MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

[SFSFun]

I'm just nervous that some of our equipment will break.

If the printer or WAT machine dies, it will suck and it will put us way behind, but we can always find another printer or use regular packing tape.

But if our air pillow machine breaks, we are completely fucked.

 

[Tarjayyy]

During my stores SFS journey, we have had every piece of equipment fail and all at 175 orders, the process was a little harder but we got through it!

If the WAT machine goes down, use the tape gun. I ordered an extra one before it broke and indeed the extra one came in extremely handy.

If the pillow machine goes down we are supposed to use bubble wrap (the reason they suggest having 8 double rolls, but who has the space for 16 rolls of bubble wrap?), but we ran out so I went out and requisitioned a roll of the brown craft paper and scrunched that up in the boxes for cushioning.

The only thing is that if the equipment breaks, you have to contact the equipment respective manufacturers for replacement parts, all the reps are pretty decent and you get the parts fast or a new one (they overnight).

If the packing slip printer goes down, immediately call the CSC! That printer is the only printer in the store that can do that job. The spot will turn your store off(you won't get any new orders) and dispatch a rep to your store to fix the problem after they try to do some basic troubleshooting.

 

[SFSFun]

Our air pillow machine broke back in September and we had a terrible experience. The manufacturer had us on hold forever before finally promising to dispatch a local service company (but refused to give us their contact info). So of course nobody contacted us or showed up to repair it. When we ran out of bubble wrap and requisitioned everything from the floor, HQ refused to turn off our orders (if anything, they started dropping faster). Of course we didn't have the recommended 16 rolls of bubble wrap.

My ETL drove over to a local ESFS store that had 4 packing stations and convinced them to swap our broken one for one of their new machines.

 

[SFSFun]

So I had a package from Target delivered today with several items inside, including some shampoo and a food item in a glass jar. It came in a 439 box, with NO air pillows (there was tons of empty space and items were rolling around), NO bubble wrap on the glass jar, and NO tape on the lid of the shampoo... Just a bunch of items rolling around loosely in a box.

The most maddening part about this laziness is that it worked!! Amazingly, nothing was broken or leaking, even though there was no real reason for it not to.

 

[IHeartCarts]

Gotta be results oriented.

I think this was discussed earlier in this thread but our ETL informed us we need to come completely clean every night including orders due tomorrow because we're scored on it. What's the point of separating orders for tomorrow if you have to do them that day?

 

[Kroneru]

Gotta be results oriented.

I think this was discussed earlier in this thread but our ETL informed us we need to come completely clean every night including orders due tomorrow because we're scored on it. What's the point of separating orders for tomorrow if you have to do them that day?

We're scheduling more people starting next week because increased order limit though that would have been impossible here beforehand. If such were the case here I would have had to manage on average 50-65 orders myself a day. Shift used to be 7am-3:30pm then they cut it to 3pm. Another hour lost from breaks. And like SPU leadership tend to think Order count = Item Count. For the past few months 30%-45% of orders had 3 or more DPCIs

 

[Nauzhror]

We're scheduling 1.5 people per day next week. one person 8:00-4:30, another 12:30-4:30. We'll eventually get up to 3 full-shifts per day supposedly for the holiday boom as per ETL-LOG at my store. So far almost no one has been trained, I am one of 5 TMs to have done SFS.

 

[SFSFun]

Gotta be results oriented.

I think this was discussed earlier in this thread but our ETL informed us we need to come completely clean every night including orders due tomorrow because we're scored on it. What's the point of separating orders for tomorrow if you have to do them that day?

That was a misconception our ETLs had in the first few months too. The "due tomorrow" orders do in fact count towards the current days order cap, and it is always better to get them done asap, but it won't count against you if you don't. Scan an order in Order Inquiry and it will tell you when it's actually due. The "due tomorrow" ones always have the next day's date.

 

[SFSFun]

There is an interesting SFS planning document on workbench under the Q4 page (near the bottom of the October or November section) that mentions things like all the different order caps and how many extra cartons of toys will be pushed to the different levels.

