New technology to be introduced soon?

My colleague told me that there might be new technology introduced in the near future so that keying in WSOs will become scanning in WSOs. How it works, I am not so sure. Apparently, there is developments in a device to scan the barcode at the top right hand corner of the WSO. Whether or not it is connected to a PC, it is still a mystery. But if this development turns out to be success, it will definitely shave off some time in keeping track of the WSO entries. I doubt it will be ready for use anytime in this year, so no point rejoicing over it now.

In the meantime, I am always busy with WSOs week in week out. Sometimes, there is split week meaning there is double the stack of normal WSO sheets workload. Just imagine, a week of WSO sheets is around 105 batches of 10. Time spent keying in will then be almost double as well. Double workload normally happens once a month at around the start of the month. I particularly not looking forward to this period but no choice have to endure the hassle of keying in excel without any device yet.

Recently, the cupboards where we store all the DNs is now within a small enclosed room. The walls of the room are false man made walls. I wonder whats the use of creating such a small room. Maybe for added security? Or maybe to separate office desks from cupboards? Who knows? But I will be sure to find out more about the room as I am partly worried about the space constraint posed by the small room. Unless there is a table in the room, consoling the DNs will become an issue as space is needed. That's about it, new year new room but hopefully no new problems.

WSO verification and dragon dolls counting

One thing I dread most but no choice have to do is to complete the WSO verification excel sheet. This is how it goes about. First, I need to look out for small sheets of return chits in WSO big folder. Once I found them, I need to compile 8-10 outlets worth of return chits and then compare them against big sheet of WSO for any discrepancies. Normally, the figures should tally and matches to be the same. Else, the figures when keyed into excel will go to a column that will compute the variance which shows the level of discrepancies. What makes it rather tedious is that I will need to do this process of tallying over again and again with different batches for 7 days. At the end of the verification, the pub codes like ST, NP, WB, SM should be very familiar to you even if you do not know anything about it initially.

Another ad hoc task that I am asked to help out is the counting and packing of the dragon plushies with the chinese words "ji" or "Xiang" on its belly. This task consumes alot of time. Sometimes if the original big box is torn and unable to be resealed again, I and a few other temps will need to find 5 boxes to contain 200 dragon plushies. The counting part is especially daunting as we need to check whether the big box contains exact 200 plushies or there is excess or shortage. As there are many big boxes to count and repacked, one day is not enough. I am not sure how long they finish this task as I only help out for a day and a half. One thing is for sure, after this task I dread to see any flowery patterns or images for a long while.

So far still ok...

I think I did a not too bad job covering the duties for my colleague. Except for the overwhelming void reports, everything else has been adequately done to the best of my effort. The only problems left include settling the returning of Purchase Orders from the contractors to my side and inserting the void reports into the DNs that are bundled according to each delivery day. In total, I only took an extra OT of 1.5 hours to finish off the keying in of DNs besides keying in the WSOs in the day.

For the upcoming week, I think my workload will be back to normal since my colleague is back. The only thing I need to worry is managing the leftover work from last week with keying in the WSOs. Maybe I need another 1.5 hours of OT to clear the workload if I cannot clear it within this upcoming week. I shall see how, afterall a bit of OT is not that bad and I can earn a bit more money.

OT in the week ahead?

Last sunday(20.11.2011), I attended a neighbour's wedding dinner at goodwood park hotel. The food was great as I liked the prawn dipped in wasabi sauce the best. What I dislike most is the long delay before the first dish is served. Together with the videos shown before first dish is served, it just make me hungrier. I attended the wedding dinner with my parents and we received keychains as souvenirs. It was a pleasant day as it ends at 11.10pm. Home sweet home as my parents and me rode a direct bus from scotts road back to my home.

Everything at work is normal as only sometimes I am asked to search for backdated WSOs from as long as August. It is a tedious task to search for August WSOs as the WSOs is sorted by chains and not by batches. Luckily, not everyday do I need to search for long back dated WSOs. Sometimes, original copy is wanted instead of photocopy. But anyway, photocopy is still required whether it is given to the sales rep or kept in WSO box.

For next week wednesday onwards, I may need to work OT. This is because my colleague is going for a holiday and I am required to stand in for her duties. My workload is going to get more, but I am treating this as a new learning experience. My challenge is to do as many tasks as I can, so as not to disrupt the workflow before my colleague returns. Hopefully everything goes smoothly enough in the coming week.

Another Ad Hoc Task...

Besides consoling the DNs and doing the once a week WSO filing, there are other things to do at times. One latest ad hoc task I have done is faxing documents. Why I need to do faxing is because we need to inform store managers of reputable stores like kinokuniya, times and popular etc, about the latest magazine release so that they can send their order form if they are keen. As there are dozens of store managers to fax to, I have to key in different fax number on the fax machine for a dozen odd times.

One other ad hoc task that I have done before but not recently is packing goodie bag for events or promotions. For this task, quantity of each type of goods have to be the same throughout the entire batch. The type of goods can range from anything like small tubes of facial cream to packets of maggie mee.

During mid week, I also done another annual ad hoc task. And that is about helping out to dispatch diary books to various departments. As it is rather heavy, I used a trolley to move many boxes of diary books to different people within the big office. It is a yearly ad hoc task because every year the company issues out new diary books once. Lucky that it is a yearly task as it is rather tedious when it comes to stock taking.

Busy Friday...

Normally friday, I do not need to do WSO filing. But it turns out that the filing cannot be completed on Thursday as the number of people doing the filing is not enough. Before filing, there are some tearing to do to separate different batches of WSO sheets. This week, there are some things to take note. Some outlets have 3 sheets instead of 2 and a few outlets have only a single sheet. So while tearing the sheets of WSO, it is important to check that the separation of sheets are not done wrongly if not an outlet may not receive its WSO complete in its original state.

Besides that, I also done lots of photocopying of receipt size delivery notes. Sometimes I do this because there is some problem with the orders of a particular outlet. Other times it could be because the outlet is closed temporarily. Before photocopying, I normally have to search for the outlet DN based on the summary sheet at the front of each route pile of dozens of DNs. Its time consuming to locate and photocopy a series of DNs as I need to open up clips and remove rubber bands when neccessary. In the end, I managed to complete this task within 3 hours as I need to make sure DN is in correct place after photocopying.

Another busy week gone

Keying in entry to signify DN has been received has always been a hassle and time wasting. So in order to cut down time wasting, nowadays the DNs are sent for checking first before keying in entry. This way, as long as the DNs are not missing when checked, I can then checked 'Yes' quickly to signify DN has been received without checking for the DN no. How I wish the company can remove this keying in system as checking DNs alone will be enough to indicate which DNs are missing.

Just as I thought it is another normal week, a contractor suddenly returned alot of long overdue DNs. They are of the old A4 size type and only records one magazine title per DN instead of multiple magazine titles on current DN. Our team are given a week or so to complete checking the old DNs. I don't know whether the deadline can be met because there are alot of other things to be done. Anyway, my colleagues say the time given should be enough as long as we commit a few hours to check those DNs each day.

And then, I first time faced WSO filing on friday instead of thursday. This time round, we got two extra helpers to file the WSOs. As usual, 1000 odd folders are filed and bundled into various parcels and waiting to be delivered to outlets a bit later then usual. And that completes the end of another busy week...