Logistics The Flow/Inbound thread: Until We Yeet Again edition 🤙

Get out before the true stupidity starts.
Too late! Another veteran TM and I were pushing in seasonal today (15 pallets that should have already been on shelves weren't done, and all that stuff is featured in this week's ad - oops!) and commenting on a few things that are stupid and how we're not paid to think. In fact, I've found that thinking about how things at Spot don't make sense anymore just makes me grumpy. Better to be a mindless drone.
 
they're women over 55, so of course they can't handle lots of trucks
Um, what? Two of the five of us on the line for unload are women over 55. I'll admit that I can't always throw heavy repack boxes to the top of the pile of soft lines repacks, but the TM on the other side of the line who handles them with me is good about helping me out. And neither of us ever do a NCNS. We hardly ever call off at all.
shoes (which are actually supposed to be separate)
Oh, don't I wish. Plus, what a crack-up when a green repack box has 1 belt in it or a package of socks - and nothing else. Really DC?
 
Um, what? Two of the five of us on the line for unload are women over 55. I'll admit that I can't always throw heavy repack boxes to the top of the pile of soft lines repacks, but the TM on the other side of the line who handles them with me is good about helping me out. And neither of us ever do a NCNS.
Sorry, that was sarcasm, they're some of the best on our team. Our STL doesn't think they can handle that many trucks. The young guys are the ones that don't last long, our flow team is probably 70% female 😂

Oh, don't I wish. Plus, what a crack-up when a green repack box has 1 belt in it or a package of socks - and nothing else. Really DC?
Those are my favorite, because it takes less time than a full repack and we get more repacks done in less time (or it appears that way to the STL, anyway). But yeah, it's still dumb.
 
Double trucks should be outlawed. It blows my mind--why do they send so much extra stuff? I get the Black Friday goodies, but 8 cases of the same brand of lotion, 8 cases when it's already near capacity and only a dozen will go out?

Sometimes I think they're just dumping stuff as some kind of tax write-off because I know some of it goes salvage before it came make it to the floor lol.
 
We're never going E2E, not even a little bit. Our fellow team members over at the DC's have pretty well stated as much.

Only the small footprint stores are receiving presorted freight and that's been a extreme challenge and a major pain for them. Wait until they bring more of them on line.

The DC's are not capable nor configured for E2E on a large scale. Neither are the stores for that matter. Look no further than what happening after we start pushing the truck.

It would take years and a lot more money than Spot's spending now on the stores to reconfigure the DC's and equip them to carryout E2E. Spot would have to start today for some of us to see the changes in 2020.

The truck/inventory process as a whole can be described as linear. However the task within the process cannot since they have defining points of starting and stopping (hand offs). This is where the mistake was made in Minneapolis when Spot thought they could co mingle the individual linear tasks into one single linear task. Without credible time studies to justify the gains, it's just poorly conceived plan that will severely erode our profit margin.

It's going to require an incredible amount of team members to perform a complete truck material cycle, unload/push/backstock, along with a pull/backstock cycle due to inefficiencies created by trying to do too many non linear task within the process.
I went backwards through this thread and found this and I'm so sad now, because you're so right. Sorry to comment on such an old post, but I couldn't help it since E2E has become such a clusterf*ck.
 
Double trucks with this new process is stupid. It's so dumb you just want to laugh at the stupidity of who ever came up with overhauling logisitics. You know they are laughing all the way out the door with their golden parachute after the company goes belly up.
Didn't that person originally come over from Kroger? Bet he'll be going back to Kroger a hero soon. Once he's defeated the big bad Target Monster.
 
(wistful harmonica) I remember when we came in early and finished clean. Store opened and there were full shelves, cardboard all baled. People who worked the post-open pulls greeted regular guests. All was right w the Target world.
It was perfect. The way the store looks now is so sad. By 8 AM we'd have basically everything besides repacks finished. Now that's when we FINISH unloading the truck!! Then we have folks pushing until 4 PM and it rarely gets done so there's always stuff from the day before. It's so bad, I've gotten so angry that now I walk around with the biggest, creepiest smile on my face because I've officially lost it. Hey look, another mom who can't get in an aisle because u-boats are blocking her way. "Sorry," they say to me and I just want to pull them aside and say, "Please take your money somewhere else or leave some angry reviews or call cooperate and complain."

I'm embarrassed to work at Target for the first time ever. I feel like I'm just getting in the way :(
 
It was perfect. The way the store looks now is so sad. By 8 AM we'd have basically everything besides repacks finished. Now that's when we FINISH unloading the truck!! Then we have folks pushing until 4 PM and it rarely gets done so there's always stuff from the day before. It's so bad, I've gotten so angry that now I walk around with the biggest, creepiest smile on my face because I've officially lost it. Hey look, another mom who can't get in an aisle because u-boats are blocking her way. "Sorry," they say to me and I just want to pull them aside and say, "Please take your money somewhere else or leave some angry reviews or call cooperate and complain."

I'm embarrassed to work at Target for the first time ever. I feel like I'm just getting in the way :(
I just tell them: "Oh no, I'm the one in the way. You're lovely. I appreciate you as a guest."

I mean, it's not that obviously, but you know what I mean.
 
