The Warehouse NIDC site visit

On 24th June 2019, a group of University of Auckland students and staff attended a site visit at the North Island Distribution Centre for The Warehouse in Wiri. After the health and safety briefing, the friendly staff from the distribution centre took the group on a tour that lasted for about an hour and a half.

The tour began at the inbound logistics area, where there were employees unloading boxes from the shipping containers and placing them on the conveyor belts. The next area that was shown was the rework area where employees rectified some quality issues in the packaging. After a while the group moved upstairs to the online order fulfilment area where there were small shelves to hold inventory rather than the massive racks used in the main warehouse. The upstairs tour ended at an area where the conveyor belts moved the boxed items downstairs to the outbound logistics area, where the wrapped pallets were loaded onto trucks.

Throughout the tour it was clear that the distribution centre has a great focus on health and safety for their employees, as well as productivity. There are messages reminding employees to clean up as they work, and they invested in a new fire sprinkler system and
lights for the online fulfilment centre. Near the upstairs conveyor belt area, a message “the best thing you can spend on your kids is time” plastered on the side to encourage employees to have a work/life balance. Overall it was a very eye-opening experience as the students got to see in an industry environment how the materials presented in class applied in an industry environment.