Archived Plain Clothes RFID?

[Octavian11]

Anyone else have their team member scanning RFID report to work in plain clothes so that won't get interrupted as much by guests? My STL just instituted this at our store. We did this with team members for in store pick up during Q4, but this change was a little out of the ordinary. The best part is how I found out about it. I was covering the GSTLs lunch and a guest came up to the lanes to tell me that there was this "person waving around a Star Trek looking thingy" in the women's clothing and that they might be up to "no good". Sure enough, it was our in stocks RFID team member doing their thing in street clothes.

 

[ISMike]

Anyone else have their team member scanning RFID report to work in plain clothes so that won't get interrupted as much by guests? My STL just instituted this at our store. We did this with team members for in store pick up during Q4, but this change was a little out of the ordinary. The best part is how I found out about it. I was covering the GSTLs lunch and a guest came up to the lanes to tell me that there was this "person waving around a Star Trek looking thingy" in the women's clothing and that they might be up to "no good". Sure enough, it was our in stocks RFID team member doing their thing in street clothes.

I asked last week if I could do this moving forward for that exact reason and got denied at my store, sadly.

 

[Octavian11]

I can totally see the benefits of it, sorry your store won't let you do it!

 

[RightArm]

We don't have to have the plain clothes because we start our scan at 4am. By the time the store opens we are through one entire round and are just going back to the areas with high numbers to get them down as low as we can so we're green for the week. I can see how beneficial this would be, though, to stores who start after opening or very close to opening.

 

[HRZone]

Our instocks tm has to backup guest service and get call boxes. Definitely not allowed to do it plain clothes.

While it seems very practical I could imagine it going terribly wrong if you had a visit

 

[anathema]

We scan 6-8am, not sure why you'd need plainclothes for something that takes a short part of your shift.

 

[RightArm]

Because you're one of the lucky ones who can scan in 2 hrs and be green. Or maybe your counts are lower. I don't know. I just know that after 4 hours of scanning we're still not green and I do everything I can to move as quickly as possible. I think our zebras may be inferior in some way OR our wifi system is. Either way, we'd never be able to scan the whole store in 2 hours and be green. We could do it in 2 hrs BUT it wouldn't be green.

 

[redeye58]

Anyone else have their team member scanning RFID report to work in plain clothes so that won't get interrupted as much by guests?

Seems to defeat the purpose of moving away from overnight/early morning processes in order to have more TMs on the floor during business hours.

 

[pinkp2ie]

I'd love to do anything in plain clothes. I got to close hardline once in sorta plain clothes (black shirt, khaki) and i loved it. Wasn't during Q-4 too!

 

[anathema]

Not sure why, might be equipment issue or pathing issue. I've seen the report for even Super Targets, they get the scans done in under 3 hours. We average (B volume) around 2.25 which is below the threshold but has room for improvement. Some stores I've seen do it around 1.25 hours.

 

[Octavian11]

It seems like our scan is taking way, way too long then, because the ETL LOG specifically has me schedule this TM for a full 8 hour shift to do it. This is one area of logistics I'm not too familiar with yet. Going to ask my STL about all of it and the plain clothes thing on Monday.

 

[anathema]

I definitely would, those are hours that would be well saved. The e-mail came from our group director, maybe it's something your ETL/STL can get a hold of so you can see how your district performs. Couldn't hurt to e-mail your peers at other stores to see how they fare.

 

[RightArm]

I find the whole thing completely frustrating to be honest. What path do you run that gets you done in 2 hrs flat? I change the Zebra battery halfway through scanning and I keep a cable and external battery on the My Device but one of the issues I have is that I can enter an area and let it do its thing till it slows down to barely beeping but if you look at the numbers the misses are still very high for that area. If I go away and come back to it later the zebra will pick up more but then slow down to nothing again. Sometimes I enter an area two or three times to get it down to being green. I also wonder if time of day and lighting has anything to do with it because when the lights go up it seems to have a bit more life to it. So, beginning to think ours is very likely equipment issues.

