Archived Ladderless Backroom???

[tholmes]

Thank you. But, even doing that is going to lead to more INFs than necessary. With Store ties we have an aisle to scoure. ePick's pictures don't always match the packaging. That's just the way it is. You have to do what you have to do, but so does flex here. We can't spend too long looking for any one item.

Does your store not store tie by the section?

 

[gsa4lyfe]

Low volume here and we are packed to the ceiling too.

It'd be different if half our counts on the floor weren't fucked up. Worked freight the other day. Half my items went right onto the shelf, the other half went to the back because OHs were WAY off for those items.

Also be different if we weren't behind (and getting worse) on pogs and revisions. A lot of merch in the back waiting to be set.

This seems to be the issue company wide. My GVP announced this week every store in his group has to come up with a plan to purge their entire backroom and update SFQ as they do it. In his mind anything that you have a lot of out back stems from an OH or SFQ variance. My DTL is making us update every single SFQ as well so make pulls more efficient.

 

[tholmes]

This seems to be the issue company wide. My GVP announced this week every store in his group has to come up with a plan to purge their entire backroom and update SFQ as they do it. In his mind anything that you have a lot of out back stems from an OH or SFQ variance. My DTL is making us update every single SFQ as well so make pulls more efficient.

I wonder if they realize that SFQ isn't working properly anyway when manual pulling is involved...

 

[gsa4lyfe]

I wonder if they realize that SFQ isn't working properly anyway when manual pulling is involved...

I've tried to explain the whole reason SFQ gets messed up is due to purging and updating large amounts of items using audit but they just look at me like I'm crazy. I convinced my STL and we approached it from a different process. We updated every single location in the backroom and have now started updating every SFQs. There is no point in purging and working against the equations in place to pull the items from your backroom. Thats like pulling EXFs right before your manuals drop in the morning.

 

[ShortTM]

I've tried to explain the whole reason SFQ gets messed up is due to purging and updating large amounts of items using audit but they just look at me like I'm crazy. I convinced my STL and we approached it from a different process. We updated every single location in the backroom and have now started updating every SFQs. There is no point in purging and working against the equations in place to pull the items from your backroom. Thats like pulling EXFs right before your manuals drop in the morning.

I wish you could come explain this stuff to my leadership. We are suppose to create EXF batches before pushing autos or the truck. But he said before adding anything to the batch or adjusting on floor count to make sure it didn't arrive on the truck. So many issues with this in my opinion but who am I to say something? I'm just a TM who has been at Spot for less than 6 months. Once they give us more hours like told we would earlier this week and I can pull my own autos and batches I will do it the way I think makes sense.

 

[gsa4lyfe]

I wish you could come explain this stuff to my leadership. We are suppose to create EXF batches before pushing autos or the truck. But he said before adding anything to the batch or adjusting on floor count to make sure it didn't arrive on the truck. So many issues with this in my opinion but who am I to say something? I'm just a TM who has been at Spot for less than 6 months. Once they give us more hours like told we would earlier this week and I can pull my own autos and batches I will do it the way I think makes sense.

EXFs should be used mid day after your truck and autos have been pushed. I’ll get all my stuff pushed then check SFQ for lows and outs then drop EXFs to fill in the holes

 

[BoxCutter]

The reason they are having us do the EXFs before the Autos and truck is to get older product on the floor before the newer stuff. Granted, this makes the most sense for dated product but also helps when manufacturers change their packaging. You get the old packaging out before stocking the new. It works well for Electronics in my store. If properly staffed, it works well in the rest of the store, too.

 

[unknown]

How dumb are the people running this company? The top shelf in most of our aisles are stacked 3 boxes high.

 

[ToyMaster]

Just curious here, does this mean ladders will be removed? And does leaderless mean the same thing to the 5' team member as it does to the 6' team member. Will you need to be a certain height to work here? Want to see the accommodation given to the vertically challenged among us

 

[Xanatos]

Just curious here, does this mean ladders will be removed? And does leaderless mean the same thing to the 5' team member as it does to the 6' team member. Will you need to be a certain height to work here? Want to see the accommodation given to the vertically challenged among us

I hope it’s just in theory. They’ll probably keep the ladders because it sounds like a pain in the ass to remove something that isn’t hardly in the way, and it would mean our higher shelves are completely unused.

