Check your message boards guys!! Apparently the CSE set is on hold!!! Hopefully I'm not the only thrilled about this hold. The message board says "CSE and low walls" are on hold. So does that include high walls as well? Or just low walls?
And thank goodness, too.
From reading this thread I've seen some of us have had varying levels of success with this project, however, overall this project is an unmitigated disaster.
Let's look at the issues.
First of all the size of the project is huge. Every department has CSE signing that needs to come down, be recycled or baled, and new signing hung in its place. And not all of this signing can be pre-built in the backroom: much of it has to be built "in place", one step at a time, over-and-over, left to right. The scope of this project was not at all considered by whomever designed it. Live stores have guests, live stores have product on the shelves, live stores might only have 1 WAVE and live stores are not supposed to use a WAVE on the salesfloor when open meaning 1 person has to climb a ladder over and over and over like an athlete for hours on end holding onto signage that is three times the size of the person hanging it.
Second, the contractors who made the equipment did a terrible job. How many of the dart clip holes have been drilled to the correct size? Every single top piece I have encountered has the dart clips holes on the top left side drilled too large so all the dart clips fall out. Next, the signage does not actually fit these frames were assembling; some do, but most bow out and there is not enough tolerance to seamlessly fit each sign next to another. On top of that, the CSE graphics are bright and bold, but the backer with the swoosh is a dulled, cream color that is not only bland but contrasts terribly with the bright colors of the CSE. The overall effect is that our own signs look worse together. A high school art student could have easily spotted the color scheme as being a bad choice.
Third, the amount of pieces and parts is overwhelming. We've gone from sticky backed clips (at my store, at least) and two hooks, to: 1 top piece, 1 bottom piece, 1 'falcon board', 8 X-Mas tree clips, 7 dart clips, 3 H-Clips, 2 connector tabs, and the previous 2 hooks. That's 25 pieces. And there are 4 different styles of 'falcon board', and different top pieces, too. Putting aside trying to remember where we kept all the part numbers (of which are not printed on the terrible instructions), but try ordering this stuff in SAP. A new signing specialist will never know to type in 'falcon board' and good luck with any other search for, let's say, the H-Clip.
And piggy-backing off point three: the logistics of getting us all these parts. Whose backroom is drowning in 6 foot pallets? After a morning of getting everything unpacked (and how nice they put all 4 different top and bottom pieces in the same box all jumbled together), I now am taking up 2 entire speed racks - speed racks we were saving for the Lawn and Garden set next week. Which reminds me, we have to build all those displays for next week when they come in this week but only after we get mini-seasonal all set with the Easter signing. Not to mention we start our day doing ad signing by checking message boards and printing e-batches on the signing computer for the first half hour to hour of the day then break down our supply pallets, then work out all the backorder signing and displays we never got for the last transition (for example, I'm still getting in the various infant displays that we never got in the first place). And on top of that, all the rest of the normal signing we do through the day.
What were they thinking? This was a total disaster from the moment the DC could barely get these enormous pallets off their dock and onto the truck.
And why are we doing this all at once? Why not do each section with each transition and when the area is freshly signed coordinate all that with the ad process to drive guests and sales? Imagine a guest whose been wary of Target since the credit card hack being invited back to Target with an ad for Ready to Wear and seeing we've redesigned the whole area and have some good deals, too? Wouldn't that be better than literally having entire sections of the store caution taped and coned off as some guy or gal hustles around flats of equipment, trash, and tools all with a ladder or beeping WAVE?
And I shudder to think how much all this cost? Millions, I suspect. And yet not any thought was put into how this would be implemented across thousands of live, working stores that also have plenty of other responsibilities going on. The whole thing boggles the mind.
So I applaud whomever it was that took a look at this mess and said, "You know what, let's think about a better way to do this."
In the meantime, I'll be in the backroom getting the displays built for Lawn and Patio and making sure I've got everything I need for the enormous Cosmetics transition coming up a few weeks after that.
