Archived Project Viper

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jenna said:
Yes, but who's pulling those outs?

How many team members will say "I'm in the backroom, is someone else closer that can backup cashier?" - and then ignore the backup calls? What happens to the areas of the team members who actually do answer the back up calls?

What happens when a couple of busy days go by, and very few outs are shot? ie see the weekend.

And autofills aren't pulling stuff for market or other high traffic areas {toys, video games, movies?}
cue a backroom that's full, while floor is getting emptied I actually see that fairly often now in just PFresh. I have had to pull 4-5 items out of the back that were completely empty on the floor. That rarely used to happen.

You get 1-2 weak tms in PFresh and the system falls apart (purging, culling, stocking, rotating product ala FIFO, zoning, signing, vibing, re-shopping.) What happens when you get 1-2 weak tms through out the store when executing Viper?

How many guests are going to bother to ask a TM to look in the back for an item not on the shelf v. just not buying the item? How many more OUTS will we have once Autofills go away? And at least CAFS are getting the items onto vehicles that will eventually be worked. No CAFS = not automatically filling the floor in some areas that are high traffic like HBA and Market. You enter the human element into the system = more room for errors.

I have had several market pulls where there's very little backstock. And HBA. Can't sell what's sitting in the backroom.

What do you think is going to happen to the number of errors in the backroom once EVERYONE starts pulling their own outs batches?

You honestly think the team is going to get bulked up on payroll? hahaha. After 4Q, it will be a ghost town.
Click to expand...

This describes my thoughts perfectly, thank you.
 
jenna said:
Ha! Welcome to the hell that is channel one, StackerMistress. ;)
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One of the stores I did support help for makes their backroom stay on channel one. Channel 1 is bad enough at a high volume store, adding backroom calls to it made it a nightmare.
 
Backroom81 said:
jenna said:
Ha! Welcome to the hell that is channel one, StackerMistress. ;)
Click to expand...

One of the stores I did support help for makes their backroom stay on channel one. Channel 1 is bad enough at a high volume store, adding backroom calls to it made it a nightmare.
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Nope! Not going to happen! If my store ever tries to do this, my walkie will always have a dead battery! There's NO WAY I can handle 'OK guys, how many guests are saving 5% today?' or 'OMG so and so just got us another readcard! WOOOHOOO!' every 5 minutes.
 
Let me describe channel one at my store. It's a mix of the following:

Heavier-set white girl (fitting room operator) who announces a call for hardlines, waits three seconds, announces it again, waits three seconds, and then starts getting bitchy when nobody picks it up within ten seconds and nobody has a chance to actually say "I've got the call". Also she can't speak clearly.

Black woman (fitting room operator) who does the same thing as white girl, but can speak clearly.

Black woman (fitting room operator) who screeches everything on the walkie.

Crazy old white woman (shoes/sometimes mens) who has been here for two years and still can't remember what we sell. And still can't remember where the napkins are, or anything else for that matter. Also she can't speak clearly.

About 50 calls from anybody in the store who is getting an item for guest services and trying to find out if it's the right one, but can't because guest services doesn't answer their fucking walkie.

"Fast service needed in domestics. Second request, 15 seconds remaining who is responding?" and immediately after: "The request has been cl-" At this point the walkie explodes with every TL and ETL asking who is going to get the call, and they therefore cannot hear that it just cleared. And don't seem to think that the others will ask if someone got it.

"oath2order can you do X"
 
oath2order said:
Let me describe channel one at my store. It's a mix of the following:

Heavier-set white girl (fitting room operator) who announces a call for hardlines, waits three seconds, announces it again, waits three seconds, and then starts getting bitchy when nobody picks it up within ten seconds and nobody has a chance to actually say "I've got the call". Also she can't speak clearly.

Black woman (fitting room operator) who does the same thing as white girl, but can speak clearly.

Black woman (fitting room operator) who screeches everything on the walkie.

Crazy old white woman (shoes/sometimes mens) who has been here for two years and still can't remember what we sell. And still can't remember where the napkins are, or anything else for that matter. Also she can't speak clearly.

About 50 calls from anybody in the store who is getting an item for guest services and trying to find out if it's the right one, but can't because guest services doesn't answer their fucking walkie.

"Fast service needed in domestics. Second request, 15 seconds remaining who is responding?" and immediately after: "The request has been cl-" At this point the walkie explodes with every TL and ETL asking who is going to get the call, and they therefore cannot hear that it just cleared. And don't seem to think that the others will ask if someone got it.

