Archived Is your backroom predictable?

[Guest]

It has become very predictable at my store especially since the 6pm CAF batches were added. I personally think 6pm CAF batches are a disaster. It's busy work in my opinion. The new CAF batch setup has definitely made the backroom seem very predictable or maybe even more predictable than it used to be. I also think that you actually wind up pulling more with the CAF batch system.
For example, at 6pm I know that the DARY batch is going to be the largest batch. 100 percent. I also know that at 6pm I'm not going to pull GRC1 or GRC3. I'm going to pull GRC2. CHEM is also huge sometimes at 6pm. The 12pm and 2pm CAF batches are also predictable as hell. I hardly pull any food.

It's not just the CAF batches that have become predictable. FF is also predictable. The counts at my store are horrendous. I usually have to have 3 or 4 orders deleted each day.
I also love how 9 times out of 10 that there is a FF after I get back from lunch. And the wonderful thing is that if I'm scheduled to come in at noon, that means I usually won't be clocking back in until around 610 to 620pm. Why? Because FF and the CAF batches are a nightmare.
When I'm in the backroom, it's usually 40 to 50 minutes on CAF batches then the rest on FF. No time for anything else. The weekends are prime examples of that.

I am a glorified personal shopper on the weekends.

I got griped out once by my team lead because I check the myprogress in logistics on my PDA every CAF batch hour to see the DPCI and eaches. I was told that it's a waste of time for me to do that. Whatever. I do that because I want to know my fate.

At 6pm, if I have 26 CAF batches the DARY batch has about 30 PDCI and the rest of the batches are 5 or less DPCI each, I'm going to leave DARY for last because of the glitch in the system. As long as you stay in the batch and do not exit it and complete it, it does not count as a miss even if you have passed the hour mark.

My days in the backroom are predictably mostly the same. Of course, weekends are always worse than weekdays.
On a Saturday or Sunday, back stocking is rare. I only get to back stock on a Saturday or Sunday after the CAF batches are done and my lunch is taken. With FF and huge ass CAF batches, a lot of times there just isn't any time possible to back stock.
When I try to explain this to an ignorant team lead, I get looks and scripted responses. It doesn't help on the weekends that I work with one of the slowest backroom team members of all time or at least in the time that I've worked at Target. Only pull 5 or 6 batches on the GM side in 10 minutes? Are you serious? Goes to pull market pantry water and physically puts 20 packages of the 24 packs on a flat which wastes time instead of keying in the quantity and pressing y or no and putting a green clip on it and getting it later? Thinks that PETS is grocery? Wastes 5 minutes trying to scan a location label in PLUG and leaves it and doesn't see that there are two location labels(some dumbass had marked a line with a marker on one of the location labels? Perceptive? Training at my store LOL.

 

[CleanMyBackRoOm]

I'm not sure how long ago it was but CAF's have been put on a schedule for awhile. You'll always pull certain departments at a designated time now. There's actually a breakout for it on workbench you can print off. They have it posted in our back room. Tells you exactly which aisle(s) will be pull which hour no matter what sales were.

Totally understand the frustration though. Our back room is a machine, everything is always clean and they do a really good job back there. The only thing that sometimes has an issue are the MMB room and electronics room. It's like walking into freaking Narnia with tripping hazards when you go into those rooms. Yet the backroom TL refuses to own those rooms. I don't understand why said person can do such an amazing job in one room and terrible in the others. They obviously have the time to take care of it or at least keep up with it some what.

On that note I would say our backroom is only somewhat predictable.

 

[asidius]

Our backroom is a roller coaster at times. Most days there will be a decent amount of backstock, but nothing unbearable. A few times a month the backstock will be huge, turning the backroom into an obstacle course. On rare occasions, we'll get 100% clean (usually followed by huge backstock a few days later). We lack stability in terms of TLs as well. We had this girl who was the TL since before I joined the company, but she left to become the plano TL. Then we had another TL, but he left the company a few months later. Now we have our (former) softlines Sr. TL as our TL.

Lately the backroom has been pretty bad. We've had a huge shortage of the 3-tier carts so we're often regulated to using reds & flats with repack boxes for pulls. Lockup varies to being clean and messy throughout the week. The coolers are a disaster. I'm pretty sure we still have backstock from 2 weeks ago sitting in the coolers. Our metrics are mostly green though, besides return to stock (why is this a metric?)

I hate flex fulfillment sometimes. If you're ordering 1 item, come to the store and grab it yourself, unless it's particularly big (furniture) or in demand (video games, etc). Even though it's more work for me, bigger orders are at least more sensible.

As far as CAFs go, I still get a feeling of pride when I successfully do them all by myself and they don't rollover. If I don't get that chance, or they simply huge, I'd rather be backstocking than pulling CAFs. The 2 or 3 pm CAFs always seem the smallest of the day, typically about 45 min or less, while the 11's hover around 2 hours and the others around 1-1:20. Someone backstocking can change this drastically though.

 

[tgtguy]

Our backroom team has slipped from where it was. Late last year and earlier this year we were coming clean...every day We even had time left over to do "brand things" Ie, updating aisles, zoning aisles and purging. Now( even before Christmas rush started ) we are struggling ...hell we have been struggling since mid summer. IF we come clean on a truck day it has to be a small truck. The issue is they expect two people to pretty much do the bulk of the work...Oh they will throw some others back there ...but they are pretty much useless. We lost a great backroom day person this past summer. The guy who took his place...well to call him lazy would be an insult to lazy people. @Jackswastedlife99 I hate flex fulfillments as well...they always seem to drop right when I am in the middle of something and in a huge rush. We also have the issue of not having what the FA is looking for ...of course now you have to have a lods permission to terminate the order. Such a pain

 

[tgtJose]

Our metrics are mostly green though, besides return to stock (why is this a metric?)

Our ETL was riding us pretty hard about return to stock this fall, and nobody could figure out how it was red every week since it was being completed first thing every morning at 6am.

Turns out that hitting the item not here button when the item is gone contributes to the score being red. So the whole time it was service desk TMs improperly processing orders that screwed up the score.

The easy solution is to manually key in the DPCI when the item is not there and the score will magically become green again (assume the order was rung out through the POS and that fake returning it to stock is correcting the counts).