MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

[Amanda Cantwell]

I love how it's gotten to the point that we squirrel away high-demand merch for SFS so we don't have to INF it as much.

Isn’t this grounds for termination? (Hiding items)? Asking seriously

 

[OneArmedJesus]

Isn’t this grounds for termination? (Hiding items)? Asking seriously

Only if you're planning on buying it yourself, but this was a common thing that happened during q4, people would order the same items, so we kept the case packs at the sfs station

 

[PackAndCry]

Isn’t this grounds for termination? (Hiding items)? Asking seriously

I mean, our ETL was the one who had us do it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Not really "hiding" since they're in wacos in our work area, just not located. Especially with the limited DVD releases, they've been having us take a couple so that we don't have to cancel OPUs because the last one is in a guest's cart. Before we were having to INF a ton of those items. It'd help if those items weren't OPUable, but oh well.

 

[glo]

Yeah, it's only bad if you're hiding the item for yourself or someone you know.

 

[glo]

Besides, if you're really desperate for an item, just do an OPU for it so you can just pick it up at the end of your day.

 

[JohnSith373]

Isn’t this grounds for termination? (Hiding items)? Asking seriously

Only if you purchase it for yourself. I’ve done it before when the on-hand count is lower than what I need and what’s on the floor/in back. After a while you can tell which is the high ordered item (OTC I’m looking at you) or if we get a hot popular movie (black panther/50 shades series), let me just put extra in our ship carts just to be safe.

This. ETL's and metrics. They want good metrics because that shows good operations, but that's not the reality, at least in my store. Truck always behind, sales floor littered with damaged items ( and of course it's the only one in the store and you need it for picks), go backs everywhere, terrible zones. But, oh no.. we gotta be all-knowing and find every item so they can be better than all the other stores.

Spot really needs to realize that the average TM is unable to get a batch done in 20min like they think we can, and staff accordingly.

In a perfect world where everything is backstocked in locations, everything pushed to the floor to capacity, zoned perfectly 24/7, no push/reshop vehicles, no hanging softlines, and the truck was complete each batch should take us 30-40 minutes. Ohh how Corporate doesn’t see the daily version of the store. We come clean only for visits and no other time.

The softlines orders the last few days have been brutal. We have flats and pallets of repacks throughout the backroom. So many z racks shoved into a backroom cut through that most of the clothes are on the floor tangled in the wheels. And about seven more pallets of repacks stashed in a trailer. So we have to RFID the entire ssurptore to get through the batches.

You can finish the batch in 30 minutes. Make sure to check every possible location with the RFID. It took me an hour or two do a softline heavy batch in the same mess as you.

Only if you're planning on buying it yourself, but this was a common thing that happened during q4, people would order the same items, so we kept the case packs at the sfs station

Chromecasts were super popular and the “Pull 6, 1 needed for order” was barely discovered around Black Friday. We canceled so many until we found out about that. We had 6 full casepacks of chromecast at the SFS desk so it made it easier picking for us, luckily it removes the on-hand count so electronics didn’t know that there was some in the back. Hehehe

Besides, if you're really desperate for an item, just do an OPU for it so you can just pick it up at the end of your day.

Just make sure you won’t be on the clock when it drops for picking. AP got mad when a Team Member picked their own OPU. The AP-ETL once thought a team member was picking his own OPU and actually took it over, looked for the item; it wasn’t the TMs OPU.

 

[MOVEbatch]

Spot really needs to realize that the average TM is unable to get a batch done in 20min like they think we can, and staff accordingly. It's like they don't realize that picking in a working store is not like picking in a warehouse. Unlocated items, dealing with guests, having to slow down because some slow-ass guest is standing in front of the item you need while they're on the phone with someone...

