MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

[OrderSickUp]

Also no one audits in my store anyway. Was told not to.

Meanwhile, I've been getting praised by my TL and ETL because I'm the only one auditing, and they're crediting our better INF rate to me (they noticed the change when I came back from LOA). ASANTS, indeed!

I should note that I try to be discerning when auditing. If our INF-happy newbies INF something and the OHs are really high, I may check it first.

 

[MrPerfectNot]

My store is so screwed up. No one can do anything correctly. Then everyone wants to ask “why this, why that?” I just INFed it if I didn’t see it on the floor or back. Pillsbury croissants 138 OH, location flexed and none anywhere else looked in back and none received. INFed.

Sorry 'bout that.

 

[Ringwraith917]

Meanwhile, I've been getting praised by my TL and ETL because I'm the only one auditing, and they're crediting our better INF rate to me (they noticed the change when I came back from LOA). ASANTS, indeed!

I should note that I try to be discerning when auditing. If our INF-happy newbies INF something and the OHs are really high, I may check it first.

That's awesome. Great job. Sometimes you have to leave to show someone how important you really are to them.

 

[gracefulfillment]

Like the new alert sound so much better. Short & sweet.

I'm the opposite; it's almost too subtle and easy to miss.

 

[Antennae]

I am fucking tired of these masks in orders.

 

[RunForACallBox]

Tell me why all the horns just went off on all the myDevices at 6:05a 🤣

 

[OmegamanX]

Our newest GM TL acknowledged the wrong truck for today and as a result our INF score was 19%. 🙃

 

[CassRoslyn]

Our newest GM TL acknowledged the wrong truck for today and as a result our INF score was 19%. 🙃

We've had that happen. Took ages to get it all sorted.

Mostly because on day 2 the wrong truck was accepted again. It was previous day's truck, but they acknowledged the truck we were supposed to have been given...it was basically a week long dumpster fire of never knowing what came in and when.

Hang in there!

 

[Antennae]

Regular TM hours cut for next week, newbeans with three days at Spot have full hours.

Looking forward to this dumpster fire.

 

[RealFuckingName]

I would like to thank corporate for a job well done. Whoever had the idea to take the most common BTS/BTC items and turn them into being listed as "some" in backroom locations deserves a promotion. No more grabbing the wave to get to that one casepick of the same sterlite bins over and over again to grab one and have to find somewhere else to backstock the rest. That's a "skip location" and take it from the floor. And thank Bullseye especially for not having to deal with casepacks of crayons, pencils, and filler paper.

Whoever made this wonderful change, you have friends in every fulfillment team in the country. Drinks are on us if you stop in.

OMG, why for some BTS products does it say "backstock here?" and the only options are "yes" and "cancel"?! I backstocked several dozen of an item. Later, it made me pull ANOTHER case AND BACKSTOCK that, too! Ug! Idiot corporate and programmers need to talk to us USERS!

Edit: I forgot to add, I wish you could prep a SFS batch in any order, similar to OPUs within the same order.

 

[JiJi]

We were getting around 1500 with overnight teams and now only getting a little under 1000 at the first half of the week and around 500 the second half of the week without overnight teams anymore. I just left work and we completed todays workload around 1230 with a little under 500 but tomorrows is already at 700 and I completed 100 on top of that. Priority need to go the hell away though.

I know at my store, we had a high volume of orders for a while when the pandemic hit. We're a pretty small store (1 pack station), we were getting 1700-5000 units. At one point we literally had every cart and 3 tier we could spare in use for picking ship, and a bunch of people from other depts packing. We ended up going overnight during this to spread out the load.
It's been pretty low lately comparatively (100-300). We're usually done by lunch. We had a small spike when everything closed again, but nothing compared to the chaos it was before. OPU however, is a different story..
I don't know if they've said anything to you guys, but they told us they're pushing Ship to daytime, and they don't want any rollover units.

 

[seasonaldude]

OMG, why for some BTS products does it say "backstock here?" and the only options are "yes" and "cancel"?! I backstocked several dozen of an item. Later, it made me pull ANOTHER case AND BACKSTOCK that, too! Ug! Idiot corporate and programmers need to talk to us USERS!

You're missing the point. Items that are backstocked that way are an intentional exception to the general rule that fulfillment must pick from the back if an item is located there. We can skip that stuff and take it from the floor or a diffeerent backroom location. Just hit skip location. Seasonal DBOs are supposed to be making a point of putting some of each of those items for fulfillment in specially located open stock locations that they don't pick from when doing pulls. This does make our lives easier if done correctly. And, more importantly for the store, keeps more casepacks unopened so that they can be swept back if necessary at the end of the season should covid uncertainty cause a lighter than expected BTS/BTC season.

Corporate did right by us with this one. You just didn't take advantage of it. Next time skip the casepack location.

