Fulfillment being phased out?

vngoghlvr said:
I could see that working for stores with OPU only, but not with ship. Although nothing would surprise me anymore, they will cross train everybody and either bitch that fulfillment isn't done on time or whatever else they should be working on isn't. Our mid shift GM peeps spend most time on a lane or in opu. Then we hear about reshops, zone, rollover, OFOs. Well you can't have it both ways, people can only wear so many hats. And if you want something done fast and efficiently, you should have the training and payroll to back it up. Neither of which Spot excells at anymore.
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We’ve had days where everyone in GM is doing fulfillment, so then no GM work gets done. We have plenty of TM’s cross trained for flex, it is more of an issue of not enough hours.
 
Frontlanegirl said:
We’ve had days where everyone in GM is doing fulfillment, so then no GM work gets done. We have plenty of TM’s cross trained for flex, it is more of an issue of not enough hours.
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The hours excuse is dumb. My store constantly pulls the whole store to help SFS because we cut hours each week from the Fulfillment work center, underposting our schedule.

Having GM do SFS isn't the solution. This will be a disaster, if true.

They should do the opposite. Double down on Fulfillment. Give it more hours, more tms, set shifts, and separate it from the rest of the store. Like if there are no orders everyone goes home early. If there are more orders everyone stays late. Make it a more "traditional" warehouse position. Separate it MORE from the store. It would excel.

Oh well....spot going to spot.
 
Yetive said:
People don't order by department.
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I think what was meant is if you order shampoo, a shower curtain, swim goggles and a bikini, the person in beauty picks the shampoo, the person in home gets the shower curtain, sporting goods gets the goggles and style gets the swimsuit. Then it all comes magically together in the OPU hold as each piece locates the others and they teleport into being one order.
 
Yeah, it sounds to me that basically this would be adding doing SFS to everyone's workload, but they would only be getting items in their respective areas. I'm not sure how that would work for OPU though, perhaps they would still keep people for OPU, but that would make sense and the rest of the whole idea doesn't so who knows what they'll do about that.

That said, hopefully this is just some sort of a trial/experiment being done at a few stores, and they don't end up doing it everywhere.
 
CassRoslyn said:
Why...would you hate to use something that makes your job 10x easier? I mean, I rarely use a gun unless I legit can't find an item. But most of my team, the newer kiddos especially, have it glued to their hand. Which is a whole other problem when we only have 3 lol.

Ohhh if we integrate fulfillment into GM we'll lose the guns and finger scanners so much more often, gahhh. I already have to get on people once a week "2 wands are missing this morning", "why was there a scanner left in the breakroom last night?", etcetc. Sighhhh.
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We had a rfid gun left on a three tier for a whole day in backroom near the baler until I finally understood it was abandoned and returned to the device room . 😕
 
Tessa120 said:
I think what was meant is if you order shampoo, a shower curtain, swim goggles and a bikini, the person in beauty picks the shampoo, the person in home gets the shower curtain, sporting goods gets the goggles and style gets the swimsuit. Then it all comes magically together in the OPU hold as each piece locates the others and they teleport into being one order.
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Oh that would be entertaining *eyeroll*. The two girls who work at night in beauty are dumb. My dog could do their work better and I don't have a dog. When they come to GS to put away reshop, they are putting pants in Market, bullseye in chem, and their eism in donate.
 
Jayunderscore said:
I'd be interested in hearing how Small Format stores handle OPUs and then try and figure out how a chain store would do it. I expect that's how HQ would want things implemented.
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I think its possible if they keep ship separate. Ship forecasts are generally pretty close so its easy to properly schedule. Opu forecast is impossible rn with covid, grocery opu, and just how many people are now used to drive up. Taking flex hours from opu and putting it in gm and market might doable but id assume they try and cut hours and itll just be even more work and more stress.
 
My thought is: why now? Fulfillment is already GM (like how beauty and tron are specialty sales but separate grids), we pull people from the floor or give people to push as needed; it's already a "working" system. Maybe it really will just be a pooling of hours with scheduled shift markers. But the people mentioning these changes on reddit have got very extreme stories to tell so far.

So, asants maybe? Like how some stores read the guidelines and give fulfillment to front end leadership and some stores give it to GM? Or how drive ups are sometimes a guest service thing but, like at my store, fulfillment is responsible for them? Idk.

Whoever gets leadership to cough up a corporate email on this first wins major kudos, so please share asap lol.
 
Tessa120 said:
I think what was meant is if you order shampoo, a shower curtain, swim goggles and a bikini, the person in beauty picks the shampoo, the person in home gets the shower curtain, sporting goods gets the goggles and style gets the swimsuit.
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In theory, that's a really good idea. As fulfillment I really like the possibilty. For example, let's say there is a Circle deal going on Pillowfort so people are ordering the cheap ass kid's dinnerware in kitchen. (I'm hitting real close to home for fulfillment peeps.) Well, if the kitchen DBO sucks, falls behind in frieght, never scans his outs and lows that makes for a really bad week for fulfillment. If someone orders 10 blue plates that we're supposed to have 37 of, but that we haven't sold in 50+ days and we don't have any, then why should that be MY problem. Yet, it counts against my metrics. If the kitchen DBO had to pick that order, it becomes their problem. Now, they have incentive to do their job right and complete all their routines on a regular basis. This should lower INFs.