I bet the main idea is that 95% of the product ends up being less than 6’ or 7’ from the ground so most people can reach it without a ladder. This would save a lot of time. But realistically, you still have to have ladders for shorter TMs and for busier times of the year when we get extra product pushed to the store.

That’s all assuming SFQs and on hands are working seamlessly...

 

[Kartman]

Just build BIGGER STORES.

 

[Rarejem]

This seems to be the issue company wide. My GVP announced this week every store in his group has to come up with a plan to purge their entire backroom and update SFQ as they do it. In his mind anything that you have a lot of out back stems from an OH or SFQ variance. My DTL is making us update every single SFQ as well so make pulls more efficient.

What I have seen is more that capacities are incorrect as opposed to SFQ being incorrect. Tms are not being trained to do both.

 

[jenna]

I think they just want to product out of the Backroom, if possible, and the back stock as low to the ground as possible

 

[jenna]

I am not taking “laderless” [sic] backrooms literally.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

A safety concern.

 

[Kartman]

That ain't no shit.

 

[60SecondsRemaining]

This is just some DM with no logistic (real logistics, not target) experience floating some pipe dream. This will never, ever, ever happen. It will also never be a company wide directive. Let me tell you why.

Every store has a uniquely sized backroom and layout - Store footprint has zero to do with store volume. I have set up backrooms for AAA volume stores that are small footprint, and use an offsite storage, and I have set up backrooms for c and d volume stores with massive footprints. The real estate available is what you work with. As your inbound inventory flexes, so does your space.

You can't predict inbound freight flow - Inbound flow is functionally unpredictable. You get a piece count, and sure you can pull a dci, but functionally you generally have no idea what is coming, or in what quantity, until the day before. Trying to smash your stockroom to what essentially equals half of it's current size is only going to result in chaos.

Paying for stockroom footprint but not using it is a massive waste of dollars - Paying for an open stockroom with 20 foot aisles, but only using 6 feet of them is a huge waste of money. You have to heat/cool/light/clean the space. It would be far more cost effective to simply use half the stockroom and seal off/cut power to the other half. Low is not inherently productive. Ladders are not inefficient. Steps are inefficient. I ran multiple stockrooms and satellite warehouses packed to the brim with product. If you have sound logistic leadership to set up a plan for your stock, steps are minimized anyway (example: I set up a top sku aisle in my stockroom, top 5 skus from each dept were backstocked in that aisle. CAF pulls during mid day or slow periods pretty much always consisted of pulling mostly in that one aisle, instead of walking all over the stockroom for 20 items).

I don't comment much anymore, I'm some years removed from Target (and retail), but things like this infuriate me, because it's clearly not just non-feasable, it's also counter-intuitive to the entire point of the stockroom. Any time anyone fed me the "low and productive" line, I wanted to staple a post-it to their forehead that said "Moron". It's a reguritated bullshit Target term, made up by people who have absolutely no real logistical experience so that they can sound smart.


Edit: Before someone asks how, I changed the fillgroups of the top5 item skus by manipulating the items in UPC Maint on the S&L PC. I don't know if this is possible anymore.

 

[allnew2]

Has anyone heard of this??? How can we possibly make this happen?

We started that . We raised the shelf’s and only allowed to be used during q4. I also pull brla report for each dbo and stick them on aisle board , also their pull accuracy on that same board. Basically our regional vp came and allowed us to still keep the shelf’s as long as they are not used until q4.

 

[tholmes]

Edit: Before someone asks how, I changed the fillgroups of the top5 item skus by manipulating the items in UPC Maint on the S&L PC. I don't know if this is possible anymore.

Sadly not anymore, these UPC Maint functions went away when MyWork 2.0 was implemented 🙁

 

[skrepo1977]

This is just some DM with no logistic (real logistics, not target) experience floating some pipe dream. This will never, ever, ever happen. It will also never be a company wide directive. Let me tell you why.

Every store has a uniquely sized backroom and layout - Store footprint has zero to do with store volume. I have set up backrooms for AAA volume stores that are small footprint, and use an offsite storage, and I have set up backrooms for c and d volume stores with massive footprints. The real estate available is what you work with. As your inbound inventory flexes, so does your space.

