Warehouses

History

How old is the building?

Historically warehouses were one of the first buildings to be built, once Birdencaster was founded. They originally stored building materials as well as anything that was required to make sure that a building can be connected to civil systems such as water and sewage as well as the electricity networks. As the city grew the warehouses found that the demand for storing building materials declined, so they stored what was needed by the city’s inhabitants as well. The warehouses needed to be retrofitted so that some items could be stored. Some of the warehouses could not be retrofitted, so they have remained the same since the foundation of the city.

What is the Infrastructure of the Warehouse?

Warehouses have desks which are in and out desks. To deposit raw materials or products into a warehouse the customer to the warehouse would go to the in desk. The out desk, therefore, is for withdrawing. An example is, a sawmill would cut logs into planks, boards and posts. These then go to the warehouse at the in desk and a carpenter withdraws those boards and posts at the out desk to make furniture. This furniture would then be returned to the warehouses, which would be flat packed.
Warehouses have what is needed to move crates around. These are trolleys and small cranes. These can be used to move other items that are too heavy or cumbersome, such as wooden boards or metal. To climb to higher shelves, ladders with catches on the top are used, these are similar to the ladders used in Libraries.

Problems with the Building.

Since the building was originally intended to store building materials as well as anything that required the buildings to function. Such as connecting the buildings to the water and sewer system and the power grid. Some of the warehouses are too small to be able to be retrofitted to store anything else. The warehouses that are big enough were retrofitted. All warehouses were fitted with two desks to allow for customers to visit. The warehouses that weren’t fully retrofitted can’t store everything. A good example of this is some warehouses can't store items that need refrigeration.
Even so, warehouses while having shelves for organising their stored goods and larger areas for storing larger crates. Warehouses have shelves for organising their stored goods and larger areas for storing larger crates. While this can make the warehouse look disorganised and chaotic, warehouse workers know where items are. This is due to a ledger noting the places of the items that are organised into the category of item and the four directions. These directions are; what floor, aisle, shelf number and shelf height, the item or good is on. The quantity of the item is also logged so that the warehouse workers know how much of a particular item there is to sell to a business owner.

What Happens If What is Wanted is Not in the Warehouse?

If an item is understock or is not in stock, then a Messenger is sent to the nearest warehouse with a message that enquires whether they have more of the item or the full amount, if the reply to the question comes as a positive that they do in fact have the full amount. The business owner should purchase the items there. If it is negative then an apology is given and a suggestion to a warehouse in a differing Zone or Segment may be given, such as a warehouse that would be too far for the messenger to travel.

Geography

Where are the Warehouses Found?

Warehouses are commonly found in Segments 4, 8 and 12 they are normally taller than the surrounding buildings. Some Zone and Segment combinations may have more than one Warehouse in them. This was to allow for the separation of items, such as wood and stone which when stored together can combust. When warehouses are found in other cities they can be spread out and are not necessarily in the same segments as above.

Legal

Who owns what is stored there?

The warehouse makes its money by buying its deposits and selling its withdrawals at a profit. Since this is the case it is the warehouse that stores the items and it is the Warehouse Foreman that owns the warehouse.

Internal Laws Governing Warehouses

What are the storage rules of the Warehouse?

Warehouses operate as a sort of middle man as when a product is made it is stored at the warehouse awaiting the next process, or if the product is already finished, its end step is to wait to be brought from a warehouse and sold at a commercial establishments within the cities.

Career Specific Variations

For wood, trees are cut down and instead of those logs being put into warehouses, they are instead sent to sawmills to be turned into planks, boards and posts.
It is these items from the sawmills that go into warehouses. From there the wood is bought by the carpenters. Which is then turned into furniture and other items. This is then sent back to the warehouse where a furniture showroom buys a set.
If a customer wants to buy a piece of furniture they buy it from the showroom who gives them a ticket which is for the warehouse to claim the money back for the transaction of giving the customer the item of furniture. The warehouse owner will go back with the ticket with a stamp on it saying they gave the customer the item and that they are here for payment.
The waste that is produced from the Forestry Industry, namely; wood shavings, sawdust and a portion of pine needles are exported to make paper as there is no paper mill within Birdencaster. They are not sold to the warehouse and then sold externally. This is also the case of wood chips if both warehouse and metalsmiths have enough charcoal then the wood chips would be exported for the same purposes.
The other portion of pine needles goes to the Beekeeping industry to be burnt to allow them to remove frames from hives more effectively, without getting stung by bees.

Animal Slaughter

The animal to be slaughtered will be taken to the abattoir. The animal carcass is taken to the butcher to be further processed some of the meat will be sold at the warehouses. The other portion will be sent to the canning plant to be exported.

Bakers

Bakers buy their ingredients from the warehouse in manageable amounts so, for example, they are not leaving with a crate of flour weighing 54kg. They don't sell their bread and baked goods back to the warehouse. They sell their baked goods to the public. For the bread rolls, they sell what remained from The Great Day of Celebration as the bread rolls are given out as part of the celebrations.
A Baker also produces bagels. These bagels are produced in batches, the majority of the batch is sold to the public while the other batch is sold to Porridge Houses.

