I am confused about this prep part. At my store we hit prep,scan the cart, hit complete then go right to pack and scan an inner location. Then we just start packing. That is how I was told to do it. We also were told that when picking to just try to scan one inner location, no matter what section we put the product in, that way there is only one location to scan when we go to pack. People on here seem to be doing way more with the prep than we are. And we don’t even use sort.
The "idea" behind the prep process is to have a person (not necessary the person who pulled the cart) to start "prepping" the cart. What that means is that they put anything that requires bagging, bubble wrapping. ect. Clothing put into the prep bags, liquids bagged and ziptied and chemicals in ESIM bags. That way when someone goes to pack the cart (not necessary the person who pulled or even prepped the cart), it's all ready to go and the packing process is more seemless.
Realistically it's all balderdash. Just an extra step and I suspect most stores much like mine just ignore the prep process and immediately pack after prepping unless told otherwise or they just not prep and leave the cart back there if there is already someone packing (we only have one pack station plus a sort of mini pack station we've built using the prep station)
As for the scanning items for a pack order into a single child location as opposed to using several locations on your vehicle. I do this simply because when you go back, you have to scan a child location on the cart to pack the items in that location. If someone pulls a batch for pack orders and they scan all items between locations "SHPAG01, SHPAG02, and SHPAG03" as an example, it means when I go to pack that cart. I have to scan location SHPAG01, pack whatever items it gives me, then when that location is done, I have to scan SHPAG02, pack up whatever items the system gives me that are tied to that location, then after that is complete, scan SHPAG03 and pack up that location. Meaning I am just taking two unnecessary actions of scanning two locations when I could have just scanned everything that's on the cart into SHPAG01 and continuously pack until the cart is complete...
It's really just for organization purposes...a problem is that you might have to adjust the placement of items later in the batch because you got something bulky or too much of something, so then you may have to remove something from that spot and put it another child location on the cart that is more suitable...this isn't a big deal or anything, but if you end up doing this anyway, what's the point of really worry about taking the extra steps of scanning more than one child location when you can just constantly use the same location and that location is typically SHPXXX01 (or SHPAGO01 is the my example above). Like I said, it's mostly for cart organization, but not an issue if you already keep your cart pretty organized...which you should (unless you know you're going to pack it yourself, then I could give a shit less how messy you are because you have to deal with it yourself).
You should be using sort. Sort is when you take the packages that have already been packed and scan them onto "pallets". Then when UPS comes and picks up those "pallets" of packages, you close those "pallets" and that tells Targets system that UPS has picked up the customers packages and then they can relay this to the customers to have a better sense of where their packages are. They are just letting the customer know their packages have left the facility and is now with UPS in transit.
Laundry detergent done the same way but with clothing that was not bagged either.. That box went to UPS and came back to us, we are kinda fucked that way since we are across the street from a UPS barn..