You can't predict inbound freight flow - Inbound flow is functionally unpredictable. You get a piece count, and sure you can pull a dci, but functionally you generally have no idea what is coming, or in what quantity, until the day before. Trying to smash your stockroom to what essentially equals half of it's current size is only going to result in chaos.

Paying for stockroom footprint but not using it is a massive waste of dollars - Paying for an open stockroom with 20 foot aisles, but only using 6 feet of them is a huge waste of money. You have to heat/cool/light/clean the space. It would be far more cost effective to simply use half the stockroom and seal off/cut power to the other half. Low is not inherently productive. Ladders are not inefficient. Steps are inefficient. I ran multiple stockrooms and satellite warehouses packed to the brim with product. If you have sound logistic leadership to set up a plan for your stock, steps are minimized anyway (example: I set up a top sku aisle in my stockroom, top 5 skus from each dept were backstocked in that aisle. CAF pulls during mid day or slow periods pretty much always consisted of pulling mostly in that one aisle, instead of walking all over the stockroom for 20 items).

I don't comment much anymore, I'm some years removed from Target (and retail), but things like this infuriate me, because it's clearly not just non-feasable, it's also counter-intuitive to the entire point of the stockroom. Any time anyone fed me the "low and productive" line, I wanted to staple a post-it to their forehead that said "Moron". It's a reguritated bullshit Target term, made up by people who have absolutely no real logistical experience so that they can sound smart.


Edit: Before someone asks how, I changed the fillgroups of the top5 item skus by manipulating the items in UPC Maint on the S&L PC. I don't know if this is possible anymore.

God bless you for your service and in actually knowing how it really works!

 

[PogDog]

Edit: Before someone asks how, I changed the fillgroups of the top5 item skus by manipulating the items in UPC Maint on the S&L PC. I don't know if this is possible anymore.

A smart move indeed. Possible to maybe see top selling items for each fillgroup and set standard to keep them backstocked in first section of valley.

I don't believe this functional is still available, considering that Store Apps is slowly being dismantled. Store computers will be replaced with Chromebooks and the S&L computer is being removed completely. All apps are on the Mydevices now. 😩

 

[jenna]

A smart move indeed. Possible to maybe see top selling items for each fillgroup and set standard to keep them backstocked in first section of valley.

I don't believe this functional is still available, considering that Store Apps is slowly being dismantled. Store computers will be replaced with Chromebooks and the S&L computer is being removed completely. All apps are on the Mydevices now. 😩

What is the S&L computer?

And there's no way my backstock will ever be that organized. I can barely keep control of it, as it is.... people keep jacking it up on my days off.

 

[60SecondsRemaining]

What is the S&L computer?

And there's no way my backstock will ever be that organized. I can barely keep control of it, as it is.... people keep jacking it up on my days off.

There is (was?) A computer in the fixture room with an old dos based prompt used to print labels etc. With the right credentials, there were 2 apps, upc and dpci maintenance, which you could use to manipulate item info including price, fillgroup, dpci to upc ties, etc.

Even back in the day (12-15 years ago) very few of us knew how to use it/had access as it had essentially root access to the pos system. I used it typically to fix price errors, non scanning upcs, description errors. Waiting for mysupport took too long, easier to submit then just fix it yourself.

 

[jenna]

Signing and Label PC. That's right

Stuff like Quick Response Pricing is long gone - IIRC.

 

[PogDog]

There is (was?) A computer in the fixture room with an old dos based prompt used to print labels etc. With the right credentials, there were 2 apps, upc and dpci maintenance, which you could use to manipulate item info including price, fillgroup, dpci to upc ties, etc.

Even back in the day (12-15 years ago) very few of us knew how to use it/had access as it had essentially root access to the pos system. I used it typically to fix price errors, non scanning upcs, description errors. Waiting for mysupport took too long, easier to submit then just fix it yourself.

I was trying to fix a upc just yesterday that wouldn't scan. Checked Store Apps. That feature is gone. Tried to do it in MyHelp, but the app kept timing out. Gone are the days of a poor looking, but always reliable system. 😔