 

[MavDog]

You're missing the point. Items that are backstocked that way are an intentional exception to the general rule that fulfillment must pick from the back if an item is located there. We can skip that stuff and take it from the floor or a diffeerent backroom location. Just hit skip location. Seasonal DBOs are supposed to be making a point of putting some of each of those items for fulfillment in specially located open stock locations that they don't pick from when doing pulls. This does make our lives easier if done correctly. And, more importantly for the store, keeps more casepacks unopened so that they can be swept back if necessary at the end of the season should covid uncertainty cause a lighter than expected BTS/BTC season.

Corporate did right by us with this one. You just didn't take advantage of it. Next time skip the casepack location.

As a fulfillment leader who frequently pulls batches because of how high our volume is for order pickup, honestly this new method has caused me more heartache than benefit, but that may just be because we havent hit tax free weekend yet. It definitely is unnecessary for the BTC stuff. I haven't seen the floor so empty for the pillow dump bin ever. Things just don't pull accurately, oddly enough. Regular would have been perfectly fine.

 

[seasonaldude]

As a fulfillment leader who frequently pulls batches because of how high our volume is for order pickup, honestly this new method has caused me more heartache than benefit, but that may just be because we havent hit tax free weekend yet. It definitely is unnecessary for the BTC stuff. I haven't seen the floor so empty for the pillow dump bin ever. Things just don't pull accurately, oddly enough. Regular would have been perfectly fine.

Ah. BTC has been mostly a dud at my store so far. So it does make a big difference for us, especially since our entire backroom has been reprofiled to be openstock locations. No one has/had the time to reprofile everything again just for the one season, so the 5,000 casepacks of hangers are going into technically openstock locations. When epick decides to take us to those casepacks first, it's greatly appreciated to just skip them instead of pulling out the one set of hangers you need and having to take the time to deal with the rest of them properly. We've seen a much more frequent and larger benefit from school supplies too both for fulfillment and from GM not having to count exactly how many of each thing is getting backstocked, which inevitably leads to errors.

Your point is noted, however. The benefit does rely on having some of those items in wacos and if not plenty on the floor to pick.

 

[RealFuckingName]

You're missing the point. Items that are backstocked that way are an intentional exception to the general rule that fulfillment must pick from the back if an item is located there. We can skip that stuff and take it from the floor or a diffeerent backroom location. Just hit skip location. Seasonal DBOs are supposed to be making a point of putting some of each of those items for fulfillment in specially located open stock locations that they don't pick from when doing pulls. This does make our lives easier if done correctly. And, more importantly for the store, keeps more casepacks unopened so that they can be swept back if necessary at the end of the season should covid uncertainty cause a lighter than expected BTS/BTC season.

Corporate did right by us with this one. You just didn't take advantage of it. Next time skip the casepack location.

No, you're missing the point. I didn't remember that it was the exact same product I already opened a casepack for earlier. So I isn't ship location. But when I opened a SECOND casepack hours later or the next day, whenever it was, and went to backstock it, it showed me the earlier location with plenty enough that I could have pulled from open stock. This is all backroom. And it doesn't make sense to open ANOTHER case when there is already plenty of product backstocked.

If the case you open has 48 or 72 of an item and I know how many I take out (2, 10, whatever), I think I can do the math. I'd rather have accurate counts.

 

[JiJi]

Items that are backstocked that way are an intentional exception to the general rule that fulfillment must pick from the back if an item is located there. We can skip that stuff and take it from the floor or a diffeerent backroom location. Just hit skip location.

Is there a specific method to this? It never lets me actually skip the location for backroom stuff, it just pushes it to the back of my batch like a normal skip.

 

[seasonaldude]

No, you're missing the point. I didn't remember that it was the exact same product I already opened a casepack for earlier. So I isn't ship location. But when I opened a SECOND casepack hours later or the next day, whenever it was, and went to backstock it, it showed me the earlier location with plenty enough that I could have pulled from open stock. This is all backroom. And it doesn't make sense to open ANOTHER case when there is already plenty of product backstocked.

If the case you open has 48 or 72 of an item and I know how many I take out (2, 10, whatever), I think I can do the math. I'd rather have accurate counts.

NO YOU ARE MISSING THE FUCKING POINT. LET ME BE CLEAR ON THAT. ANYTHING THAT IS BACKSTOCKED WITHOUT A SPECIFIC COUNT AND JUST LISTED AS A SOME CAN BE SKIPPED BY FULFILLMENT. THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU OPENING THE CASEPACKS FOR THOSE ITEMS???? SKIP THEM!

Comprende, noob? Shaking my head.

Sorry for yelling, but good lord. This is basic fulfillment knowledge. Talk to your TL and see if they really want you to open those casepacks. I'd guess not because your store can't sweep that shit back after you opened the boxes. You're fucking over your stationary DBO for the next year.

