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

Corporate mandated that all DC's have repacks not only sorted correctly starting August 29th, but also begin sorting them in a more logical sense (try to keep bed sheets in one 3, towels on another). Naturally this means that any small issue of the occasional H&B item in a 4 or whatever we used to have is now so insanely worse i almost think the DC's are doing it on purpose as a "fuck you".
What? I'm the one who sorts those red repacks with the new unload and I can tell you, the DC that ships to my store has not yet received the memo on this. Just yesterday, I had boxes with truly eclectic mixes, and they weren't necessarily marked RR. Stationery, market, beauty, health care, seasonal - all in the same box. But what's the point of doing what my TL has said - take a photo with the label and box contents in view? We've done that, multiple times, and nothing changes.
The opposite of this is the green repack that has 1 pair of shoes in it or one tank shirt. No joke, this happens numerous times during the week. Why? Is it really that hard to fill a green repack at least half-full? Evidently, it is. Seriously, I'd like DC folks to work the line at my store for a week's worth of truck unloads, just to see how they make our jobs harder.
DC folks, I'd be happy to entertain any explanation you have. I really don't understand, but I'd like to!
 
How are you guys able to make it with one thrower? Throwing is easily the most physically strenuous task in the whole store, and throwing by yourself for 2+ hours can really do a number on your body even if you’re in good shape. I would collapse after about 45 minutes because I’m a bitch, but even our 6ft 280lb. thrower has called out with back pain after a callout by the other thrower left him by himself with a 2400. ETL-Log refuses to work with less than 2 throwers because he’s concerned about the risk of injury or burnout.
Our thrower is a guy who seems to run at 100 miles an hour all the time. Our TL usually gets in the truck when it's about half done and helps. Way back, we had a thrower who could lift a folded cage and put it on the stack by himself. He was former military, still lifted weights regularly, and had biceps that probably required him to special-order his shirts. He threw the truck by himself too. Maybe we just attract the thrower freaks? (Using that word in a complimentary way.)
 
How are you guys able to make it with one thrower? Throwing is easily the most physically strenuous task in the whole store, and throwing by yourself for 2+ hours can really do a number on your body even if you’re in good shape. I would collapse after about 45 minutes because I’m a bitch, but even our 6ft 280lb. thrower has called out with back pain after a callout by the other thrower left him by himself with a 2400. ETL-Log refuses to work with less than 2 throwers because he’s concerned about the risk of injury or burnout.

Wish our ETL-Log had a backbone and a pair. Standing up for the team once in a while would be nice, or in our case, a miracle.🙄
 
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Trucks typically between 1900 and 2200. I cover 17 custom blocks (24 vehicles and the electronics cage) on the back side of the line, plus 4 and 9 repacks. I also sort the combos under the line, which has worked out very well for me. I typically sort them by aisle, almost. Ie Barbie together, LEGOs together, preschool toys together, camping together, yoga together, etc.
Are you for real? Seriously, I'm wondering, or maybe this is just an ASANTS thing. We get some trucks about the same size (some days are smaller) and I sort those repacks - pretty sure we never get enough Barbies or whatever to make it worth keeping that many open repacks going. Some of the kitchen aisles could definitely have their own repacks, even multiples, but not how you're describing here for toys & sporting goods. I sort into 9 open repacks, including 2 each for kitchen and seasonal because a lot of those items tend to be bulkier. No way do I have space to do a box per aisle.
 
How are you guys able to make it with one thrower? Throwing is easily the most physically strenuous task in the whole store, and throwing by yourself for 2+ hours can really do a number on your body even if you’re in good shape. I would collapse after about 45 minutes because I’m a bitch, but even our 6ft 280lb. thrower has called out with back pain after a callout by the other thrower left him by himself with a 2400. ETL-Log refuses to work with less than 2 throwers because he’s concerned about the risk of injury or burnout.

we change out thrower every hour
 
We can throw for more than 1 hour, but we can't throw doubles. And we need at least 2 throwers per truck. Sometimes the ETL-Log will bend the rules if we get a ton of callouts, but we mostly stick to them. He'll usually jump in to help throw the second truck and rotate the other thrower.

I thought the rule was they have to offer to switch but it wasn't mandatory if the thower doesn't want to im not sure what spots official rules are but i know theres no state/federal rules for unloads because alot of places make you throw whole trucks solo like Walmart wont switch you out unless your hurt
 
Huh, I didn't even know you could have more than one thrower with the new process. That's what our store told us at least, only one thrower per truck. There are only 2 of us who physically can throw at my store, we used to split it one throws 3 days one 2, but now the other guy throws 3-4 times, and I throw once a week. They had me throw less since I'm responsible for doing bulk now. Its been really hard since its been so hot all summer, but we've gotten it done. It just sucks when the other guy calls off because on those days they wait for me to get there at 6:30 and I have to throw. I'm really hoping they let us have two unloaders for 4th quarter.
 