"oath2order can you do X"
Click to expand...

Or I love "is on the floor?" asked to repeat "Is on the floor?" and - dude all we are hearing is "is on the floor" please take a breath before speaking after hitting the button. So now we just ask who? Is isn't hear today but is in.. Drives this guy batshit and its beautiful.
 
jenna said:
Yes, but who's pulling those outs?

How many team members will say "I'm in the backroom, is someone else closer that can backup cashier?" - and then ignore the backup calls? What happens to the areas of the team members who actually do answer the back up calls?

What happens when a couple of busy days go by, and very few outs are shot? ie see the weekend.

And autofills aren't pulling stuff for market or other high traffic areas {toys, video games, movies?}
cue a backroom that's full, while floor is getting emptied I actually see that fairly often now in just PFresh. I have had to pull 4-5 items out of the back that were completely empty on the floor. That rarely used to happen.

You get 1-2 weak tms in PFresh and the system falls apart (purging, culling, stocking, rotating product ala FIFO, zoning, signing, vibing, re-shopping.) What happens when you get 1-2 weak tms through out the store when executing Viper?

How many guests are going to bother to ask a TM to look in the back for an item not on the shelf v. just not buying the item? How many more OUTS will we have once Autofills go away? And at least CAFS are getting the items onto vehicles that will eventually be worked. No CAFS = not automatically filling the floor in some areas that are high traffic like HBA and Market. You enter the human element into the system = more room for errors.

I have had several market pulls where there's very little backstock. And HBA. Can't sell what's sitting in the backroom.

What do you think is going to happen to the number of errors in the backroom once EVERYONE starts pulling their own outs batches?

You honestly think the team is going to get bulked up on payroll? hahaha. After 4Q, it will be a ghost town.
Click to expand...

1. Of course it takes coordination to make sure your entire salesfloor isn't in the backroom, but its the same amount of coordination that it takes to make sure the line is cleared. The LOD does not have to constantly check the line or check with the BR and be back there pulling when the noons drop and there are 45 batches. Instead they just check in with the team that is on the floor.

2. What happens when your trucks are not done and Instocks doesn't get a chance to scan? Does this mean we should just not have an Instocks process at all? If you are judging the processes by every possible thing that could go wrong, then nothing makes sense.

3. There are two points here. One is high traffic areas/ad items needing more attention. This is obvious. However, you should assign your team to areas that are high traffic anyway for guest service. This is how you get great vibe scores. If Toys is going crazy you should have a TM over there specifically to shoot outs constantly. Your second point is items in the backroom. This is a different issue. This is an example of your accumulator not working for you, and you having to step in to correct the problem. This is a point FOR viper, since you had to check on the items anyway and we spend hours for Instocks to double check, what is the point in having the accumulator in the first place?

4. Define "weak tm"... Again we are talking about shooting outs. If the TM is not capable of executing one more expectation then the area will look like crap with or without viper.

5. Again, Viper is not designed to be reactive in that way. You don't wait for the guest to ask you to scan the item. In fact, you have already provided examples of this occurring under CAFs. Viper is scanning things that are out or low consistently throughout the day.

My final point is that nobody is understanding the change itself. Again, these issues are consistent under CAFs or VIPER. The ONLY question that matters is would the payroll be better spent under VIPER or CAFs? How many errors occur in the CAFs due to issues within the accumulator? If it is an error rate that is large enough, the practice becomes counter productive. We already know that there is a team specifically made to scan the outs in the store as is, and we still find errors on our own. The CAFs are not catching everything, and the things they do are not "just in time" and are often times filling only a few items at a time to keep an already full shelf full. Viper simplifies the process.
 
#2 No more in In-Stocks team, so no one to care.. No big deal the sales floor can push the truck and then back stock it, then scan for outs. So win for Flow team not having to actually ever get a truck done. They don't have to since they don't have to worry about being clean so In-Stocks can scan.

#3 It may be obvious to put TM's where guests are shopping but you should tell the ETLs that. Last year and this year with this mid-day zone would be a golden opportunity to get vibe scores through the roof, but ETLs would rather gossip with each other while doing a half ass zone on the opposite side of the store. Last year I was told I was crazy for suggesting that mid day would do a huge amount of guest service good to have mid day in toys, wasn't needed. But for me to push my small toys research pull took me an hour with all the guest traffic and questions.

