2018 Best Practices Awards
Montgomery County DLC Director Robert Dorfman at the agency ’ s warehouse .
“ Myself and others needed to be held accountable to make these improvements , and we also had to follow through .”
– JOHN ZELTNER
BEST DISTRIBUTION INNOVATION Montgomery County Department of Liquor Control
Warehouse Modernization
One hundred percent accountability - no excuses . A giant banner hanging in the Montgomery County Department of Liquor
Control ’ s warehouse with this phrase exemplifies John Zeltner ’ s mantra , an instrumental part in how he and his staff , including manager Mike Vogel , turned things around at the agency .
BY ALEX VAN ABBEMA
Prior to this year , Zeltner says the staff at DLC was struggling with its workload and the amount of special orders it received , which would often run up to 12,000 per week . Inventory would be brought into the warehouse , but sometimes wouldn ’ t be put into the system for two to four weeks .
Customers used to order stock items on a 48-hour cycle , but the DLC wanted to bring this down to 24 hours to allow customers to better manage their inventory and cash flow . To turn this around , Zeltner had to completely change both the culture and the operations of the business .
“ The vision of this building changed totally ,” Zeltner says . “ Myself and others needed to be held accountable to make these improvements , and we also had to follow through .”
During the process , he found that the warehouse was in desperate need of some technological updates .
“ Most of the people have been here a long time , and didn ’ t have any outside knowledge ,” Zeltner says . “ The warehouse , our systems , our processes were late ‘ 80s , early ‘ 90s . We needed to get it into this current century and beyond .”
DLC updated its picking system , which used to be done as a manual process for wine and spirits , with one staff member standing up with a book and yelling at staff members to pick certain items . Now orders are given to warehouse workers through a headset , and staff members can see certain orders on the warehouse ’ s television screens .
The warehouse staff also introduced stickers for every special order , which lists each customer and the required delivery date .
DLC also had to revamp its truck sys-
16 StateWays | www . stateways . com | September / October 2018