 

[tinkerbell333]

On a side note, my STL showed off one of the new "My Devices" at huddle this week and they are Zebras as well. I think this makes sense going forward with RFID to have equipment that will hopefully "get along" with each other. It was also interesting to see that there is a handle that attaches to it that makes it look like a small PDA.

 

[HRZone]

It depends on how many units you have to scan so no two hours isn't reasonable for everyone.

 

[SFSFun]

Anyone else have their team member scanning RFID report to work in plain clothes so that won't get interrupted as much by guests?

No. Sometimes ours starts as early as 4am, sometimes as late as 7am. But we are always super dead on weekday mornings to it doesn't matter.

On a side note, my STL showed off one of the new "My Devices" at huddle this week and they are Zebras as well. I think this makes sense going forward with RFID to have equipment that will hopefully "get along" with each other. It was also interesting to see that there is a handle that attaches to it that makes it look like a small PDA.

The Zebras unfortunately still don't have checkpoint on them. We had to send back our iPods but we needed to keep two for the RFID readers.

 

[SrTLall]

It seems like our scan is taking way, way too long then, because the ETL LOG specifically has me schedule this TM for a full 8 hour shift to do it. This is one area of logistics I'm not too familiar with yet. Going to ask my STL about all of it and the plain clothes thing on Monday.

In a about a month RFID responsibilities fall on the SL team, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

[tinkerbell333]

The Zebras unfortunately still don't have checkpoint on them. We had to send back our iPods but we needed to keep two for the RFID readers.

Well that is just stupid & also very Target-like!

 

[Bosch]

You guys also have to remember that the physical location has a lot to do with how the zebra reads. My store is a nightmare. my ETL has done the scan on the days I have taken off and he no longer wonders why it takes so long. Dead spots in the store, just the physical lay out of the floor pad, shelves that block any signal so you have to pull off the product. The backroom isn't any better. We have valleys back there that you don't get any beeps halfway down the valley - nothing. You get a few if you swap to a fresh battery but three counts when the shelves are ready burst isn't helpful..

You walk through five times and five times you will get hits even if every time you stand there until the zebra falls silent walk through again with the gun at a different angle? yeah more hits..

Frustrating.

 

[redeye58]

Sounds like the network transponders are badly-placed or not working but someone should check the network signal strength throughout the store.

 

[Bosch]

Sounds like the network transponders are badly-placed or not working but someone should check the network signal strength throughout the store.

We have had them out so many times, we got upgraded a couple years ago it was worse. Now its just bad and everytime they screw with it, it gets worse so we don't screw with it anymore.

 

[SFSFun]

We're getting Verizon fiber installed this summer, which is supposed to make a difference for things like this.

 

[instockout]

We did it at my store for the first few weeks.. They saw me with the MyDevice and zebra and asked me questions anyway

 

[RightArm]

You guys also have to remember that the physical location has a lot to do with how the zebra reads. My store is a nightmare. my ETL has done the scan on the days I have taken off and he no longer wonders why it takes so long. Dead spots in the store, just the physical lay out of the floor pad, shelves that block any signal so you have to pull off the product. The backroom isn't any better. We have valleys back there that you don't get any beeps halfway down the valley - nothing. You get a few if you swap to a fresh battery but three counts when the shelves are ready burst isn't helpful..

You walk through five times and five times you will get hits even if every time you stand there until the zebra falls silent walk through again with the gun at a different angle? yeah more hits..

Frustrating.

Glad to hear from someone else whose having similar problems. Our scan runs like yours does. The last part drives me crazy ... in and out of an area so many times just to get the number down to green standards.

 

[Bosch]

Glad to hear from someone else whose having similar problems. Our scan runs like yours does. The last part drives me crazy ... in and out of an area so many times just to get the number down to green standards.

But they want a %100. Not happening until you get the perfect store and perfect media to scan.