Some people love that “new car smell.” For others, tearing the wrapping paper off of a spectacularly wrapped birthday present provides a thrill. And for some (you know who you are, wife), satisfaction comes in a little robin-egg blue Tiffany box. But for me, nothing matches the excitement of taking the keys to a new fulfillment center! I just love to walk in, smell the new carpet, hear the enormous echo of an empty building and imagine shiny pallet racking filling the space. Yes, I know . . . I’m a nerd.
One World Direct has expanded! We now have a Los Angeles area order fulfillment center that is fully operational. We’re in Ontario, to be precise, a couple of miles from the UPS hub and only a minute off of the 10 Frwy.
This expansion was months in the making. Our VP of IT, Stewart Buskirk, directed his team to completely standardize our fulfillment systems. Because our IT staff believes me to be dangerous to myself and others, they color coded, simplified and otherwise dummie-proofed our systems. It worked. I was able to ruin nothing during the set-up of our IT infrastructure. More impressively – it all works exactly as they promised it would.
Karen Torevell, our Controller, joined us for nearly three weeks to prep the building and prepare for Parcel #1. She has been tireless in organizing and executing – our Jill of All Trades.
Gail Baumann, a fulfillment specialist from Mobridge, and Kyle Baumann, the manager of our Mobridge facility, led the client transition team. They started in Oakland on a Friday night and hit Ontario on Sunday morning with two trucks. It was a flurry of activity that included a nearly 100 hour week!
Chris Dominguez, our LA Manager, spent a month in South Dakota training and preparing to launch the new Southern California facility. It’s been a baptism by fire for Chris, but he’s been game throughout the process.
On November 2nd, we shipped our first parcel. Within no time, that number hit 1,000.
Thank you, team. What do you say we do it again? Maybe next time on the East Coast.
