MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

OmegamanX said:
What is your guys’ average pick productivity rate as a store? At our store we’re usually at 58-62. I wanna know if that’s too low for us.
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About 45-50. Granted we're a small store and even at peaks we don't usually exceed 300 units at any one time.
 
happygoth said:
...

Is it for grocery items? Peapod will substitute but I think you have to select it when ordering.
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No, just in general for OPU whether it’s grocery or otherwise. Substituting a similar or upgraded item in place of an item that can’t be found.
 
rjt44 said:
No, just in general for OPU whether it’s grocery or otherwise. Substituting a similar or upgraded item in place of an item that can’t be found.
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Had a etl do that , i was looking for all red starburst jelly beans i think... he happened to be a aisle over when i called "yea we are completely out stop looking, " *pivots * "here all red starburst" just type the jellybean dpci in.
 
rjt44 said:
No, just in general for OPU whether it’s grocery or otherwise. Substituting a similar or upgraded item in place of an item that can’t be found.
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I definitely wouldn't do this when picking an order. The closest I have done was when guests have had missed bags that weren't given to them when they picked up their orders, I have substituted the items they were supposed to receive for similar items, with explicit approval from the guest (I offered to refund the items instead if they weren't okay with the substitutions).
 
Seen a past store do it as a process. Had sub sheets to go back and audit the items subbed and correct counts. Not sure guests liked it though.
 
I had an ETL at my old store tell TMs to do that for OPU. I blew up at them and told them all the reasons that was wrong. Then I told the team under no circumstances were they to sub items.

The only time I've done something like that is when during 4th quarter a guest took a cleaning item off a seasonal TM's cart and we had no more left. I didn't want to cancel at pack so I defected out a 2 pack and put one in the order. The prior day 2 seasonals were picking together in a 3 tier, went on break, and shoved the cart in Guest Services without letting anyone know. GS reshopped two thirds of that cart out before we realized what happened. I had to cancel so much at pack that day so by the time the cleaner incident happened I was over it. I was never so happy to see a batch of seasonals go :mad:
 
I had a question about Flex if anyone else is going through this, pre-pandemic OPU when I worked at a Target in Minnesota, I had about 7-19 eaches per order, so you'd pull two sometimes to keep up. I moved to PA to a Target to work overnight OPU during the pandemic in my area and the orders rose to 23-40 the TLs are asking us to do two at a time so like anywhere 40-80 eaches an hour. I'm also scheduled about 5 hours a night and the orders have been in the 300+ range each night for both Ship and OPU with about 3 flex tms each night. One for Ship, one to pack and one to do OPU/Grocery. Has this been country wide flex or is just this store for overnight?
 
They reraised the items in batches when the time went up to 3 hours. Just a coincidence that you moved at the same time.
 
OmegamanX said:
My ETL would kill us if we ever that low. Do you guys pause a lot of carts?
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My numbers are pretty low, but even as a person that works Guest Service 99% of the time, when I do Flex Shifts occasionally I average 40-45. Fastest person in my store today is just over 65. I am at 41, 5 are faster than me, 4 are slower than me. Store is at just under 4.5% INF for the day, I am just under 3%.

That said, we have an actual flex team member who is at 27 pick rate for the day, and nothing's been said to her despite me being over 50% faster, and even I am slow-ish.
 
LoneZero36 said:
I had a question about Flex if anyone else is going through this, pre-pandemic OPU when I worked at a Target in Minnesota, I had about 7-19 eaches per order, so you'd pull two sometimes to keep up. I moved to PA to a Target to work overnight OPU during the pandemic in my area and the orders rose to 23-40 the TLs are asking us to do two at a time so like anywhere 40-80 eaches an hour. I'm also scheduled about 5 hours a night and the orders have been in the 300+ range each night for both Ship and OPU with about 3 flex tms each night. One for Ship, one to pack and one to do OPU/Grocery. Has this been country wide flex or is just this store for overnight?
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Two batches at a time is counterproductive. You'll end up with carts that are too full too often. You'll have to drop off large items more frequently. You'll have a hard time putting things to hold. And, you'll more likely run into time-killing pathing issues.

Now, you can combine batches and gain efficiency if there is a a little runt batch in the gun to be combined with full one. One trick is to first batch--last batch. Grab the first batch and combine it with a smallish not yet full batch at the end of the queue (under 10 or so DPCIs). This will increase efficiency and it's a great way to keep putting off goal times.
 
seasonaldude said:
Two batches at a time is counterproductive. You'll end up with carts that are too full too often. You'll have to drop off large items more frequently. You'll have a hard time putting things to hold. And, you'll more likely run into time-killing pathing issues.

Now, you can combine batches and gain efficiency if there is a a little runt batch in the gun to be combined with full one. One trick is to first batch--last batch. Grab the first batch and combine it with a smallish not yet full batch at the end of the queue (under 10 or so DPCIs). This will increase efficiency and it's a great way to keep putting off goal times.
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Thank you, that's what I was doing to the last week. I did mention the counter productiveness and that we aren't auditing the floor or tying/untying product from end caps and side caps when they are replaced or removed. The system doesn't know where anything is and or where they are moved too and they're multiple locations that don't exist and our on hands are way off. I was told that since day flex isn't having these problems that night flex shouldn't be either and that it was me. (I did check all our INF's and almost every tm is red or yellow.) I've been with the company since '05 and it doesn't ever seem to change or adapt to new situations or attempts to fix these problems. The solution I was given was simply do two full orders at a time so when these errors happen I'll pull more then I can't find to stay green according to this TL.
 
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LoneZero36 said:
Thank you, that's what I was doing to the last week. I did mention the counter productiveness and that we aren't auditing the floor or tying/untying product from end caps and side caps when they are replaced or removed. The system doesn't know where anything is and or where they are moved too and they're multiple locations that don't exist and our on hands are way off. I was told that since day flex isn't having these problems that night flex shouldn't be either and that it was me. (I did check all our INF's and almost every tm is red or yellow.) I've been with the company since '05 and it doesn't ever seem to change or adapt to new situations or attempts to fix these problems. The solution I was given was simply do two full orders at a time so when these errors happen I'll pull more then I can't find to stay green according to this TL.
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I do two batches at a time and my INF is still red. I can’t find this shit.
 
How much you do at once shouldn't have an impact on INFs. If anything, it could be a detriment. Let's say you have two batches in the queue that both have two things that need to be looked for. If you do them both at once and have four things that you have to track down, there *could* be a negative psychological impact that makes you more likely to just say fuck it and move on.
 
Guessing our pre BTS/BTC (lots of eaches increases numbers, e.g. easy to pick 50 boxes of Crayons), our pick productivity ranged from 60 - 90. INFs were mostly yellow or green, sometimes red in softlines, but is getting better.
 

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