 

[H2Owned]

At my store they schedule 5 people a day in flexible fullilment there 6am 8am 10am 11am and a closer at 4pm still not enough tho smh so behind

 

[brizzy93]

Orders at my store should be increasing soon. I think we are at 50 rn, but we rarely go over. Next week we are gonna start to be doubled up. Normal full day 8-4:45 for one TM and someone else that is in to help 8-12. As of right now, it's me and the sfs captain who really do the most work. The third TM has moved up to AP. The backroom TM's were just trained in case we need help. SFS only went live for us in June. I don't know what to expect and ngl I am super nervous. It's hard enough getting a little over 50 orders done alone. Having help to pull will be great, but the scheduling leaves the main person to pack alone. THANK GOD we aren't ESFS. That sounds terrifying lmao
ALSO real quick, how did black friday/Thanksgiving go for anyone who worked sfs?

 

[SFSFun]

You should be able to do 100 orders with two strong TMs for 8 hour shifts. Just make sure someone is coming in at 6am or earlier because it is a million times easier to pick when the store is closed.

I didn't do SFS last thanksgiving, but so far it looks like the plan this year is for the orders to drop normally, be finished picking by the time the store opens (assuming you've hit your cap by then), and all of the "due today" orders packed by their normal deadline time.

 

[IHeartCarts]

That was a misconception our ETLs had in the first few months too. The "due tomorrow" orders do in fact count towards the current days order cap, and it is always better to get them done asap, but it won't count against you if you don't. Scan an order in Order Inquiry and it will tell you when it's actually due. The "due tomorrow" ones always have the next day's date.

Our ETL said it does count against us. Said our percentage was yellow even though I'm positive we've completed every Due Today order since we've started. Although now that I think about it UPS has shown up early a few times so that could be the problem.

 

[Nauzhror]

You should be able to do 100 orders with two strong TMs for 8 hour shifts. Just make sure someone is coming in at 6am or earlier because it is a million times easier to pick when the store is closed.

I didn't do SFS last thanksgiving, but so far it looks like the plan this year is for the orders to drop normally, be finished picking by the time the store opens (assuming you've hit your cap by then), and all of the "due today" orders packed by their normal deadline time.

Only had one shift, had 63 orders that day. I didn't get overly close to finishing, but might have been able to have done so had it not been my first day doing it. It'd also have helped if I was mor familiar with softlines.

 

[Kroneru]

Starting this Sunday our Order Limit increases from 50 to 75 which is coincidentally the same week I'm taking a week of paid vacation.

Opps...

 

[SFSFun]

Our ETL said it does count against us. Said our percentage was yellow even though I'm positive we've completed every Due Today order since we've started. Although now that I think about it UPS has shown up early a few times so that could be the problem.

Maybe they're looking at the wrong thing? Our closer leaves 30-50 "due tomorrow" to pack the next morning and we are always at at least 99% for packed on time. It doesn't matter how early UPS shows up and takes away your orders, as long as you keep packing and finish the "due today" orders by the cutoff... The system won't count it against you if those packed orders end up sitting there for another day (we once found a whole pallet of orders that missed a pickup from 3 days earlier).

The only thing I can think of is if she is looking at the fulfillment percentage and mistaking what it means. That one looks at what percentage of items were picked vs what was not found.

 

[Moosechives]

"Due today, due tomorrow" should just be renamed Do Today especially with high order ESFS. If you don't get those due tomorrows done as much as possible, theres a huge chance you get swamped later on. We get the order max whether it drops in the morning or night which causes us to fall behind so often. For example, every so often we have our entire team on in the morning and for some reason we have only 20 batches which is hardly a workload for 19 people and 800-1000 orders. That would be approx 200 orders for that day. At some point, the remaining 600-800 for "today" will drop as "due tomorrow" and nobody will be in to actually do them. The worst case scenario would be if we get the full 800 orders the next morning on top of the 600 that we weren't able to finish the previous day. Then we're stuck in an ongoing cycle where we won't finish until the next time no batches drop.

tl;dr - do everything today. lol

 

[see spot save]

I've only done the "Due Tomorrows" two or three times, we've never even been yellow. Additionally when "corporate" came through when we went live they said we had no reason to work the tomorrows unless we wanted to minimize our INFs.

