MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

[SFSFun]

Does anyone know if there is a way to limit when guests can order certain items? I'm noticing that the system allows guest to order items that have just been delivered the same day. These are still sitting on the truck, waiting to be pushed by overnight. My team has slim chances of finding it. Since in-store guests wouldn't be able to buy these items until the next morning, is there a way to make it the same for online guests?

The truck shouldn't be acknowledged until they are ready to unload it. I can't see any good reason why you'd do it any earlier.

So tired of these carrier changes, SFS at my store switched over to USPS today.

Only for local orders, or everything? Are they still having a third party trucking company pick them up early in the morning?

 

[hufflepuff]

Does anyone else not get pick today, ship tomorrow batches anymore? I think we've only seen it happen once (that day I asked about the clips, lol) since Q4.

 

[ahoy]

Only for local orders, or everything? Are they still having a third party trucking company pick them up early in the morning?

I’m assuming everything, we’re switching to USPS completely and cutting out the third party trucking companies.

 

[hufflepuff]

Yes and sorting machinable and non-machinable too.

I might be having a dumb question moment but what does this mean?

 

[ahoy]

I might be having a dumb question moment but what does this mean?

No dumb question at all, assuming this is only a USPS thing? Machinable packages are considered 454s, 439s, 413s, 126s, and all polymailers. Non-machinable packages are all the other bigger boxes.

 

[hufflepuff]

You won't get them if you do ~110% of your forecasted units for the day

Ah. Makes perfect sense then as we're always above forecast. Thank you!

 

[Thunderbird1956]

@LearningTree when at an overnight store we don't schedule anyone after 9pm because that's when they acknowledged the truck. For a 4AM process they do it as soon as they get in you really need to be on your game and be picking at night or you'll burn your time digging through pallets of freight if you're picking to early.

@tmap98 & @hufflepuff I've never been at a store that does 110% before 1 PM consistently. Now I'm curious to look at some SFS hourly forecasts for different markets.

 

[hufflepuff]

@tmap98 & @hufflepuff I've never been at a store that does 110% before 1 PM consistently. Now I'm curious to look at some SFS hourly forecasts for different markets.

We're not necessarily always 110+ but we are consistently over 100%. I didn't take a last look at the forecast today but I believe we were around 108% when I left. With the possibility of more rush units dropping (we're a Restock store)

 

[SFSFun]

Does anyone else not get pick today, ship tomorrow batches anymore? I think we've only seen it happen once (that day I asked about the clips, lol) since Q4.

You won't get them if you do ~110% of your forecasted units for the day

It just depends on what time of day your orders drop heaviest. At my store they drop heavy at night, so by 1pm it's rare for us to be higher than 50% and they continue dropping in as ship tomorrows. We also seem to go quite a bit higher than 100% by the end of the night. It's hard to say for sure, but we seem to be doing 120% to 150% above goal by the time it resets.

 

[slowhands]

Yes and sorting machinable and non-machinable too.

We're supposed to switch to usps this year.

How does the zip code sorting work?

 

[LearningTree]

The truck shouldn't be acknowledged until they are ready to unload it. I can't see any good reason why you'd do it any earlier.

The O/N TL come in at 8pm at more store to prep for the unload which starts at 10pm. Somewhere between then the truck gets acknowledged so there's a window where guests can order things that haven't pushed to the floor yet (for reference the store closes at midnight). I always make an attempt: looking through the sorted pallets that have already been unloaded, waiting a few minutes by the truck to see if it happens to show (have been lucky a few times with this); asking the O/N TL for help. They have to acknowledge it when they open the doors right? Are they allowed to wait until store close to acknowledge it?

 

[LearningTree]

@LearningTree when at an overnight store we don't schedule anyone after 9pm because that's when they acknowledged the truck. For a 4AM process they do it as soon as they get in you really need to be on your game and be picking at night or you'll burn your time digging through pallets of freight if you're picking to early.

Then we'd be late on a good number of orders. My store doesn't close until midnight (truck acknowledged sometime between 8pm and 10 pm) so we still have guests that place orders between 10pm and midnight. Those have to be picked on time the same as any other orders dropped throughout the day. We have a flex fill person scheduled until 1145 and then O/N takes over for those few orders that drop right before/right after midnight. For some reason we have orders that drop after store close that we're still expected to pick within a timeframe.

 

[SFSFun]

They have to acknowledge it when they open the doors right? Are they allowed to wait until store close to acknowledge it?

That would be the ideal time to do it, but at my store they don't even open the door until 20-30 min before the official unload start.

They could hold off longer as long as it's acknowledged before the autofills drop.

Edit: I just saw where you said the store closes at midnight. There isn't really any getting around it then, but the later it's acknowledged, there is less of a chance for an order to come in for something on that trailer.

