State House News Service | By Andy Metzger | AUGUST 19, 2016

MBTA inventory workers giving a tour around the central warehouse earlier this summer paused for a moment, moving to the side of an enclosed alley to make room for a forklift passing through. The hallway is the only indoor connection between the loading dock and the main warehouse, according to workers there. After about 15 seconds of beeping and whirring tires, the forklift was clear and the tour resumed. Those seconds add up, and a bottlenecked passageway doesn’t begin to describe the T’s warehousing woes.

“This is not Home Depot or Lowes where nuts and bolts are all grouped in one aisle, filters in another. It’s wherever there’s room for something,” John Hoffman, a roving stockman and 15-year employee of the central warehouse in Everett, told the News Service. Hoffman said the roughly 75-year-old building was not built to be a warehouse and the single work shift five days a week doesn’t cover the T’s supply chain needs. He said, “As a worker bee here on the floor, little or none of that has to do with me. It’s because of the way the system has been set in place for decades.”

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