 

[seasonaldude]

Is there a specific method to this? It never lets me actually skip the location for backroom stuff, it just pushes it to the back of my batch like a normal skip.

Yes, items that are backstocked as some and not specific counts can be skipped. You just have to know what those items are. Traditionally, it's just been a few things in style folding and errors listed as somes. Corporate changed things to make the 150 or so most popular BTS/BTC items listed that way. So like a bottle of glue, filler paper, crayons, the 66 quart sterlite bins, etc. You can skip those.

 

[MavDog]

Yes, items that are backstocked as some and not specific counts can be skipped. You just have to know what those items are. Traditionally, it's just been a few things in style folding and errors listed as somes. Corporate changed things to make the 150 or so most popular BTS/BTC items listed that way. So like a bottle of glue, filler paper, crayons, the 66 quart sterlite bins, etc. You can skip those.

It's not like 1 more open box of crayons isn't going to sell through.

You can't always skip them, which is what this poster was talking about i think.

If a case is backstocked into a case location, even when it says some, it has you pull a full case and backstock the rest. IF you backstock in epick, it WONT track it as some and will track it as the amount you physically put there. After then, it will not let you skip to the floor and will only let you pick from the backroom.

Also, you are screwing over the DBO making their OFO bigger by taking it from the floor. Their pulls are already big enough this time of year. The consequence always falls somewhere. What is convenient for you adds to your peers' work.

 

[commiecorvus]

Folks, I get that it can be frustrating to explain things as complicated as Flexible Fulfillment and Inventory
when you aren't standing in the backroom with the proper equipment.
However, please have patience with each other.
I don't want to have to get involved in another thread.

 

[happygoth]

Floor cares about Floor and Flex cares about Flex, and often things that make one easier make the other more difficult. As a Floor person, I will just remind Flex that Target stores are not warehouses and are not necessarily set up as such. My opinion, restocking the floor and setting up the backroom to make said restocking as efficient as possible should be the main goal.

 

[seasonaldude]

Also, you are screwing over the DBO making their OFO bigger by taking it from the floor. Their pulls are already big enough this time of year. The consequence always falls somewhere. What is convenient for you adds to your peers' work.

This shouldn't be an issue if the DBO does as directed and leaves some of the item in specially located open stock that isn't touched when pulling OFOs. Now, if they decide that it's more convenient for them to not do that and just backstock all the casepacks or pull from the fulfillment-only designated wacos, well they can't be too surprised when another team decides to do what is most convenient for them, especially when that other work center is actually working as directed when doing so. There's simply no issue if GM does things correctly. They screw themselves over by not doing so.

We sat down before the season and developed a plan how it could all work to make things easy and convenient for everyone. When GM doesn't do it, their own TLs have asked me to just take it from the floor if possible.

 

[seasonaldude]

Floor cares about Floor and Flex cares about Flex, and often things that make one easier make the other more difficult. As a Floor person, I will just remind Flex that Target stores are not warehouses and are not necessarily set up as such. My opinion, restocking the floor and setting up the backroom to make said restocking as efficient as possible should be the main goal.

As long as everyone does what they are supposed to do, there isn't a conflict. Issues arise when one team decides it's easier for them to do something incorrectly and expects another team to go along even if it makes that other teams' job more difficult. Just do what you are supposed to and there shouldn't be issues.

 

[Antennae]

If a case is backstocked into a case location, even when it says some, it has you pull a full case and backstock the rest. IF you backstock in epick, it WONT track it as some and will track it as the amount you physically put there. After then, it will not let you skip to the floor and will only let you pick from the backroom.

Lmfao this is amazing.

But, please don't fix this because something else in ePick will break.

 

[RealFuckingName]

NO YOU ARE MISSING THE FUCKING POINT. LET ME BE CLEAR ON THAT. ANYTHING THAT IS BACKSTOCKED WITHOUT A SPECIFIC COUNT AND JUST LISTED AS A SOME CAN BE SKIPPED BY FULFILLMENT. THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU OPENING THE CASEPACKS FOR THOSE ITEMS???? SKIP THEM!

Comprende, noob? Shaking my head.

Sorry for yelling, but good lord. This is basic fulfillment knowledge. Talk to your TL and see if they really want you to open those casepacks. I'd guess not because your store can't sweep that shit back after you opened the boxes. You're fucking over your stationary DBO for the next year.

OK SEASONALDUDE! I actually did skip crayons yesterday when it asked me to open a casepack. It worked. Thank you for schooling me. There is virtually no training at my store unless you ask questions. I already complained about this to an experienced backroom TM. He didn't tell me to skip it. He shrugged.

So you should be glad this newbie came here to learn. Instead of yelling at me, you should be saying "good for you for asking!"

I've already learned about things in ePick and other apps on my own and taught things to TMs that have been there WAY longer than me!