Archived Our flow process and questions for other stores flow team.

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Our regular schedule is 4AM, four trucks a week. Thee trucks at about 2500 (sometimes up to 2900) and one about 1500. No matter what the size of the truck is we always seem to be done unloading by 5:30.

2 throwers
1 scanner (TL or ETL)
1-2 TM pushing the line/pulling softlines, repacks, paper, plastics, and diapers
1-2 people doing breakout on the red repacks
4 people on the line
1 backstock
1 building cages/bowling chemicals/pets

The two throwers and another TM and I are the only unloading "veterans" left (we all have less than a year experience) and the rest are seasonal.

At 4:30 the rest of the team comes in, usually

1 puller
2 bowlers for market
1 babies
1 electronics
1 pushing domestic repacks
1-2 bowling/stocking HBA (A-Block)
(sometimes) 1 bowls domestics
4 TMs in softlines.
2-3 TMs pushing autofills

When the truck is done most of the people working the unload (4AM team) start the wave in HBA. The wave goes from HBA to zig-zaging through Paper/Chemicals and Market. One person will go to toys/sporting goods as soon as the unload is over, one usually goes to domestics, one TM does PIPO. The last month or so I've been helping out in Toys/Sporting goods as it's been pretty heavy.

We are lucky if the wave gets to Pets/Seasonal by 8. Usually there's a flat of automotive and 2 pallets of plastics left over. If market was exceptionally heavy there's some pets left over, and if toys was heavy there's a pallet of sporting goods left too. The whole truck would get pushed if the entire team stayed till their fifth, but a majority of us cant/don't want to.

When we were doing push all trucks during the summer every truck was unloaded by 5am and we were clean by 8, but we also had a team of experienced people.
 
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Our process is pretty crappy.. but we're getting a new ETL to improve our process (the old one quit ending of Nov).

We average around 2000-2400 RDC

4AM:
2 scanners
1 thrower
4 Push/2 backstock
1 BR TM pulling bulk from truck
2 repacks for entire store except HBA Lately it has only been one person.. usually separate 1s and combos while on the line
2 HBA repacks
6 BR TMs
2 SLs
1 bowling grocery

4:30AM:
2-3 bowling and working seasonal, sporting goods, toys
2-3 bowling and working chemical and paper

5:00AM:
We should be done with the truck.. lately it has been around 6:00AM
Most days we have ALL hands on deck pushing grocery except the ppl pushing chem, paper, sporting good, seasonal, and toys
Then we all break back off into our specialty area
The wave team continue on with home, furniture etc.. then stationary, then kitchen, then they work HBA carts (We separate our HBA freight at the end of the line into carts by custom blocks corresponding with the correct aisles.. something our old ETL implemented before she left)

8:00AM:
We're not done, not nearly closed to being done.
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Is it just our store or are you guys having a lot of residual freight? We still have an entire truck that we couldn't get to because we're still finishing up the truck the day before... and when we get back to work 12/26 oh boy.. I wanna quit now.
 
anonymousflowmember said:
2 hour unload is way too long. Why do you have two scanners and one thrower?
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Sorry about that. It suppose to be 2 throwers and 1 scanner.. most of the time it's 1 thrower and 1 scanner... as far as the unload time... hell if I know. After our ETL resigned Logistics has fallen. We have a fresh new TL trying to manage the entire LOG.. we're broken.
 
We average around 2200 -2500 for trucks, 200 - 350 repacks a day, generally 5 days a week. 3 days for FDC trailer also. Start time is at 4AM.


2 throwers
1 line pusher/bulk pallet puller
1 scanner
5 push side of the line
2 backstock side of line
3-4 bowlers
1 sorting repacks for all hardlines (save HBA) on floor
1 pulling/sorting HBA
3-4 in SLs sorting & Z-racks/pulling SLs pallets
4-5 BR TMs


5:30AM is supposedly our "goal" unload time for every truck. Bigger trucks take til now or longer. When we have smaller trucks (under 2000 pieces) they still take until 5:30AM. The breakout team moves at a snails pace and have no concept of where things go. Boxes are placed in completely wrong sections/aisles/broken when thrown constantly. The line gets backed up due to breakout and comes to a dead stop all the time. When breakout goes well, the people on the line are slow.
Around 6 everything is broken out onto the floor and things get going as far as the push.


5 in Grocery
1 in Paper/Chemicals
5 in Hardlines
1 working on the dock
2 working repacks for all hardlines (save HBA)
2 working HBA
1 in Cosmetics
4-5 working in SLs
4-5 BR TMs


We don't work in a wave anymore because most of the time everyone just talked and things always came up short. This "new" process doesn't seem much better because there is no accountability. No emphasis on working clean or organized. Break is never a 15 but more of a 20 or 25.


