Some numbers are so large that you can barely feel them anymore. 200,000. It fits neatly into an Excel cell, a dashboard or a report. But something entirely different lies behind that number.
Almost 200,000 pupil packages.
Almost 200,000 children who will soon open their schoolbags. Put their books on the table, write their names in them and begin a new chapter. Some full of enthusiasm, others with healthy nerves. Some starting secondary school for the first time, others entering their exam year.
In Makkum, what we mainly see are pallets, roll containers, boxes, scanners and conveyors. We see production figures, deadlines and lorries coming and going. But every now and then, it is good to zoom out.
Because every package leaving the conveyor is meant for one pupil.
That realisation gives meaning to the work. It is not only about logistics. Not only about planning. Not only about reaching ten thousand today or running even faster tomorrow. It is about making sure that on the first day of school, a pupil simply has their books on the table.
Production got under way in mid-July. In just a few weeks, a warehouse turned into a well-oiled machine in which hundreds of people worked together towards one goal. Sometimes through long days, sometimes with unexpected problems, sometimes with a generous dose of improvisation. But always with the same task: ensuring that every package reached the right place.
That is only possible thanks to order pickers, packers, drivers, item managers, IT, HR, planners, team leaders, quality controllers and all the temporary summer workers who contributed this year.
Almost 200,000 packages later, we are allowed to pause and take that in.
Not because the work is finished, because the back orders are still to come, but because behind every package is a pupil who will soon be able to begin a new school year.
And perhaps that is the finest planning you can make.