No More Case Stock

Our store went "caseless" several months ago. The whole logic is so the SFS/OPU doesn't have to pull a whole case then back stock the rest.

Taking items out of boxes that we don't even need yet makes no sense.

You now subject items to damage and loss and misplacement.

Our inventory got cancelled this year because of COVID19 so they have now idea how good or bad this new system until 2021.
 
daemon said:
This is a fn nightmare for grocery.
Click to expand...

Counterpoint: It's wonderful for grocery. No, really. It is. Hear me out.

You have to understand the fulfillment process. When an order comes in if something is located in the back, fulfillment must pull it from the back. So, let's take a real common OPU item right now: marshmallows. Fuck marshmellows. Market doesn't need any more on the floor, so they backstocked a case of 24 of them. Your fulfifillment TM comes by and has to open that casepack to take one package out. Now, what's supposed to happen: well the fulfillment TM is supposed to put the other 23 packages of fucking marshmallows in a waco. Have you seen what 23 packages of marshmallows look like in a waco? Do you even have enough open space to put 23 packages of marshmallows in one waco? Probably not.

So what's going to happen in reality? Your frustrated fulfillment TM is going to shove the open case right back where she found it and backstock it as 23 or she's going to pull it out and just leave it at the end of the aisle under the logic that market can see if it goes out when they do their pulls (ummm....it won't that's why it was backstocked. Duh.) No matter how often we harped on fulfillment to stop doing that, it would inevitably happen because fulfillment is busy and doesn't have time for that shit. (Seriously, I remember one order for 42 bottles of flavored water. It was for one or two bottles for seemingly every damn type of flavored water we sell. Almost all of it was in gigantic casepacks in the back. And, this of course was at 8am on a Friday, which is more or less all hell's breaking loose time for OPUs. What the hell was I supposed to do with all the extra bottles of water? My store's DBO and I still joke about it because of course I just left those casepacks at the end of the aisle with a note that said "Sorry, I'll help you figure out what to do with this if I have time later.)

But, see caseless offers a simple solution for everyone here. You can just cut the top off the gigantic box of marshmallows. Put it in open stock and it's all good for everyone. Fulfillment just has to pick the one package. You just have to pull what you need in 1for1s. It works. And, of course it's not just marshmallows. It's all of those ridiculously large casepacks in market that creat headaches for fulfillment, which get transferred into headaches for market.

The real issue is that it doesn't make sense to have fulfillment pulling anything in market from the back unless the salesfloor is empty because FIFO. Something might be coming down the pipe about that before too long. It's being worked on.
 
qmosqueen said:
caseless eggs or caseless yogurt good luck on those expiration dates.
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Dairy, frozen, and produce still have cases in my store, since there's no real reason for them to be caseless because there's no fulfillment in those areas.
 
GRC said:
Dairy, frozen, and produce still have cases in my store, since there's no real reason for them to be caseless because there's no fulfillment in those areas.
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No fulfillment yet. And I do want to emphasize the yet. It's coming very soon. However, see my earlier post. For FIFO reasons once you get cold OPUs, fulfillment shouldn't be pulling that stuff from the back. So, you're good for casepacks as long as there is some of it on the floor.

Source: I'm in a pilot store. We're working out the kinks in the process right now. There are a lot of them naturally. But, corporate is very determined to jam this all through quickly kinks be damned.
 
GRC said:
Dairy, frozen, and produce still have cases in my store, since there's no real reason for them to be caseless because there's no fulfillment in those areas.
Click to expand...
Good point though I don't think anyone outside of the grocery wants to go into the coolers or freezers because it's cold. ;)
 
I was caseless and ladderless in dry and coolers/freezer with the he exception of some fresh meat and produce. It’s possible but you need excellent DBOs and routines around sfq, on hand accuracy and sto logic. Covid has def presented challenges! I have bulked up to 3 pallets of grocery and communicated to DSD, FBD and GVP, in hopes of a merch sweep. However we are still TO THE CEILING in snacks and no longer caseless. These higher ups are aware of what is being sent. Mysupport like crazy. Control what you can and communicate what you can’t control. Capitalize on holidays to “be bold” with displays to get out what snacks and condiments you can.
 
