RABEXALTD

The bench in five timed steps › what each step produces

Step outputs · bench 1, 192A Broadway

Every step hands on a document, not a feeling that it went well

The five steps on the front page are timed against a cutoff. This page is about what each one leaves behind, because a step that cannot be checked afterwards has not really finished. Each one produces a physical thing — a sheet, a sealed box, an applied label — and the next step is not allowed to start until that thing is on the bench in front of whoever is doing it.

The six artefacts a despatch leaves on the bench

  1. The cut pick list

    Printed once, in shelf order, carrying its own reference, a line count and a unit count. It is the only sheet in the run; a second copy is not printed, because two sheets means two sets of ticks and no way to tell which one was walked.

  2. The marked sheet

    The same sheet after the walk, with a tick against each lifted line and any shortfall written at the shelf in figures rather than in words. The marks are made at the shelf. A sheet that comes back clean has not been walked, it has been carried.

  3. The read-back

    Not a document but an event: the tote is read against the marked sheet out loud, line by line, before anything goes in a carton. It is recorded by initialling the foot of the sheet. If the counts disagree the run stops there, at the bench, with everything still loose and still countable.

  4. The sealed carton

    Taped across the centre seam and once along each end, with the fill noted on the sheet and the outside dimensions measured on the sealed box. The heaviest item sits over the base seam. A carton that has to be pressed shut is the wrong carton and is swapped rather than forced.

  5. The applied label

    One label, flat on the largest face, clear of the tape line and clear of every edge. The dimensions and weight printed on it come from the measured carton. A label printed and not used is torn across the barcode before it goes in the bin, so it cannot be picked up and applied to the wrong box.

  6. The handover sheet

    Written at the door as parcels are set down, in label order, with the count and the routing lines. It is the sheet that is signed, and the parcels are counted against it in front of whoever is collecting rather than after they have gone.

The four bands on the label face, top to bottom

The applied label drawn flat, with its four bands named by leader lines Address block at the top, then the service bar, then the routing line, then the barcode with its human-readable row under it. FROM RABEXA LTD · 192A BROADWAY DIDCOT OX11 8RN TO CONSIGNEE WITHHELD HANDOVER · BENCH 1 OX11 8RN — 01 1 7 4 2 8 5 6 0   2 3 5 1 1 5 6 9 5 01  ADDRESS BLOCK sender only on this site 02  SERVICE BAND which handover it is staged for 03  ROUTING LINE read back aloud against the sheet 04  BARCODE and the row for when it is keyed
The label prints in the order the printer lays it down, and each band answers a different question. The address block carries the registered office as the sender and the consignee lines, which are never reproduced on this site. The service band is the single coloured bar and names the handover the parcel is staged for. The routing line underneath is the outward sorting code with the bench number appended, and it is the line read back aloud against the sheet. The barcode and the digits under it exist so that nothing has to be hand-keyed at the door; the human-readable row is there precisely for the occasion when it does.

What stops a step rather than slows it

Three things stop a despatch instead of delaying it, and all three are decided at the bench with the sheet in view. A line that cannot be satisfied in full is one: the shortfall is written at the shelf, but the choice to send short, hold the whole order or split it is taken once, at the bench. A read-back that disagrees is the second, and nothing is packed until it agrees. The third is a carton whose measured dimensions put it in a different handling class than the one the run was staged for, which sends it back to the pack step rather than on to the label step.

Why the sheet and not the screen

Marks are made on paper at the shelf because the shelf is where the knowledge is, and an entry made later at a keyboard is an entry made from memory. The sheet is the record of the run while the run is open; what is kept afterwards, and for how long, is set out in what this office stores. Where the parcel goes once the sheet is signed, and what happens if it comes back, is on the returns route.

Figures on this page

Nothing here is a timing commitment. The minute figures on the front page come from the allowance you enter in the cutoff checker and the ratio the checker uses to model the sequence; they are not measurements of this bench and not a promise about any collection.