Hey Corporate - OPU

Z

Zorro

Joined
Jun 25, 2024
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OPU orders are sometimes broken down into;

Market items only

Bulky items only

Style ?? An area far different from the rest of the store is batched with GM items ? If you don't know the style area it will take a LOT of time to find anything. Someone from Style can find things quickly.

If you want less time wasted by OPU TM's filling orders and less INF's then treat Style like Market and Bulky. Have TM's that know Style pull the Style batches

How is this not obvious ? Am I missing something or is this Spot (pun) on ?
 
In general, it would help. But from what I have observed, even fulfillment TMs who have been picking batches for years still struggle with Style--and they should be pretty comfortable with it by now. Then again, maybe separating those batches would force them to learn it. Be worth testing out at least.

There are few TMs who can jump into any area with ease and Style happens to be the worst for Target. I always found that odd when I started, but I came from a large clothing retailer & that was the bulk of my retail knowledge so I've never struggled with it, even before I spent the majority of my days in Style.
 
"even fulfillment TMs who have been picking batches for years still struggle with Style"

Which is why it would be better if Style TM's were the ones pulling Style only batches. They are most up to speed on what product have had and currently have and where it is likely located.

I wonder how many new hires quickly quit after experiencing the frustration of trying to find style items ?

I wonder how many of the OPU orders that don't get filled on time had style items as part of the batch ?
 
BKop16 said:
They need to figure out how to locate folded and make it easier to find without an rfid. If Walmart can have every table and rack located in style then Target should figure it out.
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Folded items are located as they all have POGs which need to be tied. And if it is done correctly, every fixture has a location already.

Now that being said, maintaining accurate locations to where items actually are is where the struggle is. On top of that, sometimes they have POGs that overlap merch and discontinued dates or separate POGs each with only a couple items instead of of one large POG with all of them. All those POGs have to be tied, creating multiple locations when there may actually only be one.

Style barely gets enough payroll to cover Sort & Stock and in lucky stores, the fitting room. But setting and maintaining POGs doesn't really factor in.

Zorro said:
"even fulfillment TMs who have been picking batches for years still struggle with Style"

Which is why it would be better if Style TM's were the ones pulling Style only batches. They are most up to speed on what product have had and currently have and where it is likely located.
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It doesn't work very well for Market when they pull those TMs out of their scheduled workcenter to pulls OPUs. Because guess what? Their own work of pushing freight and maintaining the dept falls behind. Which can lead to INFs.

Same thing happens in Style. In my store Style already has to cover Tech and Ulta breaks. If you throw in Style OPUs, the freight and reshop is going to pile up.

You'd have to have specific people scheduled for these OPUs to make them the most efficient but that means allowing the payroll for them. Good luck with that.
 
Clearly it mostly comes back to payroll which is very clearly a major issue now with the hours being scarce. I have offered to come in to help but am usually told they don't have the hours. The place is a mess with vehicles constantly being abandoned on the floor, things have changed and for the worse.

The cure is more efficient methods and/or increased TM hours.
 
Dysprosed said:
I've heard they might allow multiple RFID enabled items to be searched for at once. That would greatly optimize the search for those items, as opposed to doing them one at a time.
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Unless the items are in carts-o-reshop or pallets of repacks. Nothing is optimal about that.

true story.
 
For the past couple of weeks , anybody who knows how to do fulfillment are stuck doing opus and standard batches at our store . Our market team mostly in fulfillment. Our department looks like a wasteland and there are tons of stuff to push and random carts filled with reshop, stuff pulled from endcaps , backstock and what not . Haven’t seen it this bad in a while .
Our store hired all 90% of seasonal for fulfillment and yet regular TMs have to jump in every time .
 
jenna said:
Unless the items are in carts-o-reshop or pallets of repacks. Nothing is optimal about that.

true story.
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A TM has multiple RFID items in their batch, the app displays all of the items in a list. As you approach an item, the signal strength for that item is presented on the screen.

This allows you to look for multiple items simultaneously, instead of one at a time. You don't think that's helpful?
 
Dysprosed said:
A TM has multiple RFID items in their batch, the app displays all of the items in a list. As you approach an item, the signal strength for that item is presented on the screen.

This allows you to look for multiple items simultaneously, instead of one at a time. You don't think that's helpful?
Click to expand...

In reshop or an unsorted pallet of repacks you could have all the items you're looking for right there and you wouldn't know which one it is in your example because they'd all be showing signals. So you'd end up digging thru everything anyway which is essentially like digging thru it without an RFID to begin with.

Same thing with salesfloor. Many times in batches with multiple style items, guests buy several of one thing but in different colors or sizes. Searching all of them at once doesn't narrow it down when they're all in the same area.
 
