ATC Works with Companies for Real World Experience
Recently, we wrote about our trip to the Rock Hill ATC, which you can read about here, but we learned so much that it didn’t all fit in one blog post. The ATC partners with outside companies to give students real material handling experience and provide service to these community organizations.
Back the Pack
In the lab, they manage the Back the Pack program, a program that distributes backpacks of food to students who would otherwise go hungry over the weekend. Since 2009, the program feeds an average of 650 kids per week. With a real life program to work with the students are now working with moving inventory and have invested kids. They work with real product, real trucks backing in, and real-time off-loading of product. This project creates an inventory that students can receive, move, store, control, protect, and then ship. They get all of the basic fundamentals with one project.
FirstBook
In 2010, the ATC began a partnership with FirstBook. FirstBook works to get books in the hands of children across the US to promote literacy. This unique partnership gives students the opportunity to work in a third party logistics environment, adding further to the skills the program teaches them. The ATC creates an inventory and posts it to a Google Doc of all places. But really, it’s the perfect tool; the cloud-based program allows workers in multiple locations to access the information and updates in real time. Plus, it’s free and students get real world inventory management experience. FirstBook then sells inventory from the information in the Google Doc and sends orders to the ATC, where the books are then shipped out. Since the inception of the program, they’ve shipped over $3 million in inventory.
Industry Partnership
The program also benefits with industry partnership. A member was touring the warehouse, much like we did, and saw that there was excess inventory that was normally auctioned off once a year being crammed into the warehouse. The member suggested an online store, which allowed for constant resale of overstock and has turned a time and money pit for the district into a profitable set-up. When members tour, they get a chance to work together with the program, which is a great partnership: the program benefits from member experience and donations, and the students learn invaluable skills. Those skills are then put into the workforce – talk about ROI on your donations.
With Back the Pack and FirstBook, the students coming out of the ATC’s Logistics & Distribution program will have both the knowledge and the practical experience needed to succeed in material handling. As a bonus, the programs help feed children and promote literacy, both social advocacy programs. But the social lessons are reinforced by the learning style. The hands-on learning really helps keeps the kids grounded in the work. Some students actually go on and intern within the district. The students get on-the-job experience critical for getting a job in this economy and the district gets workers familiar with the system. It’s a win-win for everyone.
