Practice
Drawn in Pubil, walked on your dock
Utilityroutecore is a small practice at 90 St Maurices Road. We come from wholesale warehouses, not from a product studio. The subject is the same every time: where a distributor’s day actually slips between receipt and the last collection.
Why the practice exists
Rowan Ellis left a Scottish agricultural merchant after watching the same inbound argument repeat every winter: the screen said receipts were complete, the dock still held cages, and sales quoted Friday noon because the rate card had always said so. He wanted a way to pin the pauses on a wall the shift could stand in front of. Amelia Khatri joined to keep those pins legible. Tomos Price still thinks in despatch spikes and gate phones.
We work with distributors — grocery wholesale, builders’ merchants, farm supplies, specialist drinks — because those houses still know their SKUs by face and still lose hours to a blocked travel lane. We do not take on parcel start-ups or retailers whose only warehouse is a 3PL we cannot walk.
How we work with a depot
A named host meets us at the gate. We take site induction. We walk; we do not interrupt a pick wave to stage a photograph. Notes stay in the depot’s language: your location codes, your carrier names, your late list columns. Briefings happen in the warehouse office with the people who will have to live with the board.
What we will not claim
We do not promise shorter lead times as a number. We name the pause, draw it, and leave the depot to move a pallet, stagger a supplier window, or reprint a label. If that work is already in hand, say so in the enquiry so we do not redraw a decision you have made.
People you will meet on a visit
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Rowan Ellis
Principal, site visits
Rowan spent twelve years as a warehouse manager for a Scottish agricultural merchant before drawing exception boards for other depots. He still walks pick aisles in safety shoes, not presentation ones.
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Amelia Khatri
Charts and briefing notes
Amelia turns timed observations into wall boards and cut-off calendars. She trained in information design and refuses a chart that a shift lead cannot read from two metres away.
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Tomos Price
Inbound and carrier notes
Tomos previously clerked despatch for a West Midlands grocery wholesaler. He maps yard holds, dock congestion, and the last metres before a driver takes a consignment.
