Counting outside Tashkent: travel and planning for regional sites

A warehouse inside Tashkent can be reached in half a day. Warehouses and sites in the regions are different: the journey takes most of a day, lodging must be booked ahead, and whether staff and keys will be there is often learned only on arrival. One wasted trip costs a whole team two or three days. A count outside the capital must plan how to get there, where to stay and how to work, and not only the count itself.

Count the journey before the count

When building the schedule, split time into travel, preparation and counting. Many plans go wrong because they only allow for counting.

• Check travel times against real timetables and road conditions, and do not estimate from distances on a map.
• Do not usually schedule counting on the arrival day. Use it to meet contacts, see the site and set out sheets.
• Leave time at the end for tidying up and checking, so that wrap-up is not squeezed into the day of departure.
• Road works, weather and closures can delay a leg, so leave half a day of slack between key locations.
• Summer heat and winter cold shorten the useful working hours at open yards and unheated warehouses, so leave a margin.

Batch the visits to cut the travelling

If several warehouses or sites lie in the same region or along the same route, visit them in one trip rather than going back and forth.

An invented example: there are 5 locations, 3 in one region and 2 in the neighbouring region. Five separate trips mean 5 round journeys. Merged into 2 regional trips, the round journeys fall from 5 to 2. The schedule can run as follows: day 1 travel and an on-site check of the first location; days 2 to 4 count one location a day; day 5 move on; days 6 and 7 count the last two; day 8 is held back for recounts and the return journey. (The days are assumed.)

In addition, add one spare day for every 5 working days, to absorb a power cut, a broken tool or goods that were not made ready.

A confirmation list before departure

Most of the risk of a wasted trip can be removed before leaving. A week before, confirm at least these:

• the site contact: name, phone and whether he or she really has authority to let us into the storage area;
• keys and access: who opens the door, at what time and whether anyone is there at the weekend;
• the state of the goods: whether they are tidy, whether any vehicles are still unloading and whether anything is out on loan;
• documents: whether the export of book stock and the latest receipts and issues have been sent in advance;
• site conditions: power, lighting, network signal, lifting equipment, working hours and breaks;
• lodging and transport: accommodation close to the site and a vehicle for the daily trip.

If possible, look at the site remotely first through a video call and photographs. That reveals many hazards, such as goods stacked so that they cannot be counted at all.

What to bring

Emergency items cannot be bought at short notice in the regions, so bring a spare set:

• printed count sheets, about 20% more than needed as a reserve;
• a laptop, power bank and extension lead, with sheets that work offline when the signal is poor;
• barcode labels, markers, tape and stickers;
• a scale, tape measure and a torch or head lamp;
• a phone for photographs, with plenty of storage space;
• an introduction letter from your company and a list of team members, in case they are needed to enter a plant or site.

The day on site

Open with a ten-minute briefing: scope, teams, breaks and contacts. Before the end of each day, the local contact and our site lead review the day's results together and write down what is unfinished and which papers are still needed. The next day's plan is then clear. If the goods at a location are not ready, agree with the contact on the spot to reschedule or narrow the scope, and note why, rather than waiting.

In short

For a regional count, the journey and the site preparation often need more planning than the counting. UzWarehouse serves factories, trading companies and project sites in Tashkent and the regions, with travel and accommodation shown separately in the quote and written into the contract.