MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

BobSmith said:
So our store had its stress test yesterday. We didn't finish packing by 4:30, but we were pretty close. We had about 600 orders and 10-15 people picking and packing. I was kind of annoyed because when I first got in I asked the TL if there were going to be people specifically doing OPUs so pickers/packers were could just concentrate on that and he said yes. About 2 hours into my shift (10 am) we hear on the walkie, "Is anyone going to jump on that flex that just dropped?" It was like this all day. I hadn't even turned on alerts because I thought someone else was doing them. After that I turned it on and each time I heard one drop I looked to see if anyone else was getting it. I got about 50% of them. One order was for 28 items (lots of food and chem). That is really hard to do in 30 minutes, especially if you are packing on the first floor and have to go get things all the way up on the 3rd floor and the freight elevators are blocked. Another thing that would be super helpful is more RFIDs. We only have 3 in our store, so most people didn't have one. There are probably some clothing items that were INFed that probably were in the building in a repack box or in one of the wacos on the 3rd floor that are not located. (we have tons of clothing up there that is not located...I just don't get it)
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We had a stress tess... expected to get like 800 dpci with 8 people. 2 called out (lol) and we got 1/4th of that amount at the end of the day. Not sure if the memo wasn't passed around, but it was just a normal day for us. Thankfully, we were spared. 6 people can't handle that much alone, especially with bad scheduling. Hardly anyone had over 5 hours.

Our Softlines team never backstock their clothes in the wacos. We gave them a third of our backroom (8 Aisles), in order to give them space for modernization. They don't even use them properly. Our batches take too long, when ePick drags us around softlines in the sales floor. We only have 2 RFID scanners, and this drives up another problem. We can't all use it come holiday rush. So help me when someone needs to do a RFID scan, at the most inconvenient time. You can't expect a large team to function with 1 RFID, even when theres not enough walkies to go around.

OPU is another thorn in our side, especially when your OPU person calls out. 30 minutes to grab 20+ dpci is insane, especially with hard-to-find INFs. My store is in bad shape thanks to modernization.
 
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Bethy said:
Just wait until someone misses scanning something to “sort”
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Bethy said:
Then you get to scan every package in sort mode
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I just don't get Sort. I tried to make it work, but we don't have space to have pallets of boxes in our backroom. Until we get our own trailer, we're just taping down pallet labels on the packing tables. Old pallets have to be reused, just so we can even move around in our area. We just make sure UPS have everything, and scan it out when they do. Lather, rinse and repeat until we get a trailer for better organization. Theres no other way, not with the insane trucks and our puny closet of a backroom.
 
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I asked about the sort thing yesterday, and the TL said not to worry about sort and we just put packed boxes on pallets like normal.
 
BobSmith said:
I asked about the sort thing yesterday, and the TL said not to worry about sort and we just put packed boxes on pallets like normal.
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I still at least make the team scan it in via Sort. Its a redundant feature for us, but we make it work somehow. When our seasonals start working, they just going to have scan all their packages on the pallet labels @ the tables. Aint got no time for this.
 
What exactly is this "sort" thing? Like, what's the purpose? We're a UPS store, I don't get it and nobody seems to know that I've been able to ask.
 
PackAndCry said:
What exactly is this "sort" thing? Like, what's the purpose? We're a UPS store, I don't get it and nobody seems to know that I've been able to ask.
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i was expecting to be splitting UPS and UPS surepost but everything so far has been on the same pallet

don't understand a single one of these recent changes. we spent 2 years trying to minimize the number of times we touch a product and minimize the number of footsteps, now 3 or 4 people have to touch the same product before it's allowed to go out the door.

scanning every single item AGAIN to "prep" is the most asinine thing i've ever done with this company in 10+ years
 
PackAndCry said:
What exactly is this "sort" thing? Like, what's the purpose? We're a UPS store, I don't get it and nobody seems to know that I've been able to ask.
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Sort makes more sense if you're a USPS store. USPS pallets need to be sorted Machinable vs Non-Machinable (everything 454 and under is Machinable and over is Non-Machinable. USPS also needs a manifest of what is going on the truck at the end of the day which is why it needs to be scanned onto the pallet (in theory). UPS I'm assuming does not have as strict pallet building guidelines. I honestly couldn't give a shit less how we sort the UPS pallets. They're just more anal about it with USPS. Of course we get to be super special and have BOTH UPS and USPS orders so now everything has to be scanned...
 