Do you just have a really large flow team right now because we have been working 40hr weeks just working truck and still barley come clean by 12:30pm
Right now were pushing are stuff plus beauty now because according to the store there team is struggling so its are problem again. We were told that dayside well help push left over truck push if we zone every section were pushing in to help them but of course every time there's left over push from the truck when i go home. I guarantee it well be there when i get in the next morning in addition to all the salvage and bales.
Even worse is i have to move all that stuff out of receiving and then go scavenge the store for U-boats (that dayside thinks is faregame) so i can set the line up
Our team has only gotten smaller with the new system, 4 or so people have left. From the flow team, we have 20 people that I can think of off the top of my head, but 7 or so of them only come in once or twice a week. There are 5 that I can think of that used to be from the backroom team. On top of that, maybe 3 people from the old hardlines dayside that push truck regularly.

I am the guy who sets the line up at my store, and it only takes me about 20 minutes usually. The line is supposed to bet set all day, and our U-boats are mostly all labeled so people know not to leave them full. The market team likes to steal the unlabeled ones, but generally speaking I don’t have to scavenge for them.

We don’t “come clean” by 1230, because many of our team now starts at 9am, 10am… I work toys after the unload, and I regularly leave a U-boat or an auto tub for my GM lead to take care of, maybe 30 percent of the time. That being said, our store is up 40% in toys vs LY, since the ToysRUs in our shopping center closed. I typically work a 530-1, with the unload finishing at 8-830 and a 45 min lunch thrown in there. “Coming clean” isn’t the same priority as it was before, because now I have to zone, audit, assist guests, take calls, load my own cardboard (and soon make bales), flex, price change, backstock, push go-backs… if I don’t finish, someone after me can because I’ve already finished many other tasks in my department.
So with all uboats its easier to sort the truck? Are you doing a push all? It almost sounds like your store is too good to be true. Especially if everyone is getting 40 hours? Payroll is crap Right now
Not everyone is getting 40 hours. Most TMs don’t, actually. They just like me, and I’m in one of the heavier departments now.

We are indeed doing a push-all, but it seems like they may be sending us less product that goes straight to the back. Maybe that’s not the case since I don’t backstock my product all at once, but it feels that way. Could just be we’re selling more.

Let me tell you though, the U-boats are AMAZING. The surface area for a three-tiered U-boat is something like 1.5x the surface area of a flatbed, and since they’re on different shelves, they don’t typically overflow. For example, Toys at my store comes in 3 custom blocks, with 6 three-tiered U-boats and 1 two-tiered. Each shelf is its own aisle, except there are a total of two shelves on all of the vehicles that share two aisles.
Since each aisle gets its own shelf, I can sort the front of the U-boat with E17 1-2-3 and the back with E17 6-1-1, for example. It’s like bowling except it doesn’t require the extra steps. It’s organizing then pushing instead of palletizing, walking/throwing boxes down the aisle, then crouching or kneeling to push from the floor.
Are you for real? Seriously, I'm wondering, or maybe this is just an ASANTS thing. We get some trucks about the same size (some days are smaller) and I sort those repacks - pretty sure we never get enough Barbies or whatever to make it worth keeping that many open repacks going. Some of the kitchen aisles could definitely have their own repacks, even multiples, but not how you're describing here for toys & sporting goods. I sort into 9 open repacks, including 2 each for kitchen and seasonal because a lot of those items tend to be bulkier. No way do I have space to do a box per aisle.
From the combos, I usually have around 8 full repacks for toys. I organize them into boxes for LEGO, Barbie, boys, girls, preschool, puzzles/games. I start with 1 box each and add more as needed. Some days I have less, like yesterday I only had enough for 1 repack. Sporting gets 5 or 6, seasonal around the same right now. Market gets 1 to 3. We don't sort anything other than combos on the line. The team pushing in kitchen takes the 4 repacks and then distributes the stuff like chem, pets, etc. to their respective depts.
How are you guys able to make it with one thrower?
I throw maybe once every other week,, if our main thrower is off or calls out. There’s one other guy that will do it since I know the line better than he does. None of us have any trouble throwing a truck alone. Hell, we’ll do doubles alone without a problem. I mean, we get sweaty, maybe a little exhausted, but the 2 hour unload lets us slow down a bit.
 
