Archived The Big & Dandy Backroom thread!

[blahTarget]

Crazy BR TL can help with that I remember once our BR TL reprimanded an ETL over the backstock cart(which was a completely mess) that they handed to the backroom thanks to a "smart huddle". "IS THIS HOW WE DO THINGS?! DONT GIVE US CRAP. GO BACK AND ORGANIZE IT SO WE CAN BACKSTOCK." Very demanding BR TL but always stringent on following guidelines, can get annoying but it's nice when you notice certain things working exactly like they should. Wish Flow TL would be as stringent on properly stocking, so much time wasted on overstocking issues.

I am not usually a fan of "best practice" and strict guidelines for how to do things, but the BR and flow processes actually make sense if you want an efficient store, so I fully support TLs being "crazy" in these instances. I also complain to the flow TLs about overstock. We have an issue with openstock space in our backroom so opening unnecessary cases really fucks us over even more when the stuff inevitably gets taken down.

No, guys you do *not* need to pile the tissues five high on the shelves just because you can. (I wish I was kidding)

 

[blahTarget]

I must've found done baffles because I pulled an item for PC, but left it in the location. When I went back today, it was in location. I assume it was fixed in the audit since it had a quantity. Will it show up under y-usage baffle?

Depends. Did it ask Y/N when you pulled it?

If not, then no baffle assigned to you. Its one of the errors that can't really be blamed on anyone accurately. It could be you forgot to pull it, someone entered in too many when backstocking, didnt STO it at all... so the system doesn't assign blame in those instances.

 

[asidius]

Apparently our produce cooler is a giant mess with 100+ errors in it. Anyway our TL's decided we need to pull entire packages from now on. So when the system asks for 4 limes, pull all 72, etc.

I don't see this working. All this will do is create a bigger backstock problem (we're already sluggish with pfresh backstock) and result in an empty floor, since it will be less items backstocked into the system to pull.

 

[mrknownothing]

Apparently our produce cooler is a giant mess with 100+ errors in it. Anyway our TL's decided we need to pull entire packages from now on. So when the system asks for 4 limes, pull all 72, etc.

I don't see this working. All this will do is create a bigger backstock problem (we're already sluggish with pfresh backstock) and result in an empty floor, since it will be less items backstocked into the system to pull.

Someone should just LOCU the produce cooler. If there are errors again after that, then your TL needs to look into it.

 

[LogisticsFox]

Our produce cooler is one of our worst areas and we don't even stow fruits and veggies (Super Target). I did have to explain to our produce TL that they shouldn't backstock look-a-likes in the same waco (a lot of the Bolthouse juices look the same when you're looking down and most of the jars of salad dressing looks identical too. I just told them to assume who ever was pulling their batches to be fairly dumb (which is partially true).

 

[LogisticsFox]

Also, CAF segmentation is ending for us soon. I thought, for sure, that we would keep it going. I guess it's out of our hands.

If the backroom is pulling every hour now, they're going to have less time to pull stuff for the salesfloor so the PDA struggle is about to get more difficult for us :<

 

[asidius]

I think part of the problem is our produce cooler is too damn small. It''s the smallest of the coolers we have. Yesterday you could barely walk around in it. It was an adventure trying to use a step stool in it to reach the higher shelves. IMO our meat cooler should become our produce cooler, and the produce cooler becomes our meat cooler. Our meat cooler is usually pretty empty anyway.

If the backroom is pulling every hour now, they're going to have less time to pull stuff for the salesfloor so the PDA struggle is about to get more difficult for us :<

PDA struggle?

Lately our sales floor team has been struggling to push the CAFs to the floor. Yesterday there was 11(!) pulls left at the end of the night, and it was only Thursday (granted the CAFs had the size of a Saturday, probobly because of the holiday weekend).

 

[mrknownothing]

Also, CAF segmentation is ending for us soon. I thought, for sure, that we would keep it going. I guess it's out of our hands.