Softlines stuff piled up in carts and repacks in the backroom instead of being pushed to the floor...
Stuff from that day's truck that didn't get pushed so you have to pick through a pallet of boxes looking for the right DPCI...
Things that are in the wrong place because whoever pushed it stuck it wherever they felt like...
Things that are in the wrong place because a guest picked it up and then just threw it wherever...
Display areas that are set up to look nice but make SFS a living hell because there's no location for anything...

etc...

 

[PackAndCry]

I hate how Move sends us to displays, especially in seasonal (the patio flat) and infants (the furniture). I really wish pogs could somehow be marked as a display so it wouldn't try to force us to pick from there. Let us also not forget when the only one on hand is the non-sellable display.

 

[SFSFun]

Let's be honest people. What are some of the ways you've 'cheated' the system?? Typed in huge quantites of stuff and tossed the collates? Made terrible substitutions? Sent items that are broken or missing pieces? And how often does it happen?

My store walks away from most days pretty clean, but we all get those moments of '60 needed' from the sales floor and you can literally only find 5 after an hour of looking... So maybe that package gets lost in the mail...

I never attempted to hide clearance stickers because according to corporate we don’t get SFS orders for clearance items...

When a softlines item had the wrong tag, I usually sent it anyways if I couldn’t find the right item.

Two hours one 30 item batch anyone?

Literally our softlines ETL. I almost felt bad for her because you could tell she was really trying.

 

[Signing66]

I hate how Move sends us to displays, especially in seasonal (the patio flat) and infants (the furniture). I really wish pogs could somehow be marked as a display so it wouldn't try to force us to pick from there. Let us also not forget when the only one on hand is the non-sellable display.

Non sellable displays are a different dcpi so unless your store is using regular product to set displays that is not the one on hand. Infant furniture are all non sellable displays as well.

 

[BleacherSeats]

That's the problem with patio, they are all actually sellable displays. We ended up defecting out all built grills and patio displays last week to stop the INF steak

 

[Bosch]

Literally our softlines ETL. I almost felt bad for her because you could tell she was really trying.

I understand that my ETL LOG picked a batch with me and he took forever, for two reasons: New to doing it and trying. Totally understood but even he saw the hopelessness of what we are dealing with. You have the RFID gun giving you a hot reading for your item but its in the middle of 10 carts of unsorted reshop. He told me to kill the item cause it really hit him what we are dealing with. Not cause you walk around in circles, and stop to talk to everyone and anyone. Make sure you stop in a guest service and spend 10min there just chatting. And just move slow enough that a sloth looks like his turbo is spoolin' up.

 

[Mysterious]

This is what SFS walked into earlier today. I wouldn't be surprised if any other store has a similar DPCI/QTY count. Trying to complete it was difficult. 3 SFS people scheduled no more then 7 hours, with assistance from 2 others pulled from their tasks. These orders were mostly Softlines, specifically Swimwear. STL giving limited resources/manpower.

 

[Lazy]

This is what SFS walked into earlier today. I wouldn't be surprised if any other store has a similar DPCI/QTY count. Trying to complete it was difficult. 3 SFS people scheduled no more then 7 hours, with assistance from 2 others pulled from their tasks. These orders were mostly Softlines, specifically Swimwear. STL giving limited resources/manpower.

We walked into 500 ish.. between 4 scheduled STL and 2 leaders we were picked packed and sorted by 4:20

 

[DavidorJared]

@Mysterious Same for us today, i rarely work 4ams anymore but they brought me in today because of lack of manpower and i checked ship out of habit and at first thought it was 57 dpcis which was super low for us..... then rechecked it and saw the extra digit. With us still trying to recover from 2 double trucks in 2 days, we had trouble trying to pull anyone, our sfs tl just gave up at 1pm. the plan is to pull what they could today, and deal with it tomorrow...

 

[MOVEbatch]

I hate how Move sends us to displays, especially in seasonal (the patio flat) and infants (the furniture). I really wish pogs could somehow be marked as a display so it wouldn't try to force us to pick from there. Let us also not forget when the only one on hand is the non-sellable display.