YugTegrat said:
I can consistently keep 100+ UPH for SFS and 80-90 UPH for OPU
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Bullshit. Pure bullshit. If you're going to inflate your numbers, at least keep them within reason. The Flash can't do that and neither can you. The only way that is possible is through consistently exploiting bugs in MPM's reporting or just having such an incredibly small sample size on some lucky batches that's it's meaningless. I mean sure, that's possible if you get nothing but candy or baby food batches. This week, for example, we're dealing with BOGOs on swim and sandles plus sales on women's T-shirts and some dresses, and quarantined items. Also, we have online only deals on patio, furniture and bedding. Get the fuck out of here with your 100+ UPH claims. LMFAO.

I will certainly admit to being biased in favor of fulfillment because I am fulfillment. But, I'm just being realisitic and somewhat political when writing that it's good to go caseless because fulfillment will inevitably mess up your backroom aisles. I did that because I was responding to a particular poster and didn't want to insult him.

Whatever though. The REAL reason for going caseless is because so many GM team members are lazy. They refuse to do things correctly. They get a casepack of freight and the majority of it won't go out? They don't open the casepack and just backstock the remainder. They just backstock that whole casepack. That fucks up the SFQs. Corporate tried to solve this problem by making 1for1s a thing. That should have made any thinking GMTM think twice and understand that doing things right would make less overall work for themselves and fill their shelves appropriately. Alas, that didn't work. Caseless removes any incentive GM has to not stock their frieght on the floor. It's a fulfillment issue only because fulfillment has to open the casepacks that lazy GMTMs didn't want to open. It's a waste of fulfillment's time to deal with it. And, in case you didn't notice, fulfillment is the company's current strategy for growth. Yes, things are going to be done to meet our needs because that's where increased profit can be found going forward. Deal with it. I promise you more things to make things easier for fulfillment are in the works because that's where our growth is. None of this would be necessary if GM just did things correctly. They don't. So changes have to be made.
 
seasonaldude said:
Bullshit. Pure bullshit. If you're going to inflate your numbers, at least keep them within reason. The Flash can't do that and neither can you. The only way that is possible is through consistently exploiting bugs in MPM's reporting or just having such an incredibly small sample size on some lucky batches that's it's meaningless. I mean sure, that's possible if you get nothing but candy or baby food batches. This week, for example, we're dealing with BOGOs on swim and sandles plus sales on women's T-shirts and some dresses, and quarantined items. Also, we have online only deals on patio, furniture and bedding. Get the fuck out of here with your 100+ UPH claims. LMFAO.

I will certainly admit to being biased in favor of fulfillment because I am fulfillment. But, I'm just being realisitic and somewhat political when writing that it's good to go caseless because fulfillment will inevitably mess up your backroom aisles. I did that because I was responding to a particular poster and didn't want to insult him.

Whatever though. The REAL reason for going caseless is because so many GM team members are lazy. They refuse to do things correctly. They get a casepack of freight and the majority of it won't go out? They don't open the casepack and just backstock the remainder. They just backstock that whole casepack. That fucks up the SFQs. Corporate tried to solve this problem by making 1for1s a thing. That should have made any thinking GMTM think twice and understand that doing things right would make less overall work for themselves and fill their shelves appropriately. Alas, that didn't work. Caseless removes any incentive GM has to not stock their frieght on the floor. It's a fulfillment issue only because fulfillment has to open the casepacks that lazy GMTMs didn't want to open. It's a waste of fulfillment's time to deal with it. And, in case you didn't notice, fulfillment is the company's current strategy for growth. Yes, things are going to be done to meet our needs because that's where increased profit can be found going forward. Deal with it. I promise you more things to make things easier for fulfillment are in the works because that's where our growth is. None of this would be necessary if GM just did things correctly. They don't. So changes have to be made.
Click to expand...

I totally get what you are saying. And it all makes sense. But. Having to backstock 50+ loose jars of mayo on a shelf using a ladder because all the lower shelves are full makes me want to say fuck that on the process.

