While the Winter Olympics were in full swing last month in Salt Lake City, so too were the warehouse workers whose behind-the-scenes efforts played a huge role in the games' success. Warehousing operations employing more than 500 logistics and warehouse workers functioned around the clock for five weeks prior to and during the games.

More than 400,000 square feet of warehouse space was needed at three venues to supply everything the games required—from bedding and food for the athletes to scoreboards for the Delta Center and netting to line the treacherous ski slopes at Park City.

"Game time was not the 8th of February for us," says Ron Delmont, head of logistics for the games. "Game time for us was more like the end of October." That's when product began arriving on a regular basis.

Making the logisticians' task all the more challenging, most of this activity had to take place at odd hours and within tight time windows. Trucks ran between the warehouse and the Delta Center, the arena that housed many Olympic events, between midnight and 6 a.m. Replenishment at outdoor sites like the bobsled and luge runs at Park City occurred two hours before and two hours after each event. "We [can only] get [into] a lot of these facilities at the very last minute," says Delmont, "so our deadlines are very tight."

Just how important is the warehousing function to the success of the games? Shortly after the warehouses went to 24-hour shifts, Fraser Bullock, the Salt Lake Olympic Committee's chief operating officer, paid the main distribution center a visit. "There is only one thing consistent across all of the Olympic venues, and that's the logistics group's unbelievable performance," said Bullock. "The warehousing team has made [everyone's] life so much easier and is truly a key piece of our success in staging the games."