Archived No overnight Flow for Fourth Quarter?

[smashandthrash]

Yes... They've been testing a store's functionality without a backroom. Single store test, though. Or so I've heard.

 

[SFSFun]

Dang, Spot isn't too smart!

The way they do it now is pretty standard and is smart in the sense that they can use every inch of available space in the trailers.

 

[PassinTime]

The way they do it now is pretty standard and is smart in the sense that they can use every inch of available space in the trailers.

Oh, ok so at least they are maxing space in the trailer and hopefully minimizing the number of trips to the stores each week.

 

[keynesian]

Having TMs on DC wages sort and palletize merchandice just doesn't seem like a good way to save money. Why pay someone at the DC 20$ what someone at the store can do for 10$?

TMs woudn't sort it, they would have to change how they pick it. Pick everything for a custom block, dept number, item type all at once, and then instead of loading the merchandise directly onto a trailer, they would shorten the conveyor belt, have an empty pallet at the edge of the trailer, and somebody would build pallets, and load them pallet by pallet.

I think the most efficient way of doing this would be to split up grocery from everything else - and have trailers make stops at multiple stores. For example, have a trailer loaded with food, hba, chem, paper, pets, baby hardlines, have pallets for two stores on them, and stop by one store to unload and then its other store. Then the following day, it could drop off everything for general merchandise, softlines, electronics, domestics, housewares, toys, sporting good, seasonal, on the other days. It would especially take the strain off 6am stores - if the merchandise was unloaded the day before, and you only took half a trailer's worth of merchandise every day, you could run the flow team with fewer people, you could work those people more days of the week, and you could give key performers on flow more hours on flow itself.

 

[tellmeaboutatime]

The PFresh store I am currently in will do more volume that the SuperTs in our district. Supers are overnight we cannot do it. Guest service will suffer. Yes you have more people on the floor but everyone is frantic about getting done. It can be done sure, but service will be much better, stores will be much cleaner, easier to shop and full if you go over night. Whatever
One store I was at actually had a mini team come in each night and unload the truck.At close they staged the pallets around the store. The early a.m. team came in and just stocked. In and out. It was as they like to say "thinking outside the box"

 

[BigEyedPhish]

thats gotta be the changes they are considering. It will make it more difficult to get through backstock if we aren't able to scan the trucks anymore, but if pallets showed up pre-wrapped and sorted we could just pull them off a truck and stage them on the salesfloor for the flow team to push.

That would throw a wrench in target's fuel savings costs though, you can't fit as much on a trailer if you're wrapping pallets and sorting them - plus you lose about 6 inches of vertical space off the entire trailer.

So this is why my Signing Pallets come in with dog food/Flour thrown all over them...

Love it.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

The PFresh store I am currently in will do more volume that the SuperTs in our district. Supers are overnight we cannot do it. Guest service will suffer. Yes you have more people on the floor but everyone is frantic about getting done. It can be done sure, but service will be much better, stores will be much cleaner, easier to shop and full if you go over night. Whatever
One store I was at actually had a mini team come in each night and unload the truck.At close they staged the pallets around the store. The early a.m. team came in and just stocked. In and out. It was as they like to say "thinking outside the box"

Not to mention injuries, I expect a sudden influx of guest injuries/lawsuits.

 

[Rock Lobster]

TMs woudn't sort it, they would have to change how they pick it. Pick everything for a custom block, dept number, item type all at once, and then instead of loading the merchandise directly onto a trailer, they would shorten the conveyor belt, have an empty pallet at the edge of the trailer, and somebody would build pallets, and load them pallet by pallet.

I think the most efficient way of doing this would be to split up grocery from everything else - and have trailers make stops at multiple stores. For example, have a trailer loaded with food, hba, chem, paper, pets, baby hardlines, have pallets for two stores on them, and stop by one store to unload and then its other store. Then the following day, it could drop off everything for general merchandise, softlines, electronics, domestics, housewares, toys, sporting good, seasonal, on the other days. It would especially take the strain off 6am stores - if the merchandise was unloaded the day before, and you only took half a trailer's worth of merchandise every day, you could run the flow team with fewer people, you could work those people more days of the week, and you could give key performers on flow more hours on flow itself.

The change I am talking about is more focused on stores than the DC, but I do agree the freight pallets do need to happen. Most people who come to Target from other retailers and open up one of our trailers ask if it got in a car accident on the way over and flipped a few times!!!

I do not have the numbers to support this change, however, I would think that we are likely not being productive with our supply chain. While on an individual store basis, I can see how the delivery method could save costs (we are squeezing as much as possible onto a trailer), the ability to segregate a trailer to multiple stores I would think would increase productivity and sales enough to off-set the loss of space.

Think of it this way. Your average ULV store takes 3 trailers/week at about 2100 pieces per truck. That is 6300 total pieces that needs to go to that store. Right now, the freight sits at the DC and gets bottle necked into a trailer (while its sitting there with product that triggered a few days prior). Meanwhile, the ULV store is staffing its non-truck days with BRTMs to pull and fill the floor since the product has not arrived. We then send the trailer to this store (whether the truck is full or not) for them to unload. They have to staff a full flow team (the same size as a full volume) since they assume its going to be a full trailer. This puts a staffing strain on the store to produce a large amount of people to work a truck, and then turn around and give them all the next day off.

If the freight could be segregated with pallets, they could be loaded onto the back of a trailer on an O/N or 4AM process truck. 6300/7 is 900 pieces per day. That is maybe 8-15 pallets depending on PIPO's and item sizes. You could just have a LOG leader at 6AM pull those pallets off and a small group in everyday to pull them out to the floor and just start working them out (especially if they could be by custom block, or even we could do more custom blocks and drill down each pallet to a smaller area and have more stacked pallets!)

Now, to rebuttal some downsides... The ULV store already has to bring in a LOG leader and a backroom team everyday to work the autofills (which are naturally not productive), and it would more closely resemble a just in time freight model. This means the additional staffing would be negligible. It would be more consistent day to day. The biggest downside I can spot is for any store that is FAR out of the way. If there is not another Target between the DC and the store receiving the delivery, there is little benefit to doing it this way, because then you are talking about a strict A to B get as much freight as possible on the truck scenario... but I doubt those stores are very numerous.