How are you guys able to make it with one thrower? Throwing is easily the most physically strenuous task in the whole store, and throwing by yourself for 2+ hours can really do a number on your body even if you’re in good shape. I would collapse after about 45 minutes because I’m a bitch, but even our 6ft 280lb. thrower has called out with back pain after a callout by the other thrower left him by himself with a 2400. ETL-Log refuses to work with less than 2 throwers because he’s concerned about the risk of injury or burnout.

The leads always tell our usual thrower that they'll switch him out if he gets tired, but he always just does the whole truck. Mind you, we only get like 1500 pieces on average, but still. I dunno how he does it, he's kind of a wimpy dude. I'd die in there. Too hot, too much bending and pulling.

So um, does anyone else have a bunch of display items that you don't actually sell? We have like all these blenders and coffee makers and vacuums on display that we don't actually sell and I am always having to tell guests, no we don't actually sell that, maybe try target dot com. Is this just my store that sucks, or is everyone like that? Why do we do this?
 
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Well we started the New™ unload process today and it was a clusterfuck, to the surprise of nobody

Took about 2.5 hours with 2 throwers. The biggest slowdowns were caused by breaking out repacks on the line, and someone deciding that FURN and BED should be in the middle of the line on the priority 2 side making it impossible to swap out. The kid catching BED was buried under a huge mountain of 9/30 revision shit. Also to nobody's surprise, we got sent home at 10am and didn't get close to coming clean. It's really weird having the store open as we're wrapping up the unload and I'm not loving that at all.

Hilariously, our old repack doofus landed himself in hot water today by having a raging meltdown during the unload. Dude has anger issues or something and was exasperated by the slow pace of the unload and having breakout moved from softlines to receiving, and started screaming and hollering at me and another flow TM for "standing around bullshitting when we have case stock piling up on the floor" (the reason being we were out of vehicles and had no room to swap out, and the "bullshitting" in question was us talking about asking the ETL-Log to move BED back to its old spot in front of Dock #3). Getting screamed at first thing in the morning isn't really my jam, so I told him to shut the fuck up right as ETL-Log himself came around the corner having heard the whole exchange, and stood behind repack doofus for a minute while he continued to rant and rave at 300dB. Needless to say ETL-log was pretty pissed and told him to go sit in TMSC to cool off. I'm just hoping he was mad enough to quit because that shit was ridiculous, fam.
 
I think all the store well be losing flow tm here soon with all the old flow tms getting stressed over the 4hr unloads and rolling over trucks. When there used to be yelled at for taking more then 1hr to unload and again getting yelled at for not finishing the push.
And then we have the new TM that think its okay to take forever to push and of no sense of urgency during the unload other then there area. Today i walked in to receiving and no one was working and the line was empty.
Then i see the thrower taking out water pallets out of the truck by himself about 2 pallets using a manual jack using the running at full speed with the pallets to get them out of the truck and then turning around and trying to stop the pallet.
And i was like you haven't seen any boxes rolling down the line for awhile and nobody thought of checking on the thrower to see if there okay or needed help.
(How are receiving is there a hug bend so from the line you can't see the truck at all)
The thrower is the only person in or near the truck with the new processe
 
The leads always tell our usual thrower that they'll switch him out if he gets tired, but he always just does the whole truck. Mind you, we only get like 1500 pieces on average, but still. I dunno how he does it, he's kind of a wimpy dude. I'd die in there. Too hot, too much bending and pulling.

So um, does anyone else have a bunch of display items that you don't actually sell? We have like all these blenders and coffee makers and vacuums on display that we don't actually sell and I am always having to tell guests, no we don't actually sell that, maybe try target dot com. Is this just my store that sucks, or is everyone like that? Why do we do this?
If you have display items that you dont sell get with your signing person (if you still have one) or ETL-GE and tell them. They will tell the proper way to dispose of the, Those displays only serve to confuse.
 
I think all the store well be losing flow tm here soon with all the old flow tms getting stressed over the 4hr unloads and rolling over trucks. When there used to be yelled at for taking more then 1hr to unload and again getting yelled at for not finishing the push.
And then we have the new TM that think its okay to take forever to push and of no sense of urgency during the unload other then there area. Today i walked in to receiving and no one was working and the line was empty.
Then i see the thrower taking out water pallets out of the truck by himself about 2 pallets using a manual jack using the running at full speed with the pallets to get them out of the truck and then turning around and trying to stop the pallet.
And i was like you haven't seen any boxes rolling down the line for awhile and nobody thought of checking on the thrower to see if there okay or needed help.
(How are receiving is there a hug bend so from the line you can't see the truck at all)
The thrower is the only person in or near the truck with the new processe
Urgency was taken out back and beaten like Trump supporter during an antifa rally.
 