That too, but I meant display areas like Hearth and Hand, Opalhouse, and the seasonal areas. In my store, at least, that stuff is all arranged to look like you can sit down and make yourself at home, with nothing tied to shelf locations (or, I should say, stuff IS tied to shelf locations, but the shelf locations are fake bullshit). I have to hunt around for the right outdoor pillow, decorative basket, serving tray, fake plant, etc. The annoyance outweighs the slight remorse I feel at messing up the area's aesthetic by moving/taking shit.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

Last two days, I walked in at 4am and there were 1000+, each day. usually we walk into 400-500

 

[Bosch]

This is what SFS walked into earlier today. I wouldn't be surprised if any other store has a similar DPCI/QTY count. Trying to complete it was difficult. 3 SFS people scheduled no more then 7 hours, with assistance from 2 others pulled from their tasks. These orders were mostly Softlines, specifically Swimwear. STL giving limited resources/manpower.

Yeah we were double what we were are normally, which I expected it was after a holiday weekend. Monday it was a shit show and Tuesday wasn't much better. I ended up doing a 10hr day which means I have to cut later this week.. So I hope it settles down cause they really don't know how to schedule.. I mean lets schedule the OPU person at 10am when they are due at 9am.. That is from our STL..

 

[glo]

Yeah we were double what we were are normally, which I expected it was after a holiday weekend. Monday it was a shit show and Tuesday wasn't much better. I ended up doing a 10hr day which means I have to cut later this week.. So I hope it settles down cause they really don't know how to schedule.. I mean lets schedule the OPU person at 10am when they are due at 9am.. That is from our STL..

Monday was a holiday so you shouldn't go into overtime?

 

[Bosch]

Monday was a holiday so you shouldn't go into overtime?

Nope, not in an 8hr state, and with holiday I wouldn't either, but I would rather skate out early on days we finish early like today. Spent an hour basically doing busy work. The packing station is spotless and all the boxes are full. We were done by 1:30p, packed and just waiting for UPS..

 

[OneArmedJesus]

I see some of the numbers on this thread, and my stores team would never get this shit done with out half of the sales floor supporting them. We struggle with 200+ dcpis.

I'm also slightly annoyed that the Log-Etl didn't ask me if i wanted to help sfs next week because the main person there is on vacation. But hey let's put a cashier who hasn't done sfs in ages. I'm going to be annoyed if I get pulled from what I'm doing in Electronics for them

 

[Mysterious]

Yeah we were double what we were are normally, which I expected it was after a holiday weekend. Monday it was a shit show and Tuesday wasn't much better. I ended up doing a 10hr day which means I have to cut later this week.. So I hope it settles down cause they really don't know how to schedule.. I mean lets schedule the OPU person at 10am when they are due at 9am.. That is from our STL..

Yeah, I definitely understand that. A couple months ago, our OPU person was scheduled around 6 to 7 am. As the weeks went on, the OPU schedule got pushed back, now to 10 am. So, the orders must be completed by either SFS or another early Logistics TM.

Today was one of the better days. Had a short conversation with the STL and we were able to get enough support to clear all the previous and current SFS orders (650 units). Finally dawned that if we don't clear the deck, it will continue to climb. All it takes is one busy day or one person to call out to cause issues. Still only have about 130 hours that SFS is allocated next week.

 

[Bosch]

Yeah, I definitely understand that. A couple months ago, our OPU person was scheduled around 6 to 7 am. As the weeks went on, the OPU schedule got pushed back, now to 10 am. So, the orders must be completed by either SFS or another early Logistics TM.

Today was one of the better days. Had a short conversation with the STL and we were able to get enough support to clear all the previous and current SFS orders (650 units). Finally dawned that if we don't clear the deck, it will continue to climb. All it takes is one busy day or one person to call out to cause issues. Still only have about 130 hours that SFS is allocated next week.

