MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

I've honestly run out of ways to explain to the seasonal tms that they need to actually be looking/digging for items and their walk can't be a nice stroll around the store. so many of them don't see it on the first glance and just move on but when I walk with them later, its under the shirt they looked at or on the back of the rack or literally on the next shelf. I've tried being nice and babying through every step. I've told them to partner with salesfloor tms for every single item they can't find before they get to me. I've tried explaining WHY exactly we do things that way. I've tried being strict and only giving directions and times. I don't know how to help them or if they're worth helping anymore. even my TL is at the point of giving up. we've had over 1000 carry over the past few nights, I don't know how we're going to survive the rest of Q4.
 
Tessa120 said:
Having had to look for clothes for holds as well as helping SFS/OPU, you wimp out easily. That's a pretty pathetic look pattern.

As someone else said, the WACOs themselves, not just boxes in the back. Areas on the floor with similar items (like UT and the jeans in WF), like sleepwear/graphic tees, leggings in hosiery and leggings in RTW, girls in boys and vice versa, large size girls or boys mixed in with RTW/mens, graphic shirts and socks and jewelry that ended up in Electronics or vice versa, socks and (this time of year) gloves and hats that ended up in bullseye playground, mens and womens watches swapped, and a million other things. If you need a pet costume, see if one got separated from its packaging and ended up in NIT. Ditto for toy dress up costume.

And you shouldn't need someone holding your hand, so you should know to look in all these areas already, and be doing so already.
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That's a bit harsh. Fulfillment isn't about looking everywhere for every item. It's about interpreting the inventory information available and using it to determine where an item might reasonably be located. You look there and if the item isn't found, INF it and move on. If style is so messed up that it is actually reasonable so many different items could be found on the wrong floorpads, that's an issue that needs to be addressed with ETLs and the SD.

In fulfillment you need a very good reason to spend more than a handful of minutes looking for any one item. Something like, well it was delivered today and it's likely in one of the cosmetic repacks, so it's going to take some extra time digging through them. That's reasonable. It's annoying. But, it's a good reason to take some time. However, most of the time if someone is spending 10-15 minutes, or longer, looking for an item, they aren't going to find it. And, if they do happen to find it after that time, that typically means they just got lucky, e.g., they managed to find that one toy someone dumped on an endcap in pets, or they weren't looking for the item efficiently by first checking the most likely places it would be.
 
MrT said:
Who is ready for these 90 minute goal times for OPU.
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We can't even deal with three hour goal times.. Much less an hour and a half. Not that anyone would bother telling us that goal time is going to be a thing. We are doing so badly they shut off our ship process so we could handle the OPU mess.. Cause they won't fucking schedule people to work.. Skeleton crews don't get it done!
 
Not just style/softlines, the whole floor. I don't remember the item but for three days we were chucking it in the hardlines reshop cart, and they'd chuck it right back. Day 3 I got so pissed it was always back in our cart that I called for a hatdlines TM to meet me and I personally handed it to him. He didn't expect that.

To complain that some TMs are trying to get the guest all their items and describe a cursory pass as if it's reasonable knowing guests won't get their items...what happened to guest service and why complain about the TMs who are trying to adhere to guest service?
 
Anelmi said:
Yes, but Style is the reason for 95% of INFs right now bc Style is an absolute hot mess with unworked freight, quarantine, etc.
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And shit being tied to one place and it not even on the floor at all. Or when it's in the hanging backstock it's one size over here, another way over there and the rest? They can't even find where they put it. But I am supposed to be able to find it quickly? Umm ok..
 
Tessa120 said:
Not just style/softlines, the whole floor. I don't remember the item but for three days we were chucking it in the hardlines reshop cart, and they'd chuck it right back. Day 3 I got so pissed it was always back in our cart that I called for a hatdlines TM to meet me and I personally handed it to him. He didn't expect that.

To complain that some TMs are trying to get the guest all their items and describe a cursory pass as if it's reasonable knowing guests won't get their items...what happened to guest service and why complain about the TMs who are trying to adhere to guest service?
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What? Who said anything about a cursory pass? Efficiency is what we're going for.

I'm all for guest service. Absolutely. In fulfillment the best guest service is provided through efficiency. That's true for individual TMs and for the store's metrics overall. If someone isn't being efficient, they aren't serving our guests. The extra time looking for items, especially when they don't find them, makes it less likely that the guests whose orders we take up later will get what they ordered either because an in-store guest has already grabbed the last one or because approaching goal time leaves no time for anything but a cursory pass, if even that, when looking for an item. Yes, inefficiency leads to the very thing you are saying we shouldn't do.
 
