OPU Hold Space

[ServiceEngagment]

Hey Guys!
So Drive Ups are getting out of control where we need 5 plus team members to be doing strictly prepping and taking out drive-ups to try to stay under two minutes, the MC room always becomes a total mess with the fulfillment team not located or bagging anything properly after multiple counts of discussing with them as well the leads. I want to reset the Mobile Cart room but just need ideas. Is anyone able to give me some ideas on what I should do or send me pics of how yours is laid out.

 

[azure]

Just do it in some logical order and make sure your ETL is ok with it and be careful. All MC rooms are different sizes so it’s not gonna be helpful if we tell you ours. It should just go A B C D... in some row. If a fulfillment team member messes up save the sticker and talk with your ETL about it. Do this when it’s calm. If there is enough room in your main hold room you could also get rid of your MC it’s just a waste of time. Talk with your ETL and the fulfillment ETL about this. If you want to see who messed up the order search the order in myhelp and put the team member number who picked the order in workbench search bar with 00 before it.

 

[ServiceEngagment]

Just do it in some logical order and make sure your ETL is ok with it and be careful. All MC rooms are different sizes so it’s not gonna be helpful if we tell you ours. It should just go A B C D... in some row. If a fulfillment team member messes up save the sticker and talk with your ETL about it. Do this when it’s calm. If there is enough room in your main hold room you could also get rid of your MC it’s just a waste of time. Talk with your ETL and the fulfillment ETL about this. If you want to see who messed up the order search the order in myhelp and put the team member number who picked the order in workbench search bar with 00 before it.

that's what i have been doing but the fulfillment team as well their ETL doesn't seem to understand or care we are coming from. I have been saving the stickers as well mysupporting the opu to check who did and it has come to the point where our SD is now involved. every day the wacos are all filled with orders its just we need organizational skills for fulfillment

 

[gracefulfillment]

If the fulfillment lead / ETL don't care, there's not a whole lot you can do. See if you can get them to try doing drive up while its busy so they can understand why their process errors are hurting your team.

 

[ServiceEngagment]

If the fulfillment lead / ETL don't care, there's not a whole lot you can do. See if you can get them to try doing drive up while its busy so they can understand why their process errors are hurting your team.

during high peak times our SD and ETL HR jump in to help us as well figure out where the payroll needs to go and what needs to be fixed, its a slow process but we are trying to work on it

 

[seasonaldude]

that's what i have been doing but the fulfillment team as well their ETL doesn't seem to understand or care we are coming from. I have been saving the stickers as well mysupporting the opu to check who did and it has come to the point where our SD is now involved. every day the wacos are all filled with orders its just we need organizational skills for fulfillment

What are the issues that you are seeing? My ETL stopped caring about complaints from guest services a long time ago because the complaints are almost always something that nothing can be done about. We'd love to be able to only have one order per waco and to stow an entire order within one four foot section. At current volume, however, that's impossible. The hold space is too full for that by mid-morning and it doesn't get cleared out until the evening drive-up rush. Guest services also loves to complain about bags being too heavy, some TMs putting too many items in a bag, and conversely some TMs using too many bags. Those boil down to judgement calls and preferences. Unless, it's very blantantly bad there's not much to be done there.

If GS would focus on things like hitting reprint, not labeling every bag/item, putting chem with food, then something could be done. But, everytime, we tell GS to let us know about those issues we hear very little about it and get a flood about the other stuff above. So, we stop listening.

Thus, my advice is to focus on issues that fulfillment can fix and only go to the ETL with that stuff. You'll get further if you do.

 

[StyleStar]

In my store we made all flex team members do at least 2.5-3 hours in drive up, since then we have notuced them stowing orders neater, not hitting reprint etc.

 

[Priceslasher]

In my store we made all flex team members do at least 2.5-3 hours in drive up, since then we have notuced them stowing orders neater, not hitting reprint etc.

