MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

How is the return to stock metric calculated? Is based on a time frame or by whether an item was in location to be returned?
 
From what I know, RTS has to be cleared by a certain time (for my store, it's 9AM). Anything that drops after that time is left over until tomorrow. So if something becomes an RTS at 5PM on Tuesday, it has to be cleared by 9AM on Wednesday. If it's not done by then, the score is affected. If that was what you were referring to, anyways.
 
Logo said:
How is the return to stock metric calculated? Is based on a time frame or by whether an item was in location to be returned?
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It needs to be cleared by 9am each day.

If any items are NOT in location and you hit "item not here" that will also hurt the score. Even though there's a 99% chance that a GSTM caused it.
 
I'm guessing it's my store then.

Our SFS TM (who does the SPUs since it's slow) told me that now we have to start bagging the items. Wasn't sure if it's a corporate thing or just my store.

registers are 5 feet away from our SPU storage room so that doesn't really matter. A little troublesome for orders that dropped when the store is close and we have to do 5 SPUs in the morning, which now we spend a few seconds we put the right objects on the guest's bag
 
The GSTM and the guests are still going to need to see the items to make sure they're correct. So they take the items out of the bag and then put them back? If another SFS TM told me to do that, I'd ignore him and wait for someone with actual authority to mention it, so I could politely explain why that's stupid.
 
Anyone know when this huge furniture sell is suppose to happen?? We have too much Web Only furniture right now and they keep sending pallets of the same stuff x_x.... They even sent us 3 very huge dinning tables that we can't even backstock cause they are too big... priced 799.99 if anyone wants to buy one.... not sure how UPS will load it .
 
Maybe your DC is clearing space or a bunch of online-only stuff is about to go clearance? Our regular furniture in the backroom has been steadily selling down faster than its being replenished.

Edit: Actually it looks like there's a 15% off furniture coupon (minimum $150 purchase) plus another 10% off code for certain items. Are you not selling many this week?
 
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No we aren't selling that many websites only furniture items this week... We been receiving a lot of new furniture items tho... the Backroom TL said they are sending us all of this because of a big furniture sell comming up. Two weeks ago we were selling a bunch of baby furniture... our Web only baby furniture aisle was empty for almost a week
 
So is there any real drawback to not shipping packages on time? My team has gotten used to just getting the collates out of the system and ignoring them for the rest of the day. The next day someone packs the orders from the day before while the new ones are picked. We sometimes even have some orders bum around for a week or so before they're either shipped out or cancelled. My ETL, and STL are all aware this is happening and seem fine with it, so I'm guessing this is normal?
 
Well it will piss off guests who see that their order has been processed but not handed off to UPS, and it will piss off UPS when their system shows packages ready for pickup but doesn't receive them.

It unnecessarily delays the order and potentially hurts the guest's experience. It is definitely not normal for SFS TMs to purposely not do their job every day.

Why would you NOT pack them on the same day?
 
I think Target opened up SFS to too many stores too soon. Looking at my district/region right now each store is way below the forecast amount of orders. And it is extremely frustrating to have an order trickle in here and there after the initial morning "blitz" of a quarter of what you are forecasted.
 
Castagnier said:
So is there any real drawback to not shipping packages on time? My team has gotten used to just getting the collates out of the system and ignoring them for the rest of the day. The next day someone packs the orders from the day before while the new ones are picked. We sometimes even have some orders bum around for a week or so before they're either shipped out or cancelled. My ETL, and STL are all aware this is happening and seem fine with it, so I'm guessing this is normal?
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Is this a real question? Do you think Amazon would be anywhere near as successful if they let orders sit for a week before shipping? And that's who we are competing with, so yeah, getting them out on time is the goal.
 
It's a real question since I'm being taught otherwise to the point that even I'm starting to believe it. My store's #1 goal is to have the numbers in the system look good on time, but not to actually do the work that the numbers believe we're doing. Our TL and LODs keep us away from packing them after they're scanned out, which leads to packages being sent out later than they should. One time before I clocked out I told my TL that there were only 5 or so more to pack and I had pre-made boxes sitting next to them. They told me they'd pack it later that night, but when I arrive the next morning, they were all still unpacked and pushed into a corner that was covered up by the new orders for that day.

