 4, either by education or by relevant work experience.

Good working knowledge of Microsoft Office, esp. Outlook and Excel.

Languages: English and at least basic knowledge of Dutch, both verbal and written.

Required Level of Experience

Minimum of 2 years' experience as a WS Specialist.

Competencies

A keen eye for details and accuracy.

Analytical and problem-solving capabilities

A sense of ownership and accountability.

Ability to cope well with change.

Additional for a Senior specialist POS:

A strong sense of ownership for POS.

Excellent communication skills, ability to train others.

Pro-active attitude to continuous improvement.