Musa Abdul-Malik for 1776 Moving & Storage Ops Manager

Speaker: musa abdul-malik

musa abdul-malik: Well, when I got hired by Sorenson, I was hired as the assistant operations operation management, all aspects of it uh which is so similar to my, my background of warehousing warehouse management, very similar uh especially when it comes to projects as well as running a warehouse, running the office, uh running the project managers, making sure I had to read blueprints, making sure that things were done correctly. Also making sure that everybody had what they needed the proper tools to get their job done. I said I have 23 years experience in warehouse management, logistics as uh you know, uh as well as international. So the the the little bit of a jump to to the moving industry. It was very, very slight. Uh I have moved furniture before so I'm very, I'm familiar with it. Uh Yeah, it was, but like I said, I have 23 years experience in warehouse management and a moving company. It's, it's very similar to, to logistics, to logistics, warehouse. Plus we did logistics uh in uh in the moving in the moving company. So it was very slight, it was a very, very slight difference. So, yeah, I would say I have 20 years experience in this.

musa abdul-malik: Well, my process basically is, uh, what next? Seeing people's strengths and their weaknesses and building on their strengths and fixing their weaknesses as a manager, you always have to be this. The Three Fs doesn't matter what industry you're in this Three Fs, right. It's firm, fair and friendly. People have to be able to come to you and talk about their, talk about their concerns when it comes to the job because you have to be able to train them in order to train them. You have to be definitely friendly and I give people a lot of chances because you'd be surprised some people's learning is different than others. So you have to learn the people that's working with you. You have to learn to people that's working with you and you have to actually tell, you know, like you have to work with the level of, of how things are done and how they understand things and how they learn. You have to really take heed to that and then you'll have the best team ever when they know that you actually care

musa abdul-malik: Treating a driver. Uh, you can road test them yourself. Actually, you can go for, you can go on a move with them. Doesn't mean you have to start grabbing all this furniture with them and they are the movers, but you can go on a road trip with them and you can train them that way on how you expect them to drive. You know, you wouldn't hire someone who's not experienced an experienced driver anyway. So there's, but so much to train them on, except for the company's sops. When it comes to movers, movers are different, you can train them within the warehouse actually on how you expect them to wrap things, how you expect them to move things. Uh If there's stairs, you can use straps, you know, you can show them how to use a strap. So these things are something that you would, you would do within the warehouse and then you put them on a move with, with other experienced movers that you have trained and they will, you know, take that, take him under the wing and then, you know, you each one teach one and that's how you do that

musa abdul-malik: This is kind of an odd question because usually the company has their own process for handling cla claims. Each company is different. So I would follow the company's way of handling claim to the letter. Uh how we handled claims in my past company was claim was put in. Uh we researched it before we put it to the insurance company. Insurance company put that, you know, they had a researcher research as well and we paid out accordingly.

musa abdul-malik: Ok, fleet maintenance die. This is very important. This has to be an sop put in place, which is very standard when it comes to drivers and trucks and, and, uh, mechanics, how things are, you know, how things are, are done. There has to be a checklist for these, these truck drivers every day. They have to do the same thing every day. It's a checklist. Even there's even ways to check the engine, uh, regular maintenance on the engine, oil changes and, and, and, and things like that, this keeps the fleet running perfectly and smooth. Always have an extra truck, extra truck or two at the yard just in case when these trucks break down, you don't have to rush to, to, to go get a rental or something like that. Something to that effect because sometimes that is much better to have. Ok, you just reload that truck, you know, you reload the other truck that is working, unload. The one that isn't, uh, fleet maintenance is very, very important and how I would do it is I stay on top of it every day. That's another first thing in the morning thing that you, that I would have to implement, you know, it's another first thing in the morning. That's what I do have to, you have to, you have to the trucks some money. So that's what we gotta do.

musa abdul-malik: Well, it's kind of easy to do that. Everything's done the day before if I know when the move is and I can schedule it the day before and it's usually, uh, uh, and it's usually a computer program that each company has to schedule these things. And if I dispatch and I'm telling people, ok, this is what you're doing tomorrow as the drivers come in from that day. Ok, I need you, you, you and tomorrow and this, and this is how you schedule the, the, the, the movers and the drivers. So they know exactly what they're doing when they walk in and, and then tomorrow morning, everything is done a day or two a day or two ahead of time. That way, you, you hardly ever run into any problems. That way it's better to be proactive than reactive.

musa abdul-malik: Inventory is pretty easy as long as you can get it done. I'd say every, some people do it every month, they do it by hand. Uh, I would say every three months with the moving company with a moving company, I would say once a month, once a month, you have to do a cycle count, know what you have and where it is, you have to be able to find everything. Yeah, that's the biggest thing to find it. It, everything needs to be in its place and the inventory should be quite easy. You know, it should be very easy. It is, is it, it should be simple as pie and this is something that should be done monthly. Uh And when it comes to equipment maintenance, equipment maintenance is this falls on the, the drivers because most of the equipment is going on their truck. It's up to, it's up to me to check it. Of course, I'm an operations manager. I have to make sure it's getting done, but I would hold the, the, the, the drivers accountable because when you hold someone accountable and you'd be like, hey, look, man, this is just part of your job is part of your truck. I, this is the company giving this to you to take care of all people tend to take care of it very well. You have less breakage and, uh, try and not spend so much money on it. Uh, I'd buy more wheels for the, the dollies and, and stuff like that. So wheel breaks, I can put it on myself. I would try to cut corners as much. Not cut corners, put that differently. Not cut corners, try to save money as much as possible.

musa abdul-malik: Daily or weekly safety checks, uh meetings about safety, uh talk about safety with people. Sometimes workers get a little flustered by like, oh why is this guy keep coming by safety to you? Actually tell them, tell them this OSHA regulations. If this isn't safely done. A OSHA Reg can come in and we could find thousands of dollars for this or you can tell them, you can tell them the same thing of, you know, this can happen, that can happen when you get hurt or one of your, your colleagues get hurt and because this wasn't checked, you know, all of this could have been avoided. But then this is what happened. It, it goes down to communicating. If you can communicate with your, with your, with your coworkers, then things will be, the things will be fine, you know, but it all goes down to communication.

musa abdul-malik: Good question. Uh You can look at my resume and you can see, I don't jump from job to job to job. I don't jump because whatever company I'm with, I give 200%. I throw myself into the work because I'm a person who I pride myself on my work and pride myself on my accomplishments and every day is a, is an accomplishment to me. I like to get the job done and get it done correctly and get it done in the best way I can. So that way I sleep at night because when I told you the job done correctly, I can't sleep cause I mean, I, I, I'd feel like I, like I should have done this, I should have done. No, I don't do that. I go to, I go to sleep soundly every night because whatever company I'm with, I get the job done. I mean the owners of the company say, hey, this guy is, this guy's got something but it's, uh, it's nothing special. It's, I have a work ethic. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe it's, uh, my parents, maybe it's my mother. I don't know. But my work ethic is get the job done, that's it. And you should hire me because you'll know I can get the job done.