But, that's all in theory. In reality, even the best DBO can't get everything done and done right all the time. Even if they could, they can't be in the store all the time and always know what happens when they aren't there. That's where fulfillment experts come in. We know how to find stuff when things aren't done right. That's what makes us "experts." It's why we're needed.
 
seasonaldude said:
In theory, that's a really good idea. As fulfillment I really like the possibilty. For example, let's say there is a Circle deal going on Pillowfort so people are ordering the cheap ass kid's dinnerware in kitchen. (I'm hitting real close to home for fulfillment peeps.) Well, if the kitchen DBO sucks, falls behind in frieght, never scans his outs and lows that makes for a really bad week for fulfillment. If someone orders 10 blue plates that we're supposed to have 37 of, but that we haven't sold in 50+ days and we don't have any, then why should that be MY problem. Yet, it counts against my metrics. If the kitchen DBO had to pick that order, it becomes their problem. Now, they have incentive to do their job right and complete all their routines on a regular basis. This should lower INFs.
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I get your point, but I'd argue that having them do fulfillment as a way to hold them accountable for doing their job in the first place is all sorts of jacked up.

TL/ETL should be holding them accountable. Daily if necessary and if they aren't keeping up with freight, scanning outs, etc document that shit and work them out.

That's what is so Spot about all of this. Don't address the real root of the problem to begin with. Just come up with some stupid roundabout bandaid solution and call it good.
 
ahhd4mn said:
I've heard rumors that Fulfillment as an independent department will be phased out and replaced with cross training?
If anybody's heard this please confirm and add more info.
Also, from a perspective of hours and not things being crazy, would your average team member benefit? what about fulfillment TMs?
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Maybe in stores that do little fulfillment. We do thousands a day. We have a large team that are still getting 30 at least this month.
 
If they did that at my store, they'd probably just schedule us under GM or whatever and have us do what we've been doing tbh. I know more than some of the DBOs do with their own depts, especially with the unlocated backstock items - thanks to seasonals.
 
Bosch said:
Might? That is down right a order from god.. They always pick the stupid option. That is what they will pick.. Oh well.. I have been looking around to get into something a little less hard on the body.. If this comes down, yeah it's time.
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I'm with you!
 
CassRoslyn said:
Saw someone on reddit who's store had a fulfillment huddle about this. They had bonkers details like everyone in GM would do opu and SFS on top of their truck push for specific areas. And that an update might be coming to epick so areas of the store were sectioned out so only TMs in those areas would grab things for those orders?

Guys...I'm sensing major corporate shenanigans incoming if this is true. It makes 0 logical sense, which is why it might actually happen...
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I have so many words, yet I also have no words ...
 
seasonaldude said:
In theory, that's a really good idea. As fulfillment I really like the possibilty. For example, let's say there is a Circle deal going on Pillowfort so people are ordering the cheap ass kid's dinnerware in kitchen. (I'm hitting real close to home for fulfillment peeps.) Well, if the kitchen DBO sucks, falls behind in frieght, never scans his outs and lows that makes for a really bad week for fulfillment. If someone orders 10 blue plates that we're supposed to have 37 of, but that we haven't sold in 50+ days and we don't have any, then why should that be MY problem. Yet, it counts against my metrics. If the kitchen DBO had to pick that order, it becomes their problem. Now, they have incentive to do their job right and complete all their routines on a regular basis. This should lower INFs.

But, that's all in theory. In reality, even the best DBO can't get everything done and done right all the time. Even if they could, they can't be in the store all the time and always know what happens when they aren't there. That's where fulfillment experts come in. We know how to find stuff when things aren't done right. That's what makes us "experts." It's why we're needed.
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Working fulfillment you learn really quickly sales floor errors. I once had to look for a product that had 10 locations and the product was not in any of those locations. You learn where product is mislabeled or unlocated.
 
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Fulfillment should be used to judge how well each area is doing, but instead somehow we are blamed for the fact that the DBO's/DC/guest service/cashiers cannot do their job properly. Unless only one or two people have bad numbers consistently, each area should be held accountable for bad infs. You can't tell that half of bed/bath/domestics is unlocated in the backroom by BRLA or looking at the salesfloor because they just overstock every item into the empty spaces, even though I've complained for half a year about it, or whenever they flex something on the other side of the store and don't tie it and the home location is empty but there's 30 OH. Also if a brain-dead fulfillment tm who has the exact isle location and delivery date can't find it, how can a guest?
 
Lmao. I have this issue when doing flex, . I'll be looking for a item and I look at its details. "Last time audited, 162 days ago, 5 on hand. "
But I'm clearly looking at a wide blank space on the sales floor with none back stocked and the dbo being like "nah we haven't had that item in a month"

TL still is being a pain in the ass about the inf.
 

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