Field notes
Preparing a peak briefing for a Tbilisi distribution floor
Harvest and holiday weeks fail at the same three places: a noon inbound wave, a door that cannot turn, and a roster that assumed last year’s overtime was still available.
A peak briefing only works if someone still remembers last year without nostalgia. We ask for the dock sheets from the worst week, not the brochure week. On Tbilisi floors that worst week is often the one when harvest trucks and retail promotions arrived on the same Tuesday.
Bring the roster as it will be staffed, not as the budget hoped. Overtime that existed last December may not exist this December. If the night crew is two people lighter, the dawn handover will hold cartons that the morning pick cannot see.
We look for three clogs: the inbound wave that lands at noon because carriers left Poti at a fashionable hour; the door whose pit cannot turn a trailer before the next appointment; and the staging aisle that becomes a second warehouse when pick faces overflow. Naming those three is more useful than a general plea to “be ready.”
If last year’s sheets are gone, say so. We will not reconstruct a peak from folklore. A dwell review in an ordinary week can still show which door is already tight. That is slower, and more honest, than a colourful briefing with no memory underneath it.
Lock the delivery week. A briefing that arrives after the first harvest truck is a post-mortem with nicer paper.