At 8AM when the store opens there are boxes still on the floor across the store. Generally one focus area is completely pushed and the others are on the way to being complete. Areas not broken out (Babies, Pets, Mini, One Spot) are left.


9AM is when most of the team leaves. HBA still not finished. Babies/Pets left half worked. Backstock tubs sitting on the floor until the backroom comes to get them. On a good day we may have gotten out of softlines and had them move into Mini.


Some days it takes until the middle of the afternoon to get everything pushed. Backroom is understandibly behind due to the flow process. I can't even go into how bad it is on a FDC day because this would go on and on. Things used to be better before our new set of TL/ETL-LOG.
 
I am no longer working flow at all and have been quite a confused observer. I thought that when working the wave that ALL tm's were supposed to push an entire area and then move on to the next. We have little "specialty" teams that push certain areas and nothing is ever completely finished until after 8 am. As an IS team member this makes me absolutely crazy! We should be able to start scanning the first completed area (pulls, repack, freight, leftover reshop) at 6:30 and follow the flow team to have completed our task list at 11. At this point we MIGHT be able to start scans at 8:30 and still have to finish by 11. This is just not a realistic time frame for scanning. When did the wave go out the window and why haven't they updated the Instocks role? It sucks to go to work every day knowing that you will be held accountable for completing work that you should have at least 2 more hours to do and will never be successful. Mini-rant over.
 
I understand not having an experienced flow team, we're going through it now. We used to crush unload times and be first in the district as far as unload speed went, but a bunch of people left and we were struggling to beat 2 hour unloads when it should be done in 1:15. I can tell you that your line should never come to a full stop, it should be a constant struggle between your unloaders and the people on the line to keep the line full/keeping it clear. When the unloaders get a few panels into the truck, someone should be a "runner" and push the line up to start of the line for the scanner. It should be easy to spot what's slowing things down, it's either slow people or a bad pallet layout.

Flow comes down to personal accountability. If it's getting bad, your TL should give everyone timelines and note the timelines for each areas. Missing too many timelines should be a coaching, really. One of our ETLs said that we should be in a "always hiring" mode, meaning we should be prepared to cycle people out if they're not cut out of the pace of the work.

As for waving, it depends on the size of your team. The wave doesn't need to be a whole team but you should be able to comfortably have 2-3 people bowl and crush an area like chems in more than half the timeline. Timelines are very important unless you happen to be working off vehicles past 8AM. Then they're dick and a way for ETLs to bother you about being "too slow".

OH, also, we have front-end work our X-spot. Same with CL and X-spot pulls. I'm not sure if we're just lucky or what, but we pass the buck on that.
 
invictustaylor said:
I think it's bs and that the people getting a 2000 + piece truck done in 4 hours or less are spreading propaganda.
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We could do that if we didn't get 250+ repacks a day, and those repacks are always terrible we get sorta HBA/Pharm repacks which would be nice if they were pre-sorted and we then get repacks that is mostly home/stationary but will always include random other crap. My fav is when they shove everything into a repack box and circle as many numbers as possible. Wasting way too much time sorting the repacks in attempts to save steps because they're too difficult to push out of box.
 
semantics said:
We could do that if we didn't get 250+ repacks a day, and those repacks are always terrible we get sorta HBA/Pharm repacks which would be nice if they were pre-sorted and we then get repacks that is mostly home/stationary but will always include random other crap. My fav is when they shove everything into a repack box and circle as many numbers as possible. Wasting way too much time sorting the repacks in attempts to save steps because they're too difficult to push out of box.
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I don't think they had as many repacks when that was posted 4 years ago.
 
SFSFun said:
I don't think they had as many repacks when that was posted 4 years ago.
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I do like that the CEO was complaining about how as a company, we stock our freight at a much lower rate (cartons/hour) than most other retailers. I thought to myself, "No, Shit... You send 270+ repacks on a 2100 piece truck and its usually all slamming the same area! 270 cartons that are mixed up boxes that we have to sort slows down the average carton time quite a bit"
 
If your store starts at 6AM and your store is not unloading trucks in at least a rate of 33 cartons/minute (basically a 2000 piece truck in 1 hour), you're going to be in a heap of trouble because you'll never be able to stock enough priority 1 before guests start shopping. Your store is doing 1 of 2 things wrong: poor accountability or not enough people involved in your unload.

For those saying your 6AM store regularly get 2600-2900 pieces? Seriously? Unless your truck has zero PIPO and all HBA, is that even possible?
 
Really ::🙂))) wow you guys....do things a little different......
At my store we started the new process.... Let's see we had a 3900 piece truck.... started at 4:30 am for the essential team members..... everyone else 5:30 & 6:00 am. And a long story Short. Yes the ( team ) got it dun by 1 pm. In addition to...exf...& manuals.... Plus the 3900 piece truck....we have 1 TM doing the unload and just 2 TM on the line..... everyone ells has a department...and we also clean up each department ( reshop)....& Zone....scan.....all outs....drop.....the exf batch.....and....drop manual batches....
 