Yussss! I also think it would be eye opening to shift all parties involved. Productivity may go down for a few hours but way worth it in the long run. I suspect a possible morale change, and less complaining more teamwork.

 

[DBZ]

In my store we made all flex team members do at least 2.5-3 hours in drive up, since then we have noticed them stowing orders neater, not hitting reprint etc.

I've been cross trained in fulfillment. It has reduced my complaining by 90%! I've also been able to teach people how to create a label for each box/case of whatever. There was even a TL who didn't know!

 

[azure]

One thing I did at my store to help fix the reprint problem is making signs saying not to do it. I printed like 5 signs I made that said “NEVER reprint stickers unless the original sticker doesn’t print.” Then in smaller font I said “Reprinting stickers causes bags and items to get missed causing major problems and we lose $10 dollars every time it happens. It can also mess up RTS. When you reprint a sticker to have multiply stickers it shows in the system there is only one bag/item in that location. Please don’t ever press the reprint sticker button unless the original sticker doesn’t print.” This fixed our problem quickly and whenever it did happen we would talk with our ETL and the fulfillment TL. I will find the document I made and send it here later.

 

[sunnydays]

signs have done absolutely nothing for us which is why we're moving to documented performance conversations and eventually corrective actions for fulfillment team members who can't do their jobs correctly

 

[azure]

I will show you my sign just give me a little to find it but if you make it right it will mostly work. Talk to the fulfillment trainers about not reprinting as well. They are the ones you need to teach the most.

 

[azure]

You should also talk with all the fulfillment team members on your own and actually explain the problems and tell them what not to do and what they should do. For example if you said don’t put the same sticker on multiple bags they won’t know what your talking about. Show them a example and literally show then the reprint button and say never press this button unless the original sticker doesn’t print. Explain how it causes problems.

 

[seasonaldude]

I will show you my sign just give me a little to find it but if you make it right it will mostly work. Talk to the fulfillment trainers about not reprinting as well. They are the ones you need to teach the most.

How can the trainers possibly not know? It's been a rule since September 2019.

 

[azure]

How can the trainers possibly not know? It's been a rule since September 2019.

They may have heard it but forgot it or don’t realize what it meant. They are the ones that say what fulfillment team member should and shouldn’t do. If it’s a massive problem with multiple people then they are being taught wrong or not told not to do it. Talking to the trainers and really emphasizing not to use the reprint sticker button and ask them to talk with other fulfillment team members. Ask them when they train people to tell them not to use it because it’s a massive problem that’s costing the store hundreds of problems and creating multiple messes. They are the ones that can stop it from getting worse and can partly fix the problem.

 

[sunnydays]

You should also talk with all the fulfillment team members on your own and actually explain the problems and tell them what not to do and what they should do. For example if you said don’t put the same sticker on multiple bags they won’t know what your talking about. Show them a example and literally show then the reprint button and say never press this button unless the original sticker doesn’t print. Explain how it causes problems.

we have. they do not care, hence why disciplinary action is necessary and why i'm very excited to dish out some correctives

 

[seasonaldude]

They may have heard it but forgot it or don’t realize what it meant. They are the ones that say what fulfillment team member should and shouldn’t do. If it’s a massive problem with multiple people then they are being taught wrong or not told not to do it. Talking to the trainers and really emphasizing not to use the reprint sticker button and ask them to talk with other fulfillment team members. Ask them when they train people to tell them not to use it because it’s a massive problem that’s costing the store hundreds of problems and creating multiple messes. They are the ones that can stop it from getting worse and can partly fix the problem.

Interesting. I'm a pacesetter. We definitely have reprint problems at my store. But, everyone knows they better not do it in front of me or there will be a tongue lashing. If I caught a trainer doing it, I'd have a fit. Everyone at my store knows, it's getting them to care enough to do it right everytime that's an issue.