Is there an official communication about this? Or is this a rumor that's spreading around or possibly even something that some district or group leader wants?

I'm not surprised that corporate would change goal time. I've anticipated for awhile that they would eventually crackdown on some of the ways stores use fulfillment hours meant for OPU volume for other things like how they did by creating the carryover metric for SFS last fall. Changing goal time would be one way to do that. But, they usually give a date for big changes.
 
MrT said:
Who is ready for these 90 minute goal times for OPU.
Click to expand...
Having come up in the 30 minute goal time I'm fine with it. I told my team this week they need to be treating each opu batch like it's a 40 minute one. Most of the team is productive, but some of them think 3 hours means it's ok to relax. Then they build up and I need to shift from SFS or pull from the floor. I think corporate is seeing that not everybody is as productive with the longer times and is adjusting accordingly. That said, we have been going way over forecast on the opu side and that's not even including grocery. They need to start giving us more payroll or we are going to drown.
 
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vngoghlvr said:
Having come up in the 30 minute goal time I'm fine with it. I told my team this week they need to be treating each opu batch like it's a 40 minute one. Most if the team is productive, but some of them think 3 hours means it's ok to relax. Then they build up and I need to shift from SFS or pull from the floor. I think corporate is seeing that not everybody is as productive with the longer times and is adjusting accordingly. That said, we have been going way over forecast on the opu side and that's not even including grocery. They need to start giving us more payroll or we are going to drown.
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Productivity for OPUs is actually way, way, way up with the three hour goal times from where it was last year. This is true companywide. I think what corporate is upset about is the spread between when an order drops and when it is picked. The longer that spread time is, the more likely the item will be INFed. But, many stores treat the 3 hour goal time as if it is ok to relax on the number of people picking. So let's say that 4 people are scheduled to pick OPUs, but volume is such that 2 people can handle it within the 3 hour goal times. What's the store going to do? They'll likely pull 2 people from OPU to go help out elsewhere, likely GM not getting its freight done. That is going to make for longer spread times though.

Corporate would rather that store keep the 4 people in OPU and crack the whip on GM to get its stuff done with its own payroll. They actually tried to address this somewhat by making fulfillment hours use 'em or lose 'em: they can't be used elsewhere in scheduling. But, that didn't really work so a new shorter goal time makes it much harder to divert fulfillment for other tasks. I kind of doubt we see increased payroll out of it. Kind of hard to tell with Q4 payroll increasing anyway. I'd guess the official word, if any, will be that less productive TMs need to be coached/performanced out. That seems to be the answer to everything in modernized Target.
 
seasonaldude said:
Is there an official communication about this? Or is this a rumor that's spreading around or possibly even something that some district or group leader wants?

I'm not surprised that corporate would change goal time. I've anticipated for awhile that they would eventually crackdown on some of the ways stores use fulfillment hours meant for OPU volume for other things like how they did by creating the carryover metric for SFS last fall. Changing goal time would be one way to do that. But, they usually give a date for big changes.
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We are writing the BF schedule with 90 minute goal times planned. Not sure where official word came from.
 
seasonaldude said:
Is there an official communication about this? Or is this a rumor that's spreading around or possibly even something that some district or group leader wants?

I'm not surprised that corporate would change goal time. I've anticipated for awhile that they would eventually crackdown on some of the ways stores use fulfillment hours meant for OPU volume for other things like how they did by creating the carryover metric for SFS last fall. Changing goal time would be one way to do that. But, they usually give a date for big changes.
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Idk if it is company wide, or just regional/group. We didnt get a date but the reasoning was to be more on par with our competitors. That reasoning makes me think its company wide. I havent seen anything on workbench, but i got emails about it a couple days ago.
 
90min goal times flexes? That’s not bad at all. We had 30mins and 1 hour before all the COVID mess plus this will motivate my team at least since they’re pretty fast but getting less motivated due to leadership micromanaging them to push freight from the trucks everyday.
 
I heard at work today that it's going to one hour starting December 10th. Nothing official. Just what my TL told me. Since we have TMs who routinely take over an hour to do a single batch, I anticipate a lot of red metrics.
 
Proficient said:
getting less motivated due to leadership micromanaging them to push freight from the trucks everyday.
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That would never fly at my store. Sure they are encouraged to pick from repacks and all that, but they are Fulfillment and that's it. Aside from the fulfillment people, who might get stationed in Guest Services to handle that when there's no fulfillment to do
 

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