If the backroom is pulling every hour now, they're going to have less time to pull stuff for the salesfloor so the PDA struggle is about to get more difficult for us :<

We're almost done with pull segmentation too, which is a shame because it was actually working out well for us. Much more efficient for our store than the regular hourly CAF pulls.

If a sales floor TM has to pull something for a guest, couldn't he/she just use TAKE on a MyDevice? In my opinion, it's easier than using SUBT on the PDA.

 

[LogisticsFox]

CAF pulls are handled differently at my store.. We use logistics hours to have a dedicated pusher. I said pda difficulties because if backroom has to pull cafs every hour, they won't be able to pull the batches I drop to keep my end caps and promotional areas full

 

[mrknownothing]

CAF pulls are handled differently at my store.. We use logistics hours to have a dedicated pusher. I said pda difficulties because if backroom has to pull cafs every hour, they won't be able to pull the batches I drop to keep my end caps and promotional areas full

Ok, I see what you're saying. I thought you meant guest requests, not fill batches and such. My store does it in a similar fashion, except that the backroom TMs push all the pulls as time allows.

 

[IHeartCarts]

Yeah CAFs are coming back for us too and we push our own pulls. So much for backstock ever getting done again.

 

[konk]

I just told them to assume who ever was pulling their batches to be fairly dumb (which is partially true).

So true.

 

[Backroom81]

We're about to switch back to an hourly CAF schedule too. So much for being able to keep the backroom clean.

 

[oath2order]

Y'all are losing Viper or what

 

[Backroom81]

Our CAFs have been at 12, 2, and 4 the past few months. It's been great.

 

[missionimpossible]

Our CAFs have been at 12, 2, and 4 the past few months. It's been great.

old school. I miss those days.

 

[Backroom81]

old school. I miss those days.

I did too. I loved the 1, 3, 5 schedule and the past few months have been very reminiscent of that.

 

[Kroneru]

Y'all are losing Viper or what

Viper was an actual thing?

 

[Riffraff]

el oh el, define working correctly =P The fact that the system has people that pull CAFs pull EVERYTHING that was just backstocked .

A huge part of this could be solved if our IT department would add a simple line of coding stating that "sales accumulator cannot be greater than shelf capacity". It wouldnt eliminate it entirely, but it would het rid of the need to SUBT 9999 every time plano resets or someone changes out an endcap.

The other half of the battle is getting sales floor to untie POGs when they remove an old endcap, etc.

 

[Riffraff]

I'm with Formina on this. You should never, ever be using SUBT9999 to backstock. Your team should be using the STO app only. The only time we ever have issues with the same item being pulled repeatedly is with salesplanners that are not untied and with old planos that are not untied. So my team will tell me about a problem item and we fix the planogram.

I feel everyone's pain about not having enough hours in the day. They have slashed hours until it hurts. Now when someone calls out it becomes a crisis where it would have been a barely tolerable mess.

And they just don't see the problem.

With the system as it is, it doesnt matter if its untied or not. The sales accumulator values remain, so the system will continue to pull until those numbers are filled. Untying a POG should fix this, if things were coded correctly, but they arent, and it doesnt

 

[oath2order]

Viper was an actual thing?

some peop[le had it i think

 

[Backroom81]

At this point, I would almost rather have Viper than hourly CAFs again.

 

[asidius]

I wish Viper came to my store but it looks like they're killing it. . I'm tired of every hour being occupied by cafs.

It's ironic how my br is green in accuracy for the first time in 7 weeks considering the amount of errors I found today.

 

[LogisticsFox]

Did anyone else end segmentation yesterday? Today's autos were about 35 hours

 

[asidius]

It's amazing the work that gets done when you are not meager with hours. We had 3 + 1 (trainee) people in the BR from 11-4 and in that time we pulled 70 Research/EXF Batches within 3 hours + CAFs. Last week we didn't finish all the research batches until 9 pm.

Then today we knocked out the CAFs in like 15 min.

Of course they are looking to add 2 BRTMs so I expect hours to crash and burn again.