Supervisor, Distribution

Work Schedule

Other

Environmental Conditions

Office

Job Description

Purpose of the Job

The Supervisor Order Management is responsible for leading the Order Management team who are executing on the administrative support of the outbound order flow in the European Distribution Center (EDC) of Thermo Fisher Scientific. They act as the main link between Distribution Operations, Customer Care and Transportation. Their primary focus is to ensure accurate and on-time delivery of orders within EMEA region while considering special Customer requests and country requirements (export documentation). In addition, they are required to provide accurate logistics information to the Commercial organization, to Distributors and to the designated freight forwarders.

Job and Position Context

The EDC in Bleiswijk is the main European Distribution Center in Europe, shipping to customers on the European continent, Africa, and the Middle East. Inventory is received from manufacturing sites and suppliers from all over the world.

The site is ISO9001 certified, and a Thermo Fisher Zero Waste site.

The EDC ships > 1mn orders per year out to customers (EMEA) and other Thermo Fisher sites (Globally).

It holds > $ 50mn of inventory stored on > 66K different bin locations, spread over ambient, cold room (+5C) and frozen (-18C) walk-in areas, and -80C and -170C freezer chests.

Stock is stored as item numbers or SKUs (Stock Keeping Units), and most SKUs are also lot controlled. Both SKU and lot number need to be managed and recorded throughout the warehouse processes.

There are 4 separate ERP systems in which stock and inbound & outbound orders are registered: SAP, Arrow, and E1 with WMS. This spread of complex processes over the different systems makes stock management, cycle counting, and all administration of orders very complicated and challenging.

Despite this, stock accuracy is kept over 97.5%, and shipping accuracy is over 99.7%. These accuracies are critical, since customers’ research can depend on getting the correct SKU/Lot delivered consistently throughout their projects.

All employees at the EDC are required to perform their tasks in accordance with procedures and work instructions in the EDC QMS, and to participate in a number of EH&S, PPI, and Lean activities:

• Reporting potentially hazardous situations in the Intelex reporting tool
• Daily Tier meeting with their teams to discuss yesterday’s results and planning for today
• Participate in 5S initiatives and checks to keep warehouse and offices organized and efficient.

Job Content

Key Areas of accountability/responsibility

Within the Order Management team there are 2 specializations, Customer care support and export and distributors each with their focus on a separate area. An OM specialist typically works in 1 specialization, learning more of its tasks as they gain more experience.

• Investigate and solve issues related to orders that will not print.
• Working closely with the respective Customer Care departments and Forwarders, to meet logistics expectations.
• Scheduling shipments, arranging transport from the Distribution Center to the end customer and performing all necessary tasks for shipping and on-time delivery.
• Preparing all shipping documents for outbound orders outside the European Union using our different ERP systems. (Invoices/ EXA)
• Book according to country and customer instructions with Forwarders.
• Following up and monitoring on orders for high profile Customers until final delivery.
• Ensuring high level of customer service .
• Handle and distribute the carrier exception reports to resolve issues with shipments that shipped from the EDC to the end customer.

• Upload and assign all distribution/ carrier complaints within the EDC.
• Investigate complaints for Order management
• Close complaints for Inchinnan/ Regensburg DC who provide feedback by email.
• Check, finalize and send the monthly complaint overview to customer care.
• Get feedback for the EDC from customer care on Customer Alliance Score (CAS) and share with stakeholders in the EDC. (CAS is the feedback from our customers through an online survey.)
• Participate in the Command center calls where different departments within LSPDG EMEA join to solve escalations/ challenges and take ownership for EDC.
• Gather country holiday planning information from CC and share holiday weekly planning with picking / packing. Hold orders on country level by excluding them from the print job.
• Create EMEA Q-end shipping schedule.
• Send pre-alerts to our customers.
• Handle white glove flow based on the cobra file (Shipping schedule)
• Make sure that the White Glove (high focus order) flow is monitored from the moment the order is released until delivery at the end destination.
• Work closely with customer care to ship accurate and on time.
• Handle the high value order EU flow based on the high value hold report.
• Decide based on value / size/ content / destination what the best shipping mode is.
• Be in close contact with picking and packing to ship all orders accurate and on time.
• Check and share the daily open order report with all customer care departments.
• Handle the consumable return records which arrived at the EDC without case/RMA and get the needed information from Customer care
• Handle all red / yellow / white label returns for EMEA. Work with service, engineers, and customer care to determine end destination and ship.
• Monitor mailbox and answer distribution related question.
  

The supervisor has a good understanding of all Order Management processes.

• Supporting the coordinator with arranging the daily tasks with the rest of the OM team, to ensure good prioritization and dividing of the team workload.
• First escalation point of contact for everyone in the EDC warehouse with OM related questions/ challenges.
• Replace Distribution manager/Site Leader in meetings in case of absence.
• Identify and report deviations in process.
• Communication with customer care on process delays/ changes.
• Promote co-operation between team-members and teams.
• Handle Customer escalations and being able to identify trends and CAPA's.
• Manage and control quarter-end arrangements with the team and forwarders.
• Assist in arranging specific delivery requests and requirements from the Customer.
• Drives and facilitates quality and PPI culture and activities. (QMS, 5S, HPWT)
• Act in accordance with EDC QMS
• Support with (customer) audits
• Support with preparing management review.

Multiple specialists report directly to the supervisor, therefore people leader skills are required for (in example, not limited to):

• Create and manage development plans.
• Create resource planning.
• Manage absences (holiday and sickness).
• Follow up on required illness procedures.
• Hire new staff including interviewing.
• Have one on one conversations with employees.
• Create conversation reports.
• Being a role model and lead by example.

Authorities

All specialists communicate directly with other departments within the EDC, and with planning, customer care, service, QA, etc. as needed.

Due to the content of our shipments (Size, value and temperature-controlled items) decision needs to be made on shipping mode while considering costs and transit time. OM specialist is allowed to approve freight charges if it is less than 10% of the value of the shipment. If the freight charges are higher approval needs to be provided by transportation.

SAP: TFS Assoc. Buyer, Level 5 and below, Up to 50K USD.

• Replaces the outbound manaer during absence.
• Can participate but also lead the Tier 2 meetings.
• Can lead the Tier 1 daily OM team meeting.

Complexity of the Job

All specializations require working with multiple systems making tasks more complicate and time consuming.

Most of the tasks have a clear and challenging deadline. Tasks need to be done accurate and on time to meet the forwarder and customers’ expectations.

Due to the content of our shipments (Size, value, and temperature-controlled items) decision needs to be made on shipping mode while considering costs and transit time.

Questions that come in from other departments often require investigation of activities in multiple departments, and deduction of root cause and resolution.
The supervisor OM tackles the most complex issues or sensitive communication for OM.

Knowledge and educational level

Education minimum MBO level 4 or HBO ( administrative and/or logistics background) either by education or by relevant work experience.

Good command of English language both oral and written . Basic knowledge of Dutch verbal and written.

Knowledge of Microsoft office: Outlook, Access, Excel, Word

Process improvement ability (LEAN, HPWT, Kaizen, PPI)

SAP / Oracle / Oracle Database (E1) knowledge preferred.

Required Level of Experience

Minimum of 2 years’ experience as people leader in an administrative environment.

Competencies

Accuracy

Pro-activeness

Problem-solving capabilities

Excellent communication skills, ability to train and convince others.

Good time management and prioritization skills

Ownership