Double trucks should be outlawed. It blows my mind--why do they send so much extra stuff? I get the Black Friday goodies, but 8 cases of the same brand of lotion, 8 cases when it's already near capacity and only a dozen will go out?

Sometimes I think they're just dumping stuff as some kind of tax write-off because I know some of it goes salvage before it came make it to the floor lol.
My favorite example of this was when I was pushing shoes and we got 6 or 8 pairs of the same size, same color summer sandal, at the end of the season. (I live in a state that gets very cold in the winter; we don't wear sandals outside of about May-Sept.) And we already had a bunch of that size & color on the shelf.
On, and another favorite - getting a bunch of garden hose nozzles when we're putting out Halloween stuff. Yeah, we're doing a whole lot of gardening here at that time of year.
 
Wow things sound like they have only gotten worse for Flow. Glad I jumped ship. Transferred to the RDC in my area. I now make more than most Key Holding Sr. TLs do and all I do is send the shit your way rather than having to be on the recieving end dealing with it. I'll take sore shoulders over massive headaches and stress anyday. Good luck on surviving this Q4. Understand that as far as the DC is concerned we are way behind and if the DC could gave things its way all of your stores would be permanently doubles and triples the rest of the season. At this point the only reason we cant send more is lack of equipment (a recurring Target theme).
 
My favorite example of this was when I was pushing shoes and we got 6 or 8 pairs of the same size, same color summer sandal, at the end of the season. (I live in a state that gets very cold in the winter; we don't wear sandals outside of about May-Sept.) And we already had a bunch of that size & color on the shelf.
On, and another favorite - getting a bunch of garden hose nozzles when we're putting out Halloween stuff. Yeah, we're doing a whole lot of gardening here at that time of year.
They sent us the same damn pallet of charcoal over and over, until the last week of October when our ETL-Log finally called the DC and complained. Loudly.
 
Wow things sound like they have only gotten worse for Flow. Glad I jumped ship. Transferred to the RDC in my area. I now make more than most Key Holding Sr. TLs do and all I do is send the shit your way rather than having to be on the recieving end dealing with it. I'll take sore shoulders over massive headaches and stress anyday. Good luck on surviving this Q4. Understand that as far as the DC is concerned we are way behind and if the DC could gave things its way all of your stores would be permanently doubles and triples the rest of the season. At this point the only reason we cant send more is lack of equipment (a recurring Target theme).
We might have a chance at surviving Q4 if they stop this new culture of coaching everyone to death and treating the team like shit. I don't think spot is aware that people are not lining up to work at Target like they were 5-7 years ago. It's us "peons" that make Target thrive not Target's executives.
 
Wow things sound like they have only gotten worse for Flow. Glad I jumped ship. Transferred to the RDC in my area. I now make more than most Key Holding Sr. TLs do and all I do is send the shit your way rather than having to be on the recieving end dealing with it. I'll take sore shoulders over massive headaches and stress anyday. Good luck on surviving this Q4. Understand that as far as the DC is concerned we are way behind and if the DC could gave things its way all of your stores would be permanently doubles and triples the rest of the season. At this point the only reason we cant send more is lack of equipment (a recurring Target theme).
Well, considering that we don't have the room for it anyway, and none of the repacks are sorted right...we're glad you can't send us all those double trucks honestly.
 
Well, considering that we don't have the room for it anyway, and none of the repacks are sorted right...we're glad you can't send us all those double trucks honestly.
Oh they're trying. Today we had 5x the normal ammount of PIPO to send out. No idea if it was similar for other DCs but some stores have entire trucks that are 100% PIPO side-by-side with product stacked on top. In a single 10 hour shift I closed the same door twice. Hello triple truck for that AA store. One stores truck the system wouldn't even let them close because there were so few cartons on it due to the sheer ammount of double stacked PIPO taking up all the space.
I shudder trying to imagine how tf stores are going to find room for 12+ pallets of TP/PT as they are likely already filled to the brim with TVs and Black Friday shoppers right now. Spot really just has the worst sense of timing.
 
none of the repacks are sorted right
I'm willing to give the DC the benefit of the doubt and figure y'all hire seasonal TMs too. Which would explain the really wacky boxes I've been opening lately. A 4 that has everything except kitchen & pets in it. (And it wasn't just one box marked wrong - it was a whole bunch of them.) A green repack with a can of hair spray and nothing else. Repacks with 3 numbers circled - take our pick?
I've given up on the idea that beauty would be kept separate from health care a long time ago. Even the idea that stationery and HBA and electronics would be kept separate. But wow, has it been bonkers just lately.
 
I'm willing to give the DC the benefit of the doubt and figure y'all hire seasonal TMs too. Which would explain the really wacky boxes I've been opening lately. A 4 that has everything except kitchen & pets in it. (And it wasn't just one box marked wrong - it was a whole bunch of them.) A green repack with a can of hair spray and nothing else. Repacks with 3 numbers circled - take our pick?
I've given up on the idea that beauty would be kept separate from health care a long time ago. Even the idea that stationery and HBA and electronics would be kept separate. But wow, has it been bonkers just lately.
Okay, but peanut butter in a softlines repack?? How does that make sense to anyone? Electronicswith HBA and Beauty is weird too. I just don't get what's so difficult about it. How high is their turnover rate that it happens this often? Because this isn't just a seasonal issue at my store.
 
Back
Top