MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

So I'm officially part of the team! I start my SFS training next Thursday, and Flexible Fulfillment will be my primary workcenter. It is a bit unfortunate that I'm transferring so late into Q4, because basically as soon as I stop training our order cap is gonna drop and our hours will be cut like mad. However we have a bunch of seasonals that will be let go pretty much as soon as January hits, so that'll open up some hours for me. Might still need to work a couple backroom shifts though.

We're ESFS and our order cap atm is 900, my ETL said it'll go down to 300 in Jan. So we'll see. Anyways, I'm super excited to be part of the program and it'll be fantastic to get out of the front end.
 
I really miss our 439s. We'e burning through 454s like nobody's business now.
 
We're going through 4 pallets a week of 439s.

It's gotten really hard to estimate how much boxes we'll need by the time the order arrives, while also balancing the available space (almost all of them are double-stacked).
 
Same here we are going through 3-4 skids of 439s a week.

I am so nervous about running out before Christmas. I know only 11 more days left in the increase so I am trying to breathe right now and hoping I used good judgment about my last box/supply order.
I have already used 2 pallets of 277s this month, and I can't believe it, this entire year so far I used about half of a pallet.
@SnorlaxTM try using 277s instead of the 454s, because after the rush you won't really have a use for them.
 
SFSFun said:
FFS how hard is it to grasp the concept that the empty space in a box needs to be completely filled with air pillows? Putting a couple in there doesn't do shit except let the product rattle around and get damaged, and it lets the box easily get crushed or opened when something heavy is placed on top.
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Seems to be super hard apparently idgi 😵
 
We are still out of 439s and 454s. Rush order isn't here yet. We just ran out of 277s as well. We have to improvise. We are bubble wrapping what we can and sticking things in poly bags. But now we are burning through bubble wrap lmao. We need our boxes. This is ridiculous.

Also. Our new DTL visited yesterday with some flex focused guy and it was primarily a flex based visit. We've been super red since like black friday. I've told my ETL's that we need one person per 50-60 orders... We are hitting 300. Are we getting the people we need? no. ETL's shouldn't have to pull with us. Then the DTL basically says the same thing to them about getting more people scheduled. I'm just like.... THIS IS WHAT I'VE SAID MULTIPLE TIMES WTF. Yeah I'm just a TM but I'm a TM that knows SFS and how it runs. Monday, we called the LOD for help for 2 hours. We were ignored. So when 6pm came, me and my SFS captain left with 94 left to pack. Fuck that, we were there since 7am. Then my ETL HR and ETL SL went back to pack. They packed like 20 and fucked up 11. I had to call support to get the LPN's to cancel invisible shit parked in 6 carts with no collates. They all gave me the hold in use message. My SL ETL packed one box yesterday and she fucked up that one box by forgetting an item. But I don't know what I'm talking about though right? By the time we get more people, Q4 will be over and we'll drop back to 50-75 orders most likely. But it's fine. No big deal at all. /end rant
 
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We finally got everything under control at my store. The DTL kept getting on the STL because we were so red and he wouldn't stop visiting our store. But basically what we do is have everyone pick when they first come in at 4am and 5am.... then when the 6am team come they pack. We usually finish picking by 2:30 and have everything packed by 4:30.

The main reason why we were behind tho was because we really never worked on the due tomorrow batches until like maybe 9pm... when there was only one team member.. but now we can knock about a 1/3 of the due tomorrow batches out allowing us to finish on time tomorrow.
 
I'm surprised nobody has made a guide on here about SFS yet.

Anyways, I start my training on Thursday, anyone have any tips or advice? I'm pretty excited, and I printed out the "Pick Guest Orders (ESFS)" and "Pack and Ship Guest Orders" documentation on Workbench which goes over the procedure pretty well, but it's a lot of information (15 and 9 pages, respectively). I'm on the East coast and we're ESFS with an order cap of 900. It sounds like we are going to drop down to about 300 orders come week 4 of December, but my ETL seems to think that we will probably get it increased to 500 not too long after.

My only concern is that when January comes around, it sounds like they might need me to pick up some backroom shifts as well. I'm not opposed to it entirely, but I'm definitely thinking that I'd rather be primarily focused on Flexible Fulfillment.
 
Firefox said:
I'm surprised nobody has made a guide on here about SFS yet.
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I was asked about making one a while back, but I just don't have the time and so much of it is clearly explained in the guides on workbench. It is a lot of pages, but there's lots of pictures!

