Sheet 03 · the clock on the wall
Cut-offs and despatch days
The board carries one time and the whole day is built backwards from it. This sheet is the clock the desk works to, what moves an order to the next sheet, and a calculator for the days.
One working day
The desk clock, start to seal
Left column: the hour. Right column: what the floor is doing.
First hourgoods in
Inbound before outbound
Deliveries and returns are booked in first, so a line that arrived overnight is on the shelf before anybody picks against it.
Morningovernight file
The overnight file prints
Orders stamped after yesterday's cut-off print as the morning sheet. These are the parcels packed first, because they have already waited a day.
Through the dayopen file
The file stays open
Orders land on the file as they come. Amendments are made against the file, not against a sheet, which is why the window closes when the sheet prints.
15:00cut-off
The board figure bites
Everything on the file at the cut-off prints as the afternoon sheet in shelf order. Everything after it is tomorrow's morning sheet.
After cut-offpack window
Pack, weigh, label
The sheet is walked, read back at the bench, boxed, void filled, taped, weighed and labelled. A consignment is raised for each parcel as it is sealed.
Late afternooncollection
Cages leave by the goods-out door
The manifest prints, the driver scans it, the parcel count is agreed at the door and the cages go. After that nothing can be added to the day.
Carry-overs
What moves an order to the next sheet
- Stamped late
- The order reached the file after the cut-off. It prints on the next working day's morning sheet.
- Address query
- An address without a unit number, or a postcode that does not match the street, is asked about before a label is raised.
- Short pick
- A line short on the shelf holds the box open until the reply says what to send.
- Collection gone
- A parcel sealed after the driver has scanned the manifest waits for the next collection; it is not chased down the road.
- Non-working day
- Saturday, Sunday and England & Wales bank holidays have no pick, no pack and no collection. The file holds.
Sheet that calculates
A late Friday, worked through
Loaded with an order stamped after the cut-off on a Friday.
The copy below starts from the case that catches people out: an order stamped late on a Friday. The weekend is not transit and it is not a picking day either, so the first working day it can be packed is the Monday. Change any of the four figures and every step is rewritten.
01
Order stamped at 16:40 on Friday 9 October 2026.
16:40 = 1000 minutes past midnight02
Cut-off standing on the board that day.
15:00 = 900 minutes past midnight03
Not earlier than the cut-off, so the order joins the next sheet.
1000 ≥ 900 minutes—
Saturday 10 October 2026 is not a picking day.
—
Sunday 11 October 2026 is not a picking day.
04
The bench seals and labels on this day.
Despatch: Monday 12 October 202605
Transit day 1 of 1 added.
+1 working day → Tuesday 13 October 202606
Window: last transit day to the working day after it.
Tue 13 Oct – Wed 14 Oct 2026A guide worked from the four figures above. Monday to Friday only, with no knowledge of bank holidays, and no account of what a carrier network does on the day. It describes how the days fall and nothing more.