On a good day we'll send out around half of the orders that came in for that day and whatever leftovers rolled over from yesterday/earlier in the week, whether they were supposed to be rush orders or not.

Really, the quality of my store's SFS died when the New Year rolled around and the fact that nobody has complained or talked to us has led me to believe that we're fine.
 
Castagnier said:
It's a real question since I'm being taught otherwise to the point that even I'm starting to believe it. My store's #1 goal is to have the numbers in the system look good on time, but not to actually do the work that the numbers believe we're doing. Our TL and LODs keep us away from packing them after they're scanned out, which leads to packages being sent out later than they should. One time before I clocked out I told my TL that there were only 5 or so more to pack and I had pre-made boxes sitting next to them. They told me they'd pack it later that night, but when I arrive the next morning, they were all still unpacked and pushed into a corner that was covered up by the new orders for that day.

On a good day we'll send out around half of the orders that came in for that day and whatever leftovers rolled over from yesterday/earlier in the week, whether they were supposed to be rush orders or not.

Really, the quality of my store's SFS died when the New Year rolled around and the fact that nobody has complained or talked to us has led me to believe that we're fine.
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I guess I still don't understand how you guys are not finding time to finish. On a relatively heavy day, I spend maybe 3 hours total working on SFS during an 8 hour shift. That of course includes picking and packing everything. It's not at all uncommon for the LOD to ask me to work on a project, but they do so with the understanding that I will also complete the job I was scheduled to do.

RTCry said:
I think Target opened up SFS to too many stores too soon. Looking at my district/region right now each store is way below the forecast amount of orders. And it is extremely frustrating to have an order trickle in here and there after the initial morning "blitz" of a quarter of what you are forecasted.
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This whole SFS process is part of the problem, because they can't easily scale it down during the slow seasons like they can with regular fulfillment centers. But they also can't afford to not have as many stores as they do now, because the extra capacity is needed for a 6 weeks per year.
 
Castagnier said:
It's a real question since I'm being taught otherwise to the point that even I'm starting to believe it. My store's #1 goal is to have the numbers in the system look good on time, but not to actually do the work that the numbers believe we're doing. Our TL and LODs keep us away from packing them after they're scanned out, which leads to packages being sent out later than they should. One time before I clocked out I told my TL that there were only 5 or so more to pack and I had pre-made boxes sitting next to them. They told me they'd pack it later that night, but when I arrive the next morning, they were all still unpacked and pushed into a corner that was covered up by the new orders for that day.

On a good day we'll send out around half of the orders that came in for that day and whatever leftovers rolled over from yesterday/earlier in the week, whether they were supposed to be rush orders or not.

Really, the quality of my store's SFS died when the New Year rolled around and the fact that nobody has complained or talked to us has led me to believe that we're fine.
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Honestly your store needs to be careful, guests are going to start complaining and call Target.com.... Then Target.com is going to start calling your store everytime it gets a complaint about an order not shipping out on time. If the problem keeps happening thenow HQs is going to get involved. They will start watching you guys on the cameras to see what is actually happening at your store.
 
SFSFun said:
I guess I still don't understand how you guys are not finding time to finish.
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If I had to guess and pinpoint a reason why, it's because SFS was rolled into the BRTMs duties. Ideally, morning picks some batches, mid picks the rest and packs them, and closer helps pack any remainder. What actually happens is morning doesn't pick, leaving all the batches to the mid. The mid picks a little, but then is sent straight into the the CAFs, never to touch SFS again until the CAFs are done. After that we push and do typical backroom stuff, only having time to scan the collates out and pack maybe half of them before UPS arrives. The closer then packs the remainder and the cycle repeats again the next day. A solution could be to schedule people specifically for SFS who wouldn't have to worry about CAFs and guest calls, but we couldn't because payroll was low. And since backroom is losing hours now, I'm curious if SFS will get even worse somehow.
 
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Ok I can kind of see how that would happen. Having someone scheduled under FF to make sure everything gets done is definitely key. If leadership doesn't care about SFS at your store, then that's on them and you might as well keep doing what you're doing. But it's definitely not normal.
 
Our orders spiked today, not sure why.

Also, hours are specifically allocated for Flexible Fulfillment. I'm not sure why your ETL/STL/DTL wouldn't care about SFS to not use those hours for SFS, but they're definitely destroying your metrics.
 

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