 

[ahoy]

We're supposed to switch to usps this year.

How does the zip code sorting work?

Tbh, I’m not too sure because I’m still learning too (today was my second day messing with it). What I do know is that when creating a new pallet to assign packages to, it lists the last 3 digits (or first 3?) of zip codes on sheet we have to attach to the actual pallet. Though, we haven’t been doing much with the zip codes. We’ve been sorting by box sizes more

 

[Bosch]

Tbh, I’m not too sure because I’m still learning too (today was my second day messing with it). What I do know is that when creating a new pallet to assign packages to, it lists the last 3 digits (or first 3?) of zip codes on sheet we have to attach to the actual pallet. Though, we haven’t been doing much with the zip codes. We’ve been sorting by box sizes more

Yeah like I have room for multiple pallets, I am lucky most days to be able to get to the packing desk.

 

[Thunderbird1956]

@LearningTree are you talking about OPU or SFS orders. We have OPU that we have to pick but not ship. I was told that the OPU and Rush that drop in when the store is closed don't count against our metrics. We've had OPU drop in at 4:00AM so they are late by 5:00AM. Nobody is looking at OPU that early and it sucks to pick 44 items when the first flex person gets in. We've had that a few times since 4th quarter, so it's not just a 4th quarter thing.

We've also had RUSH drop in after 8PM. Those usually get picked, but may or may not be packed till the next day depending on how long it takes to wave.

 

[Thunderbird1956]

@tmap98 how do you do 400-500 per day with only two TMs? That's 29-37 hours worth of work a day. Unless you mean 2 man coverage all day long.

 

[Thunderbird1956]

@tmap98 What are your cart pick speeds, all backroom locations, 2 items in babies, average softlines/INF heavy cart? What's your hourly pack rate? Do you do your own backstock? Either you are running or else have a hack I need to know. We did 581 with 39.4 hours and I thought we did well.

 

[Thunderbird1956]

@tmap98 with those numbers Target would be giving you 27.7 hours a day on the low end and you're getting it done in 15. That's super impressive. If you're doing 30 in a half hour you're packing at at rate of a box every 1.4 min, less if you account for breaks. The only time we are under 35 min per cart is if it's all backroom locations. Two on floor locations tends to increase our time to about 40-45 min, and a softlines heavy batch or mostly floor locations tends to be over an hour. It takes a minimum of 3.5 min to cross the floor, 7 min round trip for us.

 

[Thunderbird1956]

@tmap98 What's your pack station layout? It it to planogram on Workbench? Do you do the collates in the order printed or do you sort by size to get the big things out of the way then assembly line the 413 and 126? Where do you guys place your carts when scanning out of the collates?

 

[Thunderbird1956]

@tmap98 Yeah, that's not anywhere close to POG for the pack stations, but gives me an idea for how to improve the layout of ours.

 

[Bosch]

@tmap98 with those numbers Target would be giving you 27.7 hours a day on the low end and you're getting it done in 15. That's super impressive. If you're doing 30 in a half hour you're packing at at rate of a box every 1.4 min, less if you account for breaks. The only time we are under 35 min per cart is if it's all backroom locations. Two on floor locations tends to increase our time to about 40-45 min, and a softlines heavy batch or mostly floor locations tends to be over an hour. It takes a minimum of 3.5 min to cross the floor, 7 min round trip for us.

Add in trying to work around the huge amount of carts, tubs and racks of stuff not in backstock and 45min is a great time in my store.. Oddly enough.

We tried having the assembly line but it was shot down hard by the DTL we are only "Allowed a second station during 4th quarter. No other tables at any other time." If we could have some tables I could jam through twice the amount of orders.

 

[hufflepuff]

With the shape of our backroom, batches with only salesfloor locations are actually the fastest.

 

[SrTLall]

Once your team knows what they are doing, they should be using no where near the hours that are allocated. I'm actually surprised Spot hasn't reduced the forecast algorithm yet. My team spends quite a bit of time helping push/pull/backstock.

 

[Bosch]

Once your team knows what they are doing, they should be using no where near the hours that are allocated. I'm actually surprised Spot hasn't reduced the forecast algorithm yet. My team spends quite a bit of time helping push/pull/backstock.

If things were clean, I would be under hours, but when your backrooms are shit show and you constantly have to hunt for things tied three isles over from where you actually find them on the floor that just sucks up the time. And softlines, oh softlines. it's just all a shit show. Same dress in three places no size run in any of them and none repeat none of the tables are tied to anything. so good luck! One dress I found the small in one place, the medium and large in another the X-small in the third place. No XL anywhere, well I did find them in the bottom of a cart after looking for 40 minutes. One of the TL's was horrified but shakes her head and goes "this is what they want."