Wyoming Chapter
Association of Records Managers and Administrators
Chapter Meeting
January 8, 2004
Tour of Lowe's Distribution Center, 2723 Christensen Pkwy, Cheyenne, WY

Members Present: Tony Adams, Kristy Anderson,Ramona Christensen, Donna Crock, Wendy Kinkade, Valerie Roybal, Vicki Seals, Paula Sutton, Barbara Thomasee and Deanne Widauf

Guests: Alan Chmura, University of Wyoming Rhonda Reed, Laramie County Clerk's Office Denise Freeman, Wyoming Association of Risk Management Debbie Leonard, Wyoming State Archives

Speaker: Shanna Wansley, Assistant Planning Manager

Members and guests arrived at the Visitor Center to sign in and receive their visitor badge. After checking in, everyone met at the main building in the lobby and introduced themselves. Immediately following lunch, Kristy introduced our guest speaker, Shanna Wansley. Shanna is a Texas native who graduated from college in 1996 with a Bachelor of Science degree. She started with Lowe's in 1998 at the Mt. Vernon Texas facility as a team member and has advanced to Assistant Planning Manager. She has worked in many areas of the distribution center over the years but her area of specialty is Quality Assurance and Inventory Control.

Lowe's is a 57 year old company publicly owned since October 10, 1961. The Cheyenne Distribution Center broke ground in February, 2001 and officially opened in August, 2002. Lowe's employs over 420 employees and plans to hire on an additional 30 workers. They work a 5 day work week and 10 hour shifts. The facility is 1.7 million square feet, the largest building in the State of Wyoming. However, Lowe's plans to build a larger facility in Florida in the future. The building has 86 shipping doors, 96 receiving doors, 7 miles of conveyor system and enough concrete to build a road from Cheyenne to Gillette.

The tour began in the Receiving/Logistics office. This office handles problems from vendors, closing of paperwork and checks to the vendors. Their filing area is housed in this office in numerical order. All information is tracked by a UPC number and a bar code. Shanna noted that the Cheyenne Distribution Center has received an Excellence Award for 3 of the last 4 quarters for their team members due to the safety, accuracy, cost effectiveness, damage control and freight shipped out.

The tour continued into the main warehouse. The distribution center accepts shipment from various manufacturers and redistributes the products to a number of their retail stores. Blue pick pod carousels are used for high volume items. The products are put in a box and labeled with a bar code, then sent by conveyor to specific shipping area. The average turnaround time from warehouse to the store is 4 to 5 days. The Distribution Management System (DMS) determines where the product is supposed to go.

According to Shanna, over 15.6 million dollars worth of goods are stored in the center at this time, including 18,000 to 19,000 items. The Receiving Dock services over 65 stores in 14 states with the capability to serve over 86 stores. They receive from 3 to 10 vendors in one truck. In the Central Palette Strip area, cages are unloaded through a conveyor and sorts to the appropriate area. Approximately 30,000-35,000 cartons are done in a 10 hour shift. In the Bulk Palette Strip Area, labels are put on a box to a conveyor strip with rollers to process the freight. One label for each palette goes straight to the truck instead of to the conveyor strip. Once the freight is processed, the freight is assigned to specific Shipping Doors and manually loaded onto the trucks for delivery. Through the conveyor system computer, it is possible to track the inventory from start to finish.

Submitted by,

Ramona Christensen
Acting Chapter Secretary