#4. Weak team members: You have those of us who can and do understand product flow in and out of the store and the sidetracks it takes sometimes. There are team members who do not care to know if that empty shelf of paper towels is probably a unallocated pallet in bulk steel. They just zero it out and move on, they don't care to know that toy is on an end-cap and its full but your in-line shelf is empty or vice versa. Or the ones who just don't care cause they are being run ragged by back up calls. Or the ones who work select days so they never have the chance to really learn an area and its quirks since they just get scheduled all over the place never having a chance to actually learn an area.

Then add in the ones who are just lazy, or even good TM's that just don't want to climb up and down ladders or use the Wave(me being one of them for valid reason).

And again for this to work and work right it will take hours and training, neither of which I have any faith in getting. Cause you can't be in the back pulling your batches while the GSTL and every ETL is screaming for back up every 5 min. Which in my store for the last 6 months, if I don't shut my radio off, I will not get anything done. As it is on bigger PTM projects we have to rotate which of the three of us backs up, cause without fail the minute one of us comes back the call comes to back up again.

A lot of things are going to have to change on a base level of mindset for the entire company, and again I have no faith in it being supported the way it needs to be.
 
I am saying that if you take away the CAFs - you increase the likelihood for more OUTS. More OUTS mean empty shelves. Do you think a tm can consistently scan every OUT in their zone?

And, yes, high traffic areas should have someone shooting OUTS constantly - but will that actually happen? "All team members not with a guest are needed to back up cashier." "It's time for Freshness Friday" or "Candy order Thursday." Nevermind all the guests that need help in those areas.

Have you seen the toy zone on a crazy weekend? How would you even find the OUTS when it's a mess?
 
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jenna said:
I am saying that if you take away the CAFs - you increase the likelihood for more OUTS. More OUTS mean empty shelves. Do you think a tm can consistently scan every OUT in their zone?

And, yes, high traffic areas should have someone shooting OUTS constantly - but will that actually happen? "All team members not with a guest are needed to back up cashier." "It's time for Freshness Friday" or "Candy order Thursday." Nevermind all the guests that need help in those areas.

Have you seen the toy zone on a crazy weekend? How would you even find the OUTS when it's a mess?
Click to expand...

And of course if a team member knows the more they shoot means the more they also have to pull then push then in many cases they are going to shoot less because who wants to create more work for themselves. Test store have people watching over you all the time to make sure your doing what your suppose to but, in a real store not so much.

In the end Viper will not help or hurt things without a huge change in the way the company thinks. Viper will not work without more payroll just as Target old systems no longer work. When payroll was around they worked fine.
 
Bosch said:
even good TM's that just don't want to climb up and down ladders or use the Wave(me being one of them for valid reason).
Click to expand...

omg I didn't even think of that one. Every person would have to learn how to use the equipment. That is a horrifying thought. Not to mention that so many people are scared of heights, or can't grab a heavy box off the top shelf... ugh. There is a reason no one in my store is cross-trained to the backroom (except for a small handful of Flow TMs).
 
Top shelf half the time I can not reach stuff on the top. It stays there cause I don't have the reach to get even my fingertips on them. Or to big to control. Flow has a guy on a ladder and guy on the ground tosses the boxes up. Dayside does not get that option.

And people think the power equipment is crappy now? Wait until the entire store is beating the crap out of it.
 
this is honestly insane. my store sales floor doesn't know how to use the PDA's the way InStocks and Backroom. How easily it all can be screwed up. I work InStocks and unless you've been there 2+ years you don't know how the old system of PDA's work and you're an unfortunate soul that hasn't been trained. They have been shrinking my team for a year. Now we are down to 2 and are being expected to scan the whole store in 4 hours. Target needs to wake up. though that will never happen as it has no soul for humans just money.
 
jenna said:
Rock Lobster said:
what is the point in having the accumulator in the first place?
Click to expand...

Because for every 1x it doesn't work, there are 50x it does work.
Click to expand...

From an efficiency standpoint no... The accumulator's trigger numbers cannot be "just in time" because it has to leave room for error. It has to be a safe percentage amount (sometimes 50%) to trigger because if it is too close, and your accumulator is off by just a few eaches, it will not pull and is therefore a waste. The accumulator works, but is naturally unproductive in this sense because you are going to an item twice (if the trigger is 50%) when you could only go once if it was more exact. Combine this with the fact that we have a dedicated team that is supposed to be checking the outs anyway (basically everyday between the two rescan days and on weekends) and its really obvious how inefficient the entire practice is becoming.