Here's a breakdown of our daily routine (for a non-ESFS store and outside of the peak of Q4):
Logistics - SFS | The Break Room
 
SFSFun said:
I was asked about making one a while back, but I just don't have the time and so much of it is clearly explained in the guides on workbench. It is a lot of pages, but there's lots of pictures!

Here's a breakdown of our daily routine (for a non-ESFS store and outside of the peak of Q4):
Logistics - SFS | The Break Room
Click to expand...
Pretty much what I followed, outside of the stuff on Workbench and this thread.
 
Say you're in a batch, pulling from the floor. The item it wants isn't on the shelf so you move on to the next one. What happens if someone backstocks that missing items before you get back to it? Will it now bring up the backroom location? (assuming it didn't originally) Or would you have to exit the batch first?
 
IHeartCarts said:
Say you're in a batch, pulling from the floor. The item it wants isn't on the shelf so you move on to the next one. What happens if someone backstocks that missing items before you get back to it? Will it now bring up the backroom location? (assuming it didn't originally) Or would you have to exit the batch first?
Click to expand...
I actually just had this come up yesterday, but I'm not exactly sure how it works. I picked two items from the backroom, then three from the salesfloor. Then I had an item in seasonal that I just couldn't find, and when I hit "item not here," the next one came up as a backroom location for that same item. I went back to grab it right then and there was a TM backstocking in that area (though I didn't ask him about the item).

So it worked when the item is backstocked before you hit INF on the sales floor. I don't know what would happen if it's backstocked after that point though.
 
Did the order cap go down today? We finished picking everything at 8am (came in at 4am).... we never finish picking that early o.o
 
Not for us. But don't forget that it is a cap, and it's possible you won't always hit it depending on demand.

Today I went to help out the backroom of a nearby store that has ESFS, and they had a few flex TMs able to break off and come help too.
 
Update! My first training shift was successful. Our orders were dropping in pretty slowly, so I was actually able to spend most of my shift with a trainer. It was a great change of pace compared to the front end. Both picking and packing are fairly easy, and relaxing. He was also able to show me how to work the wave and the crown. I spent part of my shift helping backroom since the CAFs were pretty big, but I was able to spend most of it on SFS. It definitely feels like an operation that I am really going to enjoy being a part of. We're at an order cap of 900 atm, but we'll have to see what it's like with the lower order cap.

I'm not looking forward to having to return to the Front End for a few more shifts.
 
Firefox said:
Update! My first training shift was successful. Our orders were dropping in pretty slowly, so I was actually able to spend most of my shift with a trainer. It was a great change of pace compared to the front end. Both picking and packing are fairly easy, and relaxing. He was also able to show me how to work the wave and the crown. I spent part of my shift helping backroom since the CAFs were pretty big, but I was able to spend most of it on SFS. It definitely feels like an operation that I am really going to enjoy being a part of. We're at an order cap of 900 atm, but we'll have to see what it's like with the lower order cap.

I'm not looking forward to having to return to the Front End for a few more shifts.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the SFS process!! Its a little challenging at first, but once you get the jest, you will be golden.
 
Ship to store is causing a bit of confusion. Online items say pickup in store, but guests automatically assume we have it in shock.
 
dannyy315 said:
Ship to store is causing a bit of confusion. Online items say pickup in store, but guests automatically assume we have it in shock.
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It does say "ready in 2-5 days" instead of "ready in 2 hours" but yeah it could be a bit clearer.
 
Our ship from store orders have decreased dramatically. Went from 500 orders down to barely anything. Thing is there is still like 10-12 people scheduled each day for it but they only end up needing 2 to 3 people and have everyone else do something else
 
My DTL lowered our cap and if we go consecutively red again, we'll lose SFS. We were red for way too long. Funny thing is now that it's lower, we finally have the coverage we needed for 300 orders. I told them we needed help... SMH.
 
We're red across the board in SFS, for two weeks now. So much for my perfect record 🙄. We are ranked about middle of the district.

I understand being red on fulfillment, but I don't know how we manage to be red on packing. 3 TMs can't pack less than 300 orders in an 8 hour shift.
 
Our orders have really dropped off too and we go down to a cap of 225 tomorrow. We've just been having the whole opening team blitz the picks and packs and then leave one person on it all day while everyone else breaks off to work on other projects.

see spot save said:
I understand being red on fulfillment, but I don't know how we manage to be red on packing. 3 TMs can't pack less than 300 orders in an 8 hour shift.
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It's easy to happen if the team is too focused on picking and forgets there is a packing deadline too.

Orders before 10am need to be picked by 2:30 and packed by 4:30 to stay green (I think 99%).
 

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