This is a topic that I find myself addressing in more and more consulting visits. Often when interviewing a manager/director I ask, "do you have a procedure for someone to check in a delivery?" I am almost always told, "yes". Then when I am out in the district visiting individual buildings, I inevitably encounter a delivery problem of one kind or another.
Normally these encounters occur at meal time, when the driver is attempting to bring food, milk, supplies into or through a busy kitchen. Then the driver either leaves a delivery slip on the manager's desk, or asks someone to sign the slip. I stand there observing, and say to myself, "oh no, not again". Later when time allows, I will ask the manager about the delivery, and if it is normal to have the slip left without the delivery being checked in. I am then told, "well, this vendor always delivers at that time, and I am to busy to check in the order, what else can I do?" And I say to myself, "here we go again".
If I received a fee for the number of times that I had to address this one issue in a consulting report, I wouldn't have to consult anymore. It's a simple issue, and one that everyone who reads this post will say, that's not a problem for us. But, I ask you, do you really know what happens out in those buildings when you are not there?
Food Deliveries must always be checked in – Without question the process and procedures (or lack thereof) used for the receipt of food, beverage, and supply deliveries can significantly affect a program’s food and supply costs.
The following is what I wrote in a recent consulting report.
“The GGGG Food Service delivered an order, to the high school, at noon, the busiest time of the day. Earlier that morning, I questioned the director, about checking in deliveries, and she assured me that all deliveries are “always checked in”. Yet, during this delivery she sat in her office, with me, watching the delivery take place, knowing that the staff was serving lunch and there was no one available to check the order. When the delivery was complete, the driver presented the invoice to the cook for signature. The cook signed it without knowing what was delivered, the quantities, or if the price posted on the invoice was correct. As it turns out, when the director checked the order (as a result of a question that I had about the French Toast), she found that the discount for that product did not appear on the invoice. In fairness to the Cook, I believe that she had never been trained with respect to the proper procedure for checking in an order, or its importance.
in another incident, I was in a middle school during the first week of school. When I checked the ice cream freezer, it was empty. I asked, "don't you sell ice cream in this building?" The answer was, "yes, but the company hasn't made its first delivery yet this year". A while later, the ice cream delivery arrived. After all the "hello's", how was you summer, and "It's great to see you again", etc., the driver put all the ice cream in the freezer and handed the manager the delivery slip to sign. I asked the manager, in front of the driver, "don't you check the delivery before you sign the slip?" To which she replied, "Tom" would never cheat me and besides, I don't have time". Here we go again. What did I do? I went over to the ice cream freezer, pulled all the boxes out, and checked them against the delivery slip. And, VIOLA! The driver had shorted her 6 boxes. She couldn't believe it.
Making deliveries to kitchens at the busiest time of the day is a favorite tactic of drivers who know that at these “busy times”, staff does not have time to adequately check the delivery for shortages, price changes, or substitutions.”
While I am not accusing anyone, it is certain that when a driver succeeds in obtaining a signature for a full delivery, he/she will not have to account for any overage upon his or her return to the warehouse, if the product is not on the truck. By this I mean, if/when a delivery is actually shorted, and the shortage is not noted on the invoice, the driver can deliver the “extra product” anywhere he/she chooses.
Let me say, that I realize that smaller programs will have difficulty issuing this type of ultimatum to a vendor, when there is little competition in their (rural) area. However, it's all about the bottom line. The remedy for these programs, is to either have the driver wait until someone is free to check in the order, or pull a worker from what he/she is doing to check in the order. For me checking in this order would be far more important than whatever else that individual was doing at the time.
We all know what the cost of labor is doing to our bottom line, add to that the cost of "wellness", and the increase in food costs that we all face, and I scratch my head wondering why this one simple, and cost saving measures is not "continually drummed in", at every staff development session. With all that said, if you're reading this, I hope you take a physical inventory every month. If you don't, you have another problem.
Enjoy, and as always, I welcome your comments.
Frank