SigningLady said:
In reshop or an unsorted pallet of repacks you could have all the items you're looking for right there and you wouldn't know which one it is in your example because they'd all be showing signals. So you'd end up digging thru everything anyway which is essentially like digging thru it without an RFID to begin with.

Same thing with salesfloor. Many times in batches with multiple style items, guests buy several of one thing but in different colors or sizes. Searching all of them at once doesn't narrow it down when they're all in the same area.
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Okay that's true, but in that event, you know that all the items you want are there, and so you would use, you know, your eyes to find the items. But if it was just showing you one item, it would beep, you'd find it, and your next item might take you back out to the salesfloor or wherever else, even though the next item you needed was right there on that same pallet. I doubt you'd want to waste such time.
 
Dysprosed said:
Okay that's true, but in that event, you know that all the items you want are there, and so you would use, you know, your eyes to find the items. But if it was just showing you one item, it would beep, you'd find it, and your next item might take you back out to the salesfloor or wherever else, even though the next item you needed was right there on that same pallet. I doubt you'd want to waste such time.
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From what I've seen of most people, they are terrible at using their eyes to find anything. Which is why they end up using RFID. And even then, it's a struggle.

If I have multiple RFID items to find that are not found on the salesfloor, I skip them until the end to hunt them down at the same time so I wouldn't be going back out to the salesfloor. I certainly wouldn't go from the salesfloor to Guest Service to the fitting room to Sort to backstock for each individual item because that would waste time.
 
Dysprosed said:
Okay that's true, but in that event, you know that all the items you want are there, and so you would use, you know, your eyes to find the items. But if it was just showing you one item, it would beep, you'd find it, and your next item might take you back out to the salesfloor or wherever else, even though the next item you needed was right there on that same pallet. I doubt you'd want to waste such time.
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But most efficient pickers will search all one area for an item before moving on. ie Style picking -- search all the items for the sales floor, *then* search all remaining items in reshop, *then* search all remaining items in the fitting room, *next* search all of break out, search all of backroom. (like @SigningLady said.)

If RFID shows one at time, you can narrow down the search zone, better. ie Isolate a cart of reshop or a repack stack or a backroom aisle.

Picking Family pajamas is the perfect example. Multiplie items in the same area. Or picking women's underwear.
 
I think there is a compromise here that improves the current process, because I understand what you're saying, but for me, if I have the wand out and I'm looking for something and there's another item in my batch that I go near, I would want to know about it.

In my mind, at the very least, I'm thinking of a notification on screen: "An item in your batch is nearby, would you like to pick that instead?" Reasonable, maybe?
 
Dysprosed said:
I think there is a compromise here that improves the current process, because I understand what you're saying, but for me, if I have the wand out and I'm looking for something and there's another item in my batch that I go near, I would want to know about it.

In my mind, at the very least, I'm thinking of a notification on screen: "An item in your batch is nearby, would you like to pick that instead?" Reasonable, maybe?
Click to expand...

Good idea although I would think they'll be technical limitation/challenges to the RFID gun and app trying to scan all at once.
 
Zorro said:
"even fulfillment TMs who have been picking batches for years still struggle with Style"

Which is why it would be better if Style TM's were the ones pulling Style only batches. They are most up to speed on what product have had and currently have and where it is likely located.

I wonder how many new hires quickly quit after experiencing the frustration of trying to find style items ?

I wonder how many of the OPU orders that don't get filled on time had style items as part of the batch ?
Click to expand...
In theory this is a good idea but, at my store we don’t have enough style team member for this. Style would end up looking horrible because style members were doing batches.
 
Zxy123456 said:
In theory this is a good idea but, at my store we don’t have enough style team member for this. Style would end up looking horrible because style members were doing batches.
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And also, just like anywhere in the store, only about 20% of the TMs have any idea what they're doing. The other 50% are scraping by, and the last 30% are hot garbage.
 
Sushi2Go said:
Good idea although I would think they'll be technical limitation/challenges to the RFID gun and app trying to scan all at once.
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The RFID gun is capable of processing up to 1300 tags per second. I can't imagine myDay needing to update and show you info on more than half a dozen. Very technically feasible.
 
WhiskeyTangoFoxy said:
Oh! I have an idea for whoever came up with it! Stop front-loading our stores with stuff we don't need/can't handle.
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Logistically there is a reason for it. By front loading you spread out the workload of both the stores and the RDC across the entire Q4 making the peak weeks have fewer trucks.

For example a store that has 5 trucks per week during Oct to Dec with a couple 6 truck weeks around Black Friday. If you didn't front load then you'd have four truck weeks in October and seven or eight truck weeks in December. Multiply that by hundreds of stores and you strain the distribution centers even further (both that they run out of room and perhaps drivers).
 

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