We let the OPU rot, if they can't figure out to schedule someone they can explain the red scores. I will not kill myself to pull the SFS and OPU since when I have asked for help I had an ETL roll their eyes at me. So fuck them.. And early logistics TM? The earliest we get is 10am.. Flow team ain't pulling OPU they are busy rolling trucks. Though it was a real eye opener to see the ETL Log out there trying to pick SFS yesterday. He found out just how much of the bitching we do about softlines is totally valid and a time suck.

 

[Mysterious]

I know that situation all too well. All it took was our district manager to visit a couple of times to ask why our metrics were in the red. STL and a few other ETLs started panicking. In my opinion, some of the leadership in charge do not know how to run and maintain Logistics efficiently. Some of them merely talk the talk, not walk the walk. At one point, the ETLs were all young and straight out of college, and this includes the STL. The ETL-Log cannot run the unload process by themselves. Some people know how to fake it well. All it takes is everyone to understand how one department affects another. Everyone needs to get on the same page. If we have so much stock in the back, guests will be disappointed or mad that they wasted their time coming to the store. Not enough people to help guests. Our manpower was demolished once E2E rolled out.

I hope you have enough RFID scanners and Softlines set in an area which can be found. How we have it set up: once the freight has been broken out and sorted, it is placed down an receiving aisle. Sorted by departments and brands by the same designated TMs. The softlines team can come back and push the merch to the floor. Makes it somewhat easier to find for Flexible Fulfillment. Whatever happens on the sales floor will affect how well merchandise can be found. Strays, misplaced merch, or my favorite part of a backstock pallet. LOL. Guest may pick up the last of a product, which makes us waste unnecessary time. ETL-SF has been cooperative to try to streamline the process with whatever resources to be used.

I am the type of person who cares and will not let anyone negatively affect success. Some days it is difficult to stay motivated and keep my smile. Too many factors outside my control. Some days I miss my old crew that I started with. LOL.

I hope it all gets better for everyone. Take it one day at a time.

 

[Bosch]

I know that situation all too well. All it took was our district manager to visit a couple of times to ask why our metrics were in the red. STL and a few other ETLs started panicking. In my opinion, some of the leadership in charge do not know how to run and maintain Logistics efficiently. Some of them merely talk the talk, not walk the walk. At one point, the ETLs were all young and straight out of college, and this includes the STL. The ETL-Log cannot run the unload process by themselves. Some people know how to fake it well. All it takes is everyone to understand how one department affects another. Everyone needs to get on the same page. If we have so much stock in the back, guests will be disappointed or mad that they wasted their time coming to the store. Not enough people to help guests. Our manpower was demolished once E2E rolled out.

I hope you have enough RFID scanners and Softlines set in an area which can be found. How we have it set up: once the freight has been broken out and sorted, it is placed down an receiving aisle. Sorted by departments and brands by the same designated TMs. The softlines team can come back and push the merch to the floor. Makes it somewhat easier to find for Flexible Fulfillment. Whatever happens on the sales floor will affect how well merchandise can be found. Strays, misplaced merch, or my favorite part of a backstock pallet. LOL. Guest may pick up the last of a product, which makes us waste unnecessary time. ETL-SF has been cooperative to try to streamline the process with whatever resources to be used.

I am the type of person who cares and will not let anyone negatively affect success. Some days it is difficult to stay motivated and keep my smile. Too many factors outside my control. Some days I miss my old crew that I started with. LOL.

I hope it all gets better for everyone. Take it one day at a time.

You in my store, well you can't be cause you are seeing changes for the better. Our DTL is screw everything but guest facing so its not a priority. And the RFID scanner helps it can tell you where it might be but the area is all just unsorted carts that couldn't be moved.. Packed into an aisle blocked in. That sucked so bad.. I knew it was there but I could not could not dig into all those carts.. I just could not do it..

One day at a time.. I wonder if we can take chips if we survive a season, BTS, BF then 4th Quarter.