John Siino: Working to put Swagelok parts in your hands quickly

Warehouse Manager John Siino keeps everything moving at top speed

It doesn't matter how good Swagelok's products are if you can't get them when you need them. John Siino is in charge of making sure that you do. As warehouse manager for Swagelok Northern California, he is constantly looking for better ways to get Swagelok products into your hands quickly.

The "Wave Picking" system

A couple of months ago, John and his warehouse team began using a new system for filling orders that has made a big difference. It's called Wave Picking. Basically, it allows them to better manage the flow of work to the warehouse. Instead of having printed orders sent over all day by the customer service representatives, the orders are now saved in a database for for John and his warehouse team to manage. The previous system meant that they had no control over work flowing in. Now they are able to fill orders in batches, or waves.

"We can pull orders out by freight provider, by customer, by specific order numbers," Siino says. A single warehouse associate can fill a dozen orders at a time. The warehouseman prints out labels that include the customer name, the bin number where the part is, the location of the bin in the warehouse, the shipping method, everything that the customer normally would get on a packing slip.

Cutting out wasted trips through the warehouse

Then the associate starts rolling a cart through the aisles and picking parts from the warehouse. Each cart has 12 bins, one for each order. The associate gets the labels in the same order that the parts are shelved in the warehouse, eliminating wasted trips from one side of the warehouse to the other. The items are stored using a random put-a-way process that locates the most popular items closest to the shipping stations and to one another, further eliminating wasted travel time.

"Where we could do four orders at a time efficiently before, a person can now grab 12 orders at a time, and the chances of mixing or confusing an order are almost nil," Siino said. The new system also has cut a third of the time needed to fill orders, and has cut overtime by 75 percent. That allowed Swagelok Northern California to transfer one of the five warehouse associates into the new Custom Solutions group.

Handling up to 28,000 pieces arriving daily

The warehouse associates still have plenty to do, filling approximately 300 orders a day, and keeping track of up to 28,000 new pieces coming in daily. If there's a sudden spike in business, the new system also makes it easy to pull in temporary workers and train them quickly.

"It has given us a lot of flexibility. If someone calls in sick or is needed in another department, it's not a catastrophe," Siino says.

Swagelok Northern California has one of the few warehouses that receives "clean" daily. Every part is either shelved or shipped by the end of the workday. You'll see no freight lying around in receiving or on the outbound side.

Inventory accuracy lines ensure warehouse is well-stocked

Siino pays close attention to two key numbers. One is inventory accuracy dollars, measuring whether the warehouse really has the total value of inventory it's supposed to. The other is inventory accuracy lines, measuring whether it has as many of each part as it's supposed to.

"We currently run at 99.97 percent on our dollar accuracy and 99.73 percent for inventory accuracy on our lines," Siino says. Back in 2004, inventory accuracy was a healthy 90 percent. 

It's hard to beat those numbers, but Siino constantly tries. Each quarter he runs a report showing which items have shipped the most so he can optimize the part locations and gain more efficiency.

Siino has been with Swagelok Northern California for seven years, and 11 years working in another warehouse operation before that as a foreman, supervisor and manager.

"It was a big deal for me to leave a job I had for 11 years. I'm not a job hopper," Siino says, but he got a call from a recruiter and discovered he liked the way Swagelok Northern California operated. He went through several interviews, including one with the operations manager, and then met with owner Rod Fallow.

"I decided, wow, this is a different organization than I had ever been with before," Siino says. "I was so impressed with the people here, and the culture. I was able to see the culture in action, not just hear about it. All the people I report to enable me to grow, and make mistakes and be successful. They enable me to use whatever talents I may have."

Pride in strong performance

Siino's pride in good performance also makes itself evident in his off-hours. He's the lead singer of Evolution, a tribute band performing the songs of Journey and performs regularly throughout the Bay Area. As with his day job, it's a chance for Siino to stretch his talents, grow, and please the customer.

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