Blacksmith and Cooper

Where you find a blacksmith a Cooper is not that far away. While both buy raw materials from the warehouses, such as iron or steel for the blacksmith and wood for the Cooper. They do not sell what the other needs to the warehouse. Meaning the loops a Cooper needs to make barrels, are in fact sold to the Cooper directly. The other things that a Blacksmith produces are sold to the warehouse.
For the Cooper, the wood is bought from the warehouse and the loops from the Blacksmith, when they complete their Barrels, they are sold to the warehouse which is then bought by distilleries.

Brownsmiths

Brownsmiths, while withdrawing the metal they work with, this being brass and bronze. The items they make go straight to the companies. One of these companies is the Captain of the Messenger’s office that needs penannular brooches.

Canning Plant

At the Canning Plant, while they don’t buy the metal to make cans from the Warehouses, they do purchase the meat from there. After canning the meat they do indeed sell these cans back to the warehouses to be sold on to merchants. The metal for the cans comes from the Metal Mills.

Confectioners

While the confectioners do in fact buy ingredients from the warehouses they do not sell their wares back to the warehouse, but the confections that they produce can only be bought at the Confectioners themselves.

Glassworks

The Glassworks does buy; Sand, Sodium Carbonate and Calcium Oxide from the warehouse to make glass. It also buys recycled glass from the recycling plant, which then gets used to being part of glass production.

Gunsmiths

Gunsmiths purchase the wood, metals, and chemicals to make the rifles and bullets they sell to military personnel. They don't sell the firearms and bullets to the warehouse for security reasons. This is because the Gunsmith doesn’t want to be the reason why warehouse staff are armed and someone dies or is threatened.

Redsmith

For copper items, the copper is imported to the city in the form of sheets, pipes and round rods. These are sent to the warehouses to be stored. It is the Redsmiths that will withdraw the copper in various size sheets or lengths of rod or pipe to be made into copper items. If the item is destined to be plated it is sent to the Platers instead of the warehouse. For items that are not destined to be plated but are a commission, these will be sent to whoever made the commission. For items that do not fit in any of those categories then they are sent to the warehouses.

Rolling Stock

While the Rolling Stock Factory does buy the metal and other components from the warehouse. It doesn't sell the rolling stock back to the warehouse, this is because the warehouse doesn't have the space to store it. Instead when an item of rolling stock is completed it is rolled down tracks from Zone 3 to Zone 5. Then either coupled to a train in Zone 5 or a crane is used to load the rolling stock onto a train.

Timesetter

The Timesetter is equipped with an expensive wristwatch. These are not supplied by the Warehouses themselves from trade else way, but rather, delivered to City Hall in 2 12. It is the crate carrier who delivers the package to the City Hall instead of Warehouses.

Storage

What is stored?

Currently, Warehouses store what other industries or businesses need. This also includes imports from outside of Birdencaster, which are bought by the warehouses to store. There may be some processing along the way to limit the need for large amounts stored and to make them manageable for the industry or business that use them.
In other cities, they may process their imports more before they divide up the imports into manageable amounts. For example, another City may import logs and process these down to boards and planks etc before storing them. Another example might be for cities with smelters is to smelt the metal before storing as the ore would take up too much space. For the case of this city, metal is imported in its processed form.

Jobs at the Warehouse

How Many People Work in the Warehouses?

In larger warehouses, there are at least three people at each desk. These people have the role of Storeroom Clerk, who if they are at the “in” desk will appraise the good items and will pay the person who is depositing the items. These items will then be taken to the right shelf and stored.
For those on the “out” desk, they check to make sure the item is in stock and get a carrier to fetch the required items or goods. For every Storeroom clerk, there are three carriers and four Storeroom Ledger Clerks.
Since the warehouses are tightly staffed, because of the ratio mentioned, the warehouses tend to be overstaffed. So when members of staff take days off, they will not lose efficiency. All warehouses have a policy of only allowing three staff members to take a day off. Warehouse Foremen, the people who own the warehouses, will log the days off and will ensure that there are not too many people taking the same day off. This is not to say that yearly holidays are not taken off, they are. In this instance, all employees have the day off and the warehouse is securely locked up.

Warehouse Foreman

The Warehouse Foreman is the person who owns and runs the warehouse, owns the wares stored and manages the other employees. They are the people who will apply for more people who will do Extra Employment placements.

Storeroom Clerk

The Storeroom Clerk is the person who works at the front desks, they will have a main ledger with them on their desk that will tell them what is in the warehouse no matter how many there are they share the same ledger on the same desk as to allow for greater accuracy. When something is bought or sold by the warehouse it is first logged onto a card. Then the item is either brought down from where it is kept or it is put with the others of its type.

Carrier

Carriers carry the items from or to where they are kept. They of course use the right equipment as to not hurt themselves by transporting the items.

Storeroom Ledger Clerk

The Storeroom Ledger Clerk will collect the cards and put them in two piles one for the withdrawn items and another for the deposited items. They then make assumptions to what is stock and check these assumptions and change the ledger accordingly. The cards are then kept with the Warehouse Foreman as a form of record-keeping.

Article Contents

Further Resources

A webpage on Modern Glass making (breakglass.org)

References

Inspiration was taken from the Settlers Series of Games with the operations edited for the article.
Inspiration for this professions was taken from the City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. Chapter 1, Pages 4 - 16. I changed the role names and broke up some of the roles further.

Acknowledgements

Ben Lee-Cross

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