Moosechives said:
Sort makes more sense if you're a USPS store. USPS pallets need to be sorted Machinable vs Non-Machinable (everything 454 and under is Machinable and over is Non-Machinable. USPS also needs a manifest of what is going on the truck at the end of the day which is why it needs to be scanned onto the pallet (in theory). UPS I'm assuming does not have as strict pallet building guidelines. I honestly couldn't give a shit less how we sort the UPS pallets. They're just more anal about it with USPS. Of course we get to be super special and have BOTH UPS and USPS orders so now everything has to be scanned...
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UPS has no pallet guidelines. Even with a drop trailer we would just throw boxes in the trailer without pallets. I would think sort ups and doing the carrier pickup when they get there would tell you how many packages but nope.
 
Yeah, since ZPL* is inferior to EZPrint and doesn't know the length of the label you have inserted, only how long it should be, you can't use shelf labels instead of fulfillment labels anymore.
 
PackAndCry said:
What exactly is this "sort" thing? Like, what's the purpose? We're a UPS store, I don't get it and nobody seems to know that I've been able to ask.
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After thinking about it for awhile, and talking to my ETL, we came up with this:

We assume its a way for guests to see where their packages are being held. Its hilarious, because we could just go to UPS.com with the tracking number and find out if they got it, or not. If I see an old package, I just look at the time of when it was created and slap an overdue sticky note on it. As long we push stuff out the door, any late packages should be given first. Sort is a way to hold us, and the carrier, more "accountable."

We had FedEx last Q4, and it wasn't really much of a problem to sort Ground and Express boxes. Place shipping labels on the sides of the boxes, and make them all face 1 direction. When FedEx gets there, place pallet with the labels pointing towards the truck. They have to scan as they take the boxes, and it saves them a hell of alot of time. Sort with this might be annoying, but we're not a USPS (whom probably have a similar way) store.

On a side note: I'm not using 18 subcart locations, and Sort. Its too much scanning. We stick to 1 subcart location. I made SHP [insert whatever] 01 locations on both handlebar sides of the new carts. The darn carts aren't going to navigate well in our messy backroom. Typing in the 01 location saves more time. The cart will not always be with you, as I would say.
 
Lazy said:
Those look like the wrong label... Do they peel off and stick or are the the sales floor price labels.
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They're sales floor labels. We have adhesive pockets that we put the labels in. They're the same length as the normal cart labels. Not an issue.
 
PogDog said:
They're sales floor labels. We have adhesive pockets that we put the labels in. They're the same length as the normal cart labels. Not an issue.
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Well I trained a lead from another store yesterday on making the labels with the zebra and all 18 child locations came out fine using the normal cart labels.
 
UPS always wants to know how many pallets and how many pieces. I'm sure there will eventually be a way to get the piece count, but the only way sort is useful is if this information is given to UPS in advance so they know how many trucks to send or when to pick up the drop trailer.

We sort the boxes by size anyway as it makes stacking the pallets and truck faster.

If sort is included in the ship on time metric then it does a lot to prevent people from scanning items out but not packing them as it's an extra step, and it would be easy enough for corporate to randomly select one item per pallet to see if it actually was shipped when it says it was. That is unless you sort everything to one pallet location because it's faster.
 
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So did they change the gripper tape codes or are they just always out of stock on SAP?
 
SnorlaxTM said:
So did they change the gripper tape codes or are they just always out of stock on SAP?
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I think they are changing over to a tape on a spool vs the stickers(how I had to describe them for our TL to do our order). Cause we got this logo tape on a spool like for a tape dispenser instead of the gripper tape. It was crap unfortunately.

I have extra rolls since I always ordered an extra every couple of orders, I would send them if I could since my stores SFS is still down..
 

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