 

[azure]

Interesting. I'm a pacesetter. We definitely have reprint problems at my store. But, everyone knows they better not do it in front of me or there will be a tongue lashing. If I caught a trainer doing it, I'd have a fit. Everyone at my store knows, it's getting them to care enough to do it right everytime that's an issue.

It may not be a trainer but all trainers need to heavily express not to do it when training someone. If you want to see who does it ask your service desk for the stickers when someone does it. Search the order in myhelp and then search the tm number who picked the order in workday with 00 in front. I don’t think I’ve seen a sticker reprint problem in like 2 months at my store. I started making lists of all the people that did it and would give it to the fulfillment team lead or etl and after like 6 months it stopped happening. It was the best decision I ever made. We went from missing up 2-6 orders a day to 1 a month. We are also like top 5 busiest stores so if we can do it everyone should be able to. Just make sure everyone at the service desk knows to save the sticker for you or have everyone at the service desk know when it happens to talk to a fulfillment TL or ETL. It sucks to snitch but it causes so many problems and saying nothing will just cause the problem to keep happening. Keeping track of every time it happened and making sure the person who did it gets talked to every time gets it fixed.

 

[ClosingQueen]

I only jump into OPU when I absolutely have to but if I screw up, think scan all items to put in bag and realize I need 2 bags, I reprint and write 1 of 2 and 2 of 2. Doesn't happen often.

 

[seasonaldude]

I only jump into OPU when I absolutely have to but if I screw up, think scan all items to put in bag and realize I need 2 bags, I reprint and write 1 of 2 and 2 of 2. Doesn't happen often.

You shouldn't scan, then bag to avoid that. Scan an item, put it in the bag, then onto the next. Don't rely on driveup TMs taking the time to read.

 

[MrT]

In my store we have a binder that they put the labels in if there is something wrong, with a description next to it. It is pretty hard to be able to check who did something wrong on the spot and it allowed me to be able to go over and check the binder when i had free time. Like on lunch break 🤣. It doesn't catch everything but if you notice the same people show up over and over then obviously there is an issue.
Side note about the reprint problem. I asked my F&B TL and my Closing TL to talk with a SFS tm that pretty much only works nights so i didn't see them often to coach them on reprinting and they both didn't know that was a thing so that was fun.

 

[Lights]

My store is in the middle of another remodel that will take a couple of months to make room for more OPU space. We have one OPU stockroom now. The one OPU stock room is being expanded to twice its size, taking over our current TL office space and equipment room. Then we're taking our smallest stockroom, which currently holds all of our Hearth and Hand, candle, and some HOME items and converting that into a whole other OPU room. Finally we're taking half of our 2nd smallest stockroom which currently holds HIPA, Small appliances, and the rest of the HOME items and converting that into the new TL offices. Where the heck is all that merchandise being move to I have no idea LOL. Actually I take that last one back because everything will most likely have to be moved to our offsite warehouse a couple blocks away where we currently hold our bulk merchandise, sporting goods, and luggage. We make multiple trips a day to and from that warehouse and we have our own offsite team. Our store was built in 1994 and slowly but surely our backroom space has been dwindling with every remodel. They added the backroom refrigeration and freezer coolers years after opening the store which took over a shitload of space and now I'm hearing eventually the coolers will have to be expanded because we're running out of space to backstock in there. This is going to be our 3rd or 4th remodel in 10 years.

 

[Yetive]

I would lobby to have TL offices moved to the off-site. 😉😜

 

[Bosch]

I only jump into OPU when I absolutely have to but if I screw up, think scan all items to put in bag and realize I need 2 bags, I reprint and write 1 of 2 and 2 of 2. Doesn't happen often.

I fill one bag create label stow it then move on to the second bag each one in a different waco. Takes longer but GS doesn't miss bags that way.

 

[Amanda Cantwell]

In my store we made all flex team members do at least 2.5-3 hours in drive up, since then we have notuced them stowing orders neater, not hitting reprint etc.

This is so smart I wish all store do this. Just one shift on drive up and they would understand why proper labeling is so important