An interesting item from the Booksellers Association Feature by Marcus Greville.

We’ve all got our gripes about distributors, but we save the deep grumbles for UBD. When Random House’s Auckland warehouse closed we lost a significant resource, consequently we became hyper-aware of any stuff-ups from UBD – I was like an angry vampiric meerkat whenever a TOLL courier arrived – but it may be time to cool our jets, note the changes, and start spreading our distribution grumps around in a fairer and more constructive way.

I had a talk to Colin Pinfold, National Operations and Logistics Manager for Penguin Random House NZ, who got some stats from Gavin Schwarz at UBD for this feature. Read on to see what I found out.

Robot warehouses and relativityI was working in London in 2004 when Penguin changed to a robotised warehouse – a truly spectacular failure, a failure that became a story to scare baby logistics managers. I’ve heard tell of Baker & Taylor’s vast Momence warehouse in Illinois – they added a football-field sized wing just for a Harry Potter release. I’ve read about the organising principles behind massive distribution hubs with a fascination and relish that has somehow eclipsed my anger at not getting that damn order I placed 10 days ago. This stuff, in short, is my jam.

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