In the coming weeks I imagine I'll start dipping into the due tomorrows to make sure we're not too overloaded.

 

[IHeartCarts]

How do I respectfully tell my ETL they are wrong?

 

[Kroneru]

Maybe they're looking at the wrong thing? Our closer leaves 30-50 "due tomorrow" to pack the next morning and we are always at at least 99% for packed on time. It doesn't matter how early UPS shows up and takes away your orders, as long as you keep packing and finish the "due today" orders by the cutoff... The system won't count it against you if those packed orders end up sitting there for another day (we once found a whole pallet of orders that missed a pickup from 3 days earlier).

The only thing I can think of is if she is looking at the fulfillment percentage and mistaking what it means. That one looks at what percentage of items were picked vs what was not found.

Exactly. We haven't had time to pick Due Tomorrows for months and ETL-Log/Operations were pleased to say we rose to high nineties after I took over SFS primarily. It has been 2-3 months since then and scores are still high.

I've been thinking of ordering things from the website but adding a message prompting the SFS TM to respond. Like Dominos. "Psssst, hey! Where's your nametag? Lol." "What was your order count for the day?" Think it would be funny.

 

[Backroom Jesus]

How do I respectfully tell my ETL they are wrong?

Gotta hit them with metrics. That's all they will listen to most of the time.

 

[anathema]

Only thing I can think of is that reporting is straight balls. Due Tomorrow should never affect the metrics, it's just smart to get it done if you have the time. Yet, we've taken hits to our pack rate and the report will say it was 3 hours past due which is never possible because no one is there to do anything 3 hours after 430.

The reporting has always been spotty at best and they will always expect you to take the hits while they work all the kinks out. Realistically, I had always set my metric goals to be 100% for pick and pack, 95%+ for fill.

 

[SFSFun]

@Moosechives hit the nail on the head for why it's so important to work all orders if you have the time. You could have all orders up to your cap drop in as "due tomorrow" and then the next morning come in to find that all of that days orders up to the cap have also dropped in. So you now have double over your cap, all due today.

As holiday ordering ramps up, more orders will start dropping earlier in the day.

How do I respectfully tell my ETL they are wrong?

Is the weekly report posted anywhere? If not, take it upon yourself to print it and post it by the SFS area (comes out on Wednesdays). Look at the report in detail and basically study it. So when your ETL says that you are yellow for getting stuff done on time, you can say something like "actually I looked at the report and it looks like we are only yellow on this category, but not this one."

You just have to kind of gently point it out and hope they will understand it correctly.

 

[FAwasteoftime]

This in my honest opinion is the biggest freaking waste of time and the dumbest mother fn thing Target has ever come up with. In the store I work in , which I wont say where it is cause I need this job for now , they have the backroom TM running around like chickens with their heads cut off doing this BS aside from pulling cafs and pushing , item location , customers asking dumb questions , useless sales floor team member bugging to pull items..etc......today my Flexibles waste of time where...Toilet Paper , Cereal , Christmas Lights ,a santa hat (seriously) canned soups ...freaking shampoos and Soap....and.......Twinkies...WHAT IN THE ACTUAl Fudge....

I used to be a TM some years ago and this did not exists , I see that it was implemented last year , but it's just retarded , I see this being an excellent way to selling TV's , furniture , rugs , home appliances only etc.....but 80% of the orders are stupid ...1 box of cereal...mother of god. Guess the customers are dumb as the store they shop in.

Aside from closing by myself every night , pushing cafs and pulling manual , doing the baler .....I have to do this and all in 4 1/2 hours of work a night and for 22 hours a week...LOL and while the other TM dont even break a sweat , talk about a heavy work load for the backroom... There's really no difference between Walmart and Target now in employee explotaition...oh wait Target has always done this , but ina nicer way.

FFF has gone to far.

End Rant....sorry I just hate this crap and think it's unfair that the BR has to do it when there are other TM that can also do them.

LOL!

 

[anathema]

Sounds like you're talking about store pickup or ship from store, not the flexible fulfillment workcenter. For my store, I think it's realistic to have FF team do all three instead of delegating some of it to backroom. That depends on who you have in what workcenters and your leadership, though.