DHL Logistics

My struggle and learnings

My DHL Learnings:

1. Durability

2. Delivery logistics

1. Durability

While looking for a part time job to do during the vacation between semesters, I stumbled upon a opportunity to work for DHL in a parcel distribution center near me. DHL is one of the most known delivery firms in Germany so I thought it would also be beneficial for me from a networking and experience perspective to gain first insights into how big companies operate.

I worked as a distributor of packages and although the job ad specified max. 10 kg per package, when I got there and the introduction started I was told that the maximum package load was 30kg and the expected Packages per hour were 1.000 PACKAGES – I thought that that was crazy!

I only worked parttime, meaning 20h/week, but most of the coworkers I met were working full time for quite some time already.

Starting my work I was quickly introduced to the task by an experienced coworker – Within 15 Minutes I understood the basic task, which consisted of hieving the parcel from a container onto a running band as fast as possible. It was a very monotonous work as one may imagine a classic factory worker job, but it was SO exhausting – After 20 Minutes I could always feel my back aching and my legs telling me to sit down somewhere.

Especially exhausting were when there was 2 containers after eachother that almost only contained heavy packages. That was not rare, as all of parcels would contain similiar good such as Horse food, Garden equipment, medical equipment or wine – Usually all these Parcel were at least 25kg, making it an excruciating job for the back that had was mainly burdened by lifting so many heavy weights for 4 hours a day.

Over time, I gained serious respect for the people able to do the job for 8h a day every day, some even working through the better payed night shifts and having second jobs on top in the daytime. It was crazy to me how they could still keep working at the expected speeds. On the other hand I noticed that the more often I went, the more durability, especially mentally, I built. Furthermore, as I have experienced hard physical labour, I can now “power through” office jobs easily as (at least to me) that requires much less mental fortitude and discipline than powering through lifting heavy parcels.

2. Delivery logistics

The other core learning I experienced was gaining a hond – on feeling for the logistics behind 24 – delivery promises all over Germany and Global deliveries in general.

The entire Logistic hall was fascinating to me and I was intrigued by the amount of design and thought that must have gone into it, as everything was designed as efficient and effective as possible.

As I worked in many different parts of the distribution center depending on the capacity that day,I got a thorough understanding of how the different parts of the distribution process were related.

I don’t want to go into a to detailed description of the processes, but by thinking through the entire process known to me using one parcel, I realized that from the first step in the distribution center to the parcel landing in the correct truck to be delivered, it only needed around 10 Minutes.

Even though it absolutely was not the focus of my work, I recognized this entire distribution hall as one big business process that alligned with my interest for IT-. and Processmanagement in general – I was constantly thinking about how these jobs could be automated and what that would cost the company in the short und long term.

I wondered if the initial investment cost of machines plus the constant maintainence cost would be higher than all the people working at their posts to reach the same performance a modern machine could. These thoughts and talking about this to coworkers enabled me to make connections between operational theory and actual implementation of it – For example why it is not implemented already and what the actual workers think about it.

Altough the workers did not say that they liked their jobs, it was a “Ah, it’s just work” feeling when talking to them about it, which meant that they were just working to earn a wage and that they didn’t think too greatly of automating the job that they have now gathered years of experience in.

My Conclusion

In conclusion, I lbuilt a lot of durability that helps me stay focused and discplined – Even in office environments.

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