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My store is overnight and we start the truck at 10pm. Usually two throwers, two people pushing the line, one scanner, and about 9-10 people on the line., and two people pulling pallets. Our trucks range anywhere from 1600 to 2500 pieces. We usually finish by 12am, later if there are call outs. Everyone then takes a 30 minute break when the truck(s) are finished. Then we all get assigned to an area to work on. 2:30am is 45 minute lunch for everyone. Back on the floor by 3:20am. If someone finishes their section early, we get sent to help somewhere else in the store. And then we leave at 6am, sometimes 7.
 
So our store no longer does HBA breakout into carts, which used to be done by two people in the morning and then 4 people would push them for each area~ish, 1 person for A and E, 1 person for O, 1 person for B and one person for C and D.

Now I have the sole responsibility of separating and pushing A,B, O and E while another team member does C and D. This past Saturday, which had 200 repacks in total and case stock was 1300, it took me 10 hours, so 2hrs more than my scheduled time, to completely finish my repacks. I’ve started mini-sorting in hopes of being more efficient, which is kinda like sorting stuff by each aisle and then putting those on a tub and working off of that since I’ve been forbidden from using a cart, (although flow now uses them to push case stock) which is much easier than carrying one repack and having to work from solely that one until it was finished.

I feel useless and frustrated that I can’t finish sooner and was hoping if anyone has any suggestions on how to be more efficient.
 
Need some clarification - do you sort 200 repacks by yourself each truck day? I've sorted repacks for hard line, soft lines, and HBA. Seems like a lot for one person to sort that many repacks alone and push all the product, even with one other person, in one shift.
Also, what's O block at your store? It's Men's soft lines at mine, and that stuff comes with the other soft lines, or at least it used to. It's been a while since I've broken out those repacks.
 
When this thread was posted I was at my last job, probably melting down and raging at the boss in his face for not having any help. Those were the days.

I've sorted 280 repacks by myself, once, and it took 5 hours. Fucking sucked, and I made sure to raise a stink about it (by barging into the STL's office while he was meeting with the ETLs) so it wouldn't happen again. I feel like I could've trimmed at least an hour off that time if the Zebra wasn't dropping the WLAN connection every few minutes and taking ~30 seconds per scan to bring up each item. Hey corporate, fix yo shit. This is like the iPods redux.

I still don't get as much repack help as I need, though, which is frustrating. It's weird because leadership doesn't seem to care that the breakout takes longer than it needs to, when I'd expect the exact opposite. They shrug when I spend most of an 8 hour shift pushing in two blocks and leave the rest on the line. No feedback about it during reviews. Hmmph.
 
I'm seeing all these 2 people in truck 3 trucks a week 20+ tm and I'm jealous at my store we have average 2000-2300 piece trucks we have 1 person in the truck 1 kinda pushing boxes and doing half of back of line 1 more person on that side 3 or 4 on front side and thats it...we start unload at 4am people come in at 430 to take things off the line as they fill up and push and backstock them and repeat bit we only have like 3 or 4 people at most doing that...no room on back side so when we fill up we are screwed noone is allowed to push back side during unload we usually have like 2 extra vehicles of we are lucky to get us through entire unload so everyday the person that comes in early for us 330 to set up line usually has to clear half of completly untouched market uboats like 8 flats off back side of line and than set up with barely enough or not enough vehicles...for some reason we take 7 trucks a week theres no room to bresthe in the backroom all backstock isles are full we unload truck from 4-7 on good day and everyone leaves at 8 or 830.....and we are moving to 6am soon apparently. TRUST THE PROCESS
 
Ihatemyjob7 said:
I'm seeing all these 2 people in truck 3 trucks a week 20+ tm and I'm jealous at my store we have average 2000-2300 piece trucks we have 1 person in the truck 1 kinda pushing boxes and doing half of back of line 1 more person on that side 3 or 4 on front side and thats it...we start unload at 4am people come in at 430 to take things off the line as they fill up and push and backstock them and repeat bit we only have like 3 or 4 people at most doing that...no room on back side so when we fill up we are screwed noone is allowed to push back side during unload we usually have like 2 extra vehicles of we are lucky to get us through entire unload so everyday the person that comes in early for us 330 to set up line usually has to clear half of completly untouched market uboats like 8 flats off back side of line and than set up with barely enough or not enough vehicles...for some reason we take 7 trucks a week theres no room to bresthe in the backroom all backstock isles are full we unload truck from 4-7 on good day and everyone leaves at 8 or 830.....and we are moving to 6am soon apparently. TRUST THE PROCESS
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The difference is when this thread was made flow/backroom still existed and owned all freight in store and had a massive 20+ team
Now we have 5 tm inbound to unload and general merchandise teams that owns all aspects of there area of the store
 
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