If the accumulator could be perfect, it would be more efficient because you could set all your triggers to fill right before the item ran out. The problem is if you did this, the accumulator is commonly off by this many anyway and will likely not fill. If your shelf has 12/24 of an item, it is not productive to fill this back up to 24 versus only filling it once right as it runs out.

Project Viper is taking away CAFs and therefore you do not have to worry about pulls getting shoved onto the line (filling things like these examples) when there are outs on your shelf in the middle of the day that nobody will check until your next rescan day. If a TM is going to go to a product twice anyway (under CAFs, this is filling the item twice in a day under optimal conditions), Project Viper allows a zone to get complete while doing this.
 
tmobserving said:
this is honestly insane. my store sales floor doesn't know how to use the PDA's the way InStocks and Backroom. How easily it all can be screwed up. I work InStocks and unless you've been there 2+ years you don't know how the old system of PDA's work and you're an unfortunate soul that hasn't been trained. They have been shrinking my team for a year. Now we are down to 2 and are being expected to scan the whole store in 4 hours. Target needs to wake up. though that will never happen as it has no soul for humans just money.
Click to expand...

You do not need to know anything about a PDA to execute Viper on the Salesfloor. MyDevices make it extremely easy to fill the floor. In terms of pulling, I don't think having everyone in the backroom is a good idea I would agree. I would keep someone in the BR but their job is to pull Flex Ful, Outs Batches, and Ship from Stores.
 
I pulled a case of Brer rabbit molasses last night. I said WTF is this?! There's no way this is all going out! Get to the shelf and there were 2 on there. With 2 facings. Sure enough, perfect fit!
 
Here's what needs to happen next:
1. Next case needs to come in before we sell any so flow doesn't take one out of the case to stock it.
2. Flow needs to look at the pick label and not open the case when they're stocking.
3. Case needs to be backstocked in case stock location.
4. This item needs to never be on a salesplanner.

Not gonna happen!
 
Rock Lobster said:
jenna said:
Rock Lobster said:
what is the point in having the accumulator in the first place?
Click to expand...

Because for every 1x it doesn't work, there are 50x it does work.
Click to expand...

From an efficiency standpoint no... The accumulator's trigger numbers cannot be "just in time" because it has to leave room for error. It has to be a safe percentage amount (sometimes 50%) to trigger because if it is too close, and your accumulator is off by just a few eaches, it will not pull and is therefore a waste. The accumulator works, but is naturally unproductive in this sense because you are going to an item twice (if the trigger is 50%) when you could only go once if it was more exact. Combine this with the fact that we have a dedicated team that is supposed to be checking the outs anyway (basically everyday between the two rescan days and on weekends) and its really obvious how inefficient the entire practice is becoming.

If the accumulator could be perfect, it would be more efficient because you could set all your triggers to fill right before the item ran out. The problem is if you did this, the accumulator is commonly off by this many anyway and will likely not fill. If your shelf has 12/24 of an item, it is not productive to fill this back up to 24 versus only filling it once right as it runs out.

Project Viper is taking away CAFs and therefore you do not have to worry about pulls getting shoved onto the line (filling things like these examples) when there are outs on your shelf in the middle of the day that nobody will check until your next rescan day. If a TM is going to go to a product twice anyway (under CAFs, this is filling the item twice in a day under optimal conditions), Project Viper allows a zone to get complete while doing this.
Click to expand...

we'll probably have to agree to disagree.
 
Taking the accumulator also means you don't care what the capacity is anymore, cause they are wrong more than right. Now they will be manual. Leaving the human factor. He does not want or was taught to not back stock just shoves them out.
 
konk said:
Here's what needs to happen next:
1. Next case needs to come in before we sell any so flow doesn't take one out of the case to stock it.
2. Flow needs to look at the pick label and not open the case when they're stocking.
3. Case needs to be backstocked in case stock location.
4. This item needs to never be on a salesplanner.

Not gonna happen!
Click to expand...
PREACH, WOULD BE GOOD FOR COOLERS AS WELL!!!!!
 
So at what point do they wonder if the reason viper is "working", is because we dumped a gigantic load of hours into it? If they did that anyway and fixed the accumulators my store would actually be able to keep everything golden and address out easily. Just give us payroll spot.
 
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