Job Description

                        Inventory Management Specialist

My first job was a very memorable one. I worked at my first job for three years, from the summer of 2018 between my junior and senior year of high school, to the summer of 2021, between my sophomore and junior year of college. I worked as an inventory management specialist at Advanced Structural Technologies in Oxnard, CA.

I really enjoyed this job for several reasons. First, I was able to work flexible hours that fit with my schedule. Second, I worked with one of my best friends, Anthony. We worked together on all of the tasks throughout the three years I was there. Third, I enjoyed the workout I got from the manual labor elements of the job. Lastly, I learned a lot about how a manufacturing business operates and the various complexities included in running a business.

As an inventory management specialist for three years, I had several roles and responsibilities. There are three main responsibilities that I had during this time.
1) Worked on various small projects.
2) Worked in the shipping department loading and packing products.
3) Took inventory on products in stock.

The following sections will outline what I did in each of these responsibilities.

Small Projects

During my time as an inventory management specialist, I spent a significant amount of time doing small projects that needed to be done but no one else had the time or resources to do so. For instance, the very first project that I worked on involved organizing tooling inventory by their different part numbers and uses. “Tooling” refers to the metal attachments that connect to machines in order to manufacture specialized parts. Each piece of tooling has a different purpose which creates a part that is unique.

Another project that I worked on was going through a large number of products that had many different uses and sorting them. These products included towels, mallets, rags, ear plugs, gloves, goggles, and more. I had to identify the product, put it where it belonged, and log it into a spreadsheet so that the products could be properly monitored and reordered if necessary.

A third project that I worked on was the construction of a new warehouse. Advanced Structural Technologies started increasing in size, so they needed to purchase a new warehouse. I was tasked with working with a team to construct this new warehouse. This warehouse was to be used to store inventory that was no longer used at the moment and had potential to be used in the future. The inventory had to be placed on racks all throughout the warehouse. I had to calculate how many racks could fit inside the warehouse.

Shipping Department

The majority of my time as an inventory management specialist was spent working in the shipping department. In the shipping department, I worked on a team of six to pack various products (AKA parts) so that they could be shipped to customers.

The products we packed and shipped included the following:
a) semi-finished wheels
b) unfinished wheels
c) cylinders for rocket ships

These products came in many different sizes and weights, so they all had to be packed differently. For instance, unfinished wheels were packed in large Gaylord boxes with no “spacers” in between each wheel. Then, some of the semi-finished wheels were packed nicely on pallets with cardboard spacers in between each layer and wheel. Other semi-finished wheels were packed on pallets with foam spacers in between each layer and wheel. Cylinders were loaded onto special plastic pallets, wrapped in foam, plastic wrap, and then cardboard on the outer layer.

An important element of working in the shipping department was working on teams. It was essential that we worked as a unit in order to complete the various tasks and fulfill orders on a daily basis. Luckily, our team all worked well together and got along.

This role was important because it was the last step in the process, similar to a last line of defense if anything was wrong with any of the products. If one of the parts was scratched, dented, or improperly made, it had to be sent back to the beginning of the manufacturing process and could not be sent to a customer.

Inventory on Products in Stock

My final task was to go through the on-site warehouse and take inventory of the stock that was currently in there. I had to label each rack so that the inventory could be quickly identified. Then, I went through each rack and wrote down what inventory was on that rack. I took note of that, then re-organized this inventory in a way that was desired by management. I had to use a forklift to move around the pallets of parts in the warehouse. I learned how to drive the forklift with training from one of the forklift operators at the company.

There were some issues that arose while doing this. First, some of the inventory could not be identified. Second, I could not move some of the inventory with the current set up inside the warehouse. Third, I had to clean out the warehouse in several areas in order to reach a lot of the inventory. These problems were solved and I was able to figure out all of these issues.