The leads always tell our usual thrower that they'll switch him out if he gets tired, but he always just does the whole truck. Mind you, we only get like 1500 pieces on average, but still. I dunno how he does it, he's kind of a wimpy dude. I'd die in there. Too hot, too much bending and pulling.

So um, does anyone else have a bunch of display items that you don't actually sell? We have like all these blenders and coffee makers and vacuums on display that we don't actually sell and I am always having to tell guests, no we don't actually sell that, maybe try target dot com. Is this just my store that sucks, or is everyone like that? Why do we do this?
I mean you're not suppose to bend, back straight, chin up, don't twist at your stomach, pivot on your feet. It's called the target gym. It used to keep me fit. 1500 i'd throw that all day 6 days a week, be done in an hour, hour 15 if the line keeps up, sure beats throwing 2200 minimum.
 
Well guys it finally happened
The store decided to give hours to softlines because there more important then flow right now so everyone gets kicked out at 3-4hrs each day expect for the flow TL and 2 A-team team members who are at 40hr
Yesterday we had a double and after the 1st truck was finished the STL told everyone to go home so the 3 people remaining had to try and unload the 2nd truck (2500)on there own before they left at 12pm

So most of the team is bummed that there getting less then 18hr weeks and the remainder is overworked and stressed dealing with everything 6days a week on there own
 
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One thrower no spotter? What could possibly go wrong? A bashed skull or a profusely bleeding cut? Slip on an endless variety of leaking product? How about a busted bleach and busted ammonia cocktail. Because we all know loads don’t shift and trailers don’t super heat. What in the hell is OSHA good for if they don’t keep an eye on this stuff?
 
Yeah a bit of a rant^ but honestly the new process w one guy pulling down the stack? I wish the individual(s) responsible for that idea would demonstrate that. In Texas. In August. And do a six week follow up. Living on the earned wage.
 
Anyone have any tips how to sort 3-4 aisles in a flat or pallet during unload? They expect me to sort 36 flats/pallets (not including 11 uboats of Market) with 4 TMs.
 
Anyone have any tips how to sort 3-4 aisles in a flat or pallet during unload? They expect me to sort 36 flats/pallets (not including 11 uboats of Market) with 4 TMs.
Hope they’re good ones. You have my sympathy. I did market for several years old process with 5-6 tms. I could make that work but whew, it may need to be the safest train wreck you can manage then ask management to make useful recommendations.
 
Yeah a bit of a rant^ but honestly the new process w one guy pulling down the stack? I wish the individual(s) responsible for that idea would demonstrate that. In Texas. In August. And do a six week follow up. Living on the earned wage.

Well if the test stores actually told the truth about the process and if the stores that have had this E2E/Store Modernization shoved down their throats spoke up then things would/could be different. But we have a bunch of Kool-Aid drinkers managing us. And every single one of them have told our Corporate masters that this new way works loads better. So we are stuck with it until people start dieing
 
Speaking of dying I’m unironically hoping that whoever made the decision to switch our truck days from M-W-F to T-T-S dies painfully. When they announced the change earlier this year I predicted that Saturdays would be a zero productivity shitshow and welp, I’m never wrong. I mean why do this, knowing how stupidly busy Saturdays are? What was the rationale? Where was the person to interrupt and say “that’s a bad idea and you should feel bad”? I dread Saturdays now and already getting a little preview of this year’s Q4.

Imagine working at say, a software company with a cube farm. You show up to work one day and for some reason the company has suddenly decided to let clients and the public mill around in their offices for no real reason. You get to your cubicle in a hurry because there’s a major version number about to go live and you’ve got a deadline, but then stop dead in your tracks because some random guy is just...standing on your desk. You ask him what he’s doing there and he says he’s a client with a question about his volume license. You’ve never had to field product questions from clients before because that’s supposed to be a tech support role, and that’s when you find out the company decided to eliminate tech support and merge all roles into one. You’re just a programmer, but even if you want to help the client you can’t because he’s literally standing on your desk with his foot planted right on your keyboard. There’s not much you can do until he leaves, so you go to the other end of the cube farm and notice that Carol, formerly in accounting is being asked about server access by another client, but she has no idea how to answer because she was hired as an accountant, not a network admin.

That’s Q4, with modernization and flow being moved to dayside.
 
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