Again though, what you say makes sense. It is just frustrating that to make fulfillment easier, others have to work harder. And, I know, there are other issues at play contributing to that as well. Eventually, maybe we will get there. 🤞🏻
 
SigningLady said:
Having to backstock 50+ loose jars of mayo on a shelf using a ladder because all the lower shelves are full makes me want to say fuck that on the process.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I get that. But, you having to do that is not what is wanted. I'm in a pilot store and that is not what we do. Cut off the top of the mayo case and you can put them in open stock as is. Visitors have never had a problem that we're doing it that way. Our current pilot project is all about market. The training for it specifically mentioned that grocery items shouldn't be left loose on the backroom shelves for food safety reasons. They need to be in wacos or in boxes to minimize any cross contamination or spillage issues.
 
seasonaldude said:
Yeah, I get that. But, you having to do that is not what is wanted. I'm in a pilot store and that is not what we do. Cut off the top of the mayo case and you can put them in open stock as is. Visitors have never had a problem that we're doing it that way. Our current pilot project is all about market. The training for it specifically mentioned that grocery items shouldn't be left loose on the backroom shelves for food safety reasons. They need to be in wacos or in boxes to minimize any cross contamination or spillage issues.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately my jars were from an endcap that came down and all the wacos are stuffed. It's a work in progress for sure.
 
For certain areas it's great. It was terrible for sporting goods and toys.

I remember our HB aisles were actually relatively empty and if they wanted to condense, they could have eliminated backroom sections G through R. My store's beauty team was solid.
 
YugTegrat said:
There's no justification for it as far as efficiency goes.
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Disclaimer: I've rarely had any experience with any of this stuff, other than the last 2 months while Starbucks is closed.

I think it's more efficient to get rid of cases right away.

With cases: you backstock the product when you receive it. Then, the next person who has to pull it (fulfillment, doing 1 for 1s, etc) has to pull the whole case, grab 1 item, and then backstock the rest, which means the item was backstocked, pulled, detrashed, and backstocked again.

Without cases: you detrash it, backstock the items, and then someone (fulfillment, 1 for 1s, etc) just grabs what they need.

In the first scenario, the product was touched 3 times in order to sell the item to a guest. In the second scenario, the product was touched twice in order to sell the item to a guest. It creates a lot more work when you initially receive the item, but it increases the efficiency and probably reduces mistakes.
 
Xanatos said:
Disclaimer: I've rarely had any experience with any of this stuff, other than the last 2 months while Starbucks is closed.

I think it's more efficient to get rid of cases right away.

With cases: you backstock the product when you receive it. Then, the next person who has to pull it (fulfillment, doing 1 for 1s, etc) has to pull the whole case, grab 1 item, and then backstock the rest, which means the item was backstocked, pulled, detrashed, and backstocked again.

Without cases: you detrash it, backstock the items, and then someone (fulfillment, 1 for 1s, etc) just grabs what they need.

In the first scenario, the product was touched 3 times in order to sell the item to a guest. In the second scenario, the product was touched twice in order to sell the item to a guest. It creates a lot more work when you initially receive the item, but it increases the efficiency and probably reduces mistakes.
Click to expand...
I agree. Backstocking something as a case instead of individual items creates more work for everyone but the initial backstocker. In Style we get things like socks and underwear that come packaged together in plastic bags, and I would be pissed if I were pulling one-for-ones and had to delocate a package and then relocate the items I didn't need. Even if they are kept in the case or package, items should be located individually.
 
seasonaldude said:
But, see caseless offers a simple solution for everyone here. You can just cut the top off the gigantic box of marshmallows. Put it in open stock and it's all good for everyone. Fulfillment just has to pick the one package. You just have to pull what you need in 1for1s. It works. And, of course it's not just marshmallows. It's all of those ridiculously large casepacks in market that creat headaches for fulfillment, which get transferred into headaches for market.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Haven't experienced this with marshmallows :) but I was helping out with SFS a lot in the weeks leading up to Easter. Having the boxes like this for packages of plastic eggs and grass and all that stuff made it easier. Well, except when I had to climb a ladder sixteen times for one cart's worth of orders because we haven't really made it the ladder-less back room yet. But I still think this is a good way to do it.
Otherwise, some of our SFS TMs will put the whole case on their cart. The packers were accumulating big piles of back stock.
As the DBO for personal care, I actually prefer taking product out of cases right away for everything except when I've got a major reset coming up and have a ton of new product. Even then, I'll usually unpack a case of each thing so SFS can access it more readily. Easier for everyone in the end.
 
qmosqueen said:
Wasn’t case less stock suppose to start at the DC ?!
Click to expand...

It will be expanding to 4 more DCs once travel restrictions are lifted. Saw it in an article a couple of days ago. They'll be using robots to sort everything into breakpacks by store aisle. They just can't install them right now.
 

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