Archived Beating rwt times?

[Backroomguy23]

Hey I was just curious if any of your stores regularly beat rwt times for the truck process. This includes beatific pull times which is considerably easy and the unload time as well. But as far as stocking the floor and backstocking everything seems to be very difficult for our store. We are a 6am process so not much of the freight cam be bowled out. Anybody have any experience or suggestions for improvement or you can just share your experience as well

 

[MisterLogistics]

At my 4am B-volume store, the only RWT time the logistics team "beats" is the pull times.

 

[tellmeaboutatime]

RWT times fail to take into consideration multiple items. For early am stores you need to interrupt the process to clear the floor by 8. Some early am stores are superTs so that is a lot of freight to find space for. Also now that the store is open you have to find flats and put all the freight on those. Don't forget stopping to make a bale or two. And then there is always the fun of trying to find vehicles for the freight. Just for fun how about pulling pallets down for Plano in the middle of the unload. Nothing can slow you down faster than a couple cases of pasta sauce broken all over the truck. Once the store is open you also became guest service. Guests do not care that you are trying to beat stocking goal, and they shouldn't. But the reality is e flow team will be helping guests once the store is open. They shoul not be penelized for that, the should be recognized. And the top reason it's hard to beat back stocking goals? Lack of equipment!

 

[StaticSun]

RWT times fail to take into consideration multiple items. For early am stores you need to interrupt the process to clear the floor by 8. Some early am stores are superTs so that is a lot of freight to find space for. Also now that the store is open you have to find flats and put all the freight on those. Don't forget stopping to make a bale or two. And then there is always the fun of trying to find vehicles for the freight. Just for fun how about pulling pallets down for Plano in the middle of the unload. Nothing can slow you down faster than a couple cases of pasta sauce broken all over the truck. Once the store is open you also became guest service. Guests do not care that you are trying to beat stocking goal, and they shouldn't. But the reality is e flow team will be helping guests once the store is open. They shoul not be penelized for that, the should be recognized. And the top reason it's hard to beat back stocking goals? Lack of equipment!

Did you just say that the flow team becomes responsible for guest service?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I've seen more flowTMs walking by a flashing call button than you can shake a stick at.

 

[Ajax11]

Did you just say that the flow team becomes responsible for guest service?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I've seen more flowTMs walking by a flashing call button than you can shake a stick at.

Well they say for specialty areas to help with guest service especially at ULV stores, but then there is no equipment for anyone.

On a normal day a 5 person POG team is sharing 1-2 walkies and 1 LPDA even though we might be working in 3 different departments, and you have to fight to get that 1 pda.

 

[spikegrouchy]

At my 4am B-volume store, the only RWT time the logistics team "beats" is the pull times.

Before the 2010 summer download (13.2) that changed the process by entering quantities when backstockng (STOing), the backroom team regularly beat the RWT goal times (pulling and backstocking). Even though the company has fixed a lot of the glitches from last year, the backroom team rarely beats the backstocking goal times anymore, especially during the fourth quarter because of the all of the freight that comes in. Usually smaller stores have a better chance of beating the goal times because their backrooms are the same size as bigger volume stores and they usually have the space to hold all of the backstock without having to take to the time to find room.

 

[spikegrouchy]

RWT times fail to take into consideration multiple items. For early am stores you need to interrupt the process to clear the floor by 8. Some early am stores are superTs so that is a lot of freight to find space for. Also now that the store is open you have to find flats and put all the freight on those. Don't forget stopping to make a bale or two. And then there is always the fun of trying to find vehicles for the freight. Just for fun how about pulling pallets down for Plano in the middle of the unload. Nothing can slow you down faster than a couple cases of pasta sauce broken all over the truck. Once the store is open you also became guest service. Guests do not care that you are trying to beat stocking goal, and they shouldn't. But the reality is e flow team will be helping guests once the store is open. They shoul not be penelized for that, the should be recognized. And the top reason it's hard to beat back stocking goals? Lack of equipment!

You are right! The goal times are based on the system working perfectly every time...something that rarely happens. You can't walk into a sh*tload of dayside push or backstock and expect to get that and your truck done every night. Tubs and flats are loaded with dayside salesplanners that never were pushed or broken down salesplanners that the dayside backroom team did not get backstocked.

I can remember last year how I walked into 30+ flats and pallets of backstock from the day before numerous times. Another reason I stepped down in March. I got tired of being blamed for things that I had no control over as a leader.

 

[Brandwalks4life]

Not really all that difficult to beat the Pull and unload goals.... In an overnight process if you have a good team you can beat your goals as long as you dont walk into a mess ... As for 6am processes I doubt you can beat that push goal which would in turn make your backstock goal impossible.. RWT is so out dated at this point I dont even know why people refer to it. Be on the floor.. Make sure your team is busting there behind and you'll get it done in a timely manner.


On a side note- How bout those softlines stocking goals from RWT Hahahah....

 

[Backroomguy23]

Yea I agree they are borderline impossible for 6am but when your stl is on your ass about payroll it becomes a headache

 

[Brandwalks4life]

If your STL is so worried about payroll ... Leave him some push get your team out by there scheduled time. If he complains, Let him know your team pushed as much as they could before they had to leave... But your trying to keep payroll in check. After a few times of this he might be more apt to give Flow a few more hours when he forecasts the schedule!

 

[spikegrouchy]

If your STL is so worried about payroll ... Leave him some push get your team out by there scheduled time. If he complains, Let him know your team pushed as much as they could before they had to leave... But your trying to keep payroll in check. After a few times of this he might be more apt to give Flow a few more hours when he forecasts the schedule!

I doubt it. He will just hold the team lead acountable for getting the truck done before the goal time, no matter what roadblocks are in the way. Most of these STL's won't lift a finger to help out and are usually the ones who have never worked logistics in their careers...or if they did, they have a very short memory!

 

[Backroomguy23]

Agreed they only see the times ad don't understand all the other roadblocks that may hinder you beating times. Operationally I think a store is much better off with a clean process from a truck and then on off truck days the sales floor and PoG teams have support to pull push or backstock salesplanners and such

 

[tellmeaboutatime]

I actually laugh out loud when the stocking goal is 3 hours later than the team is scheduled. So even if you beat all major goals (unload, pulls, stockin and back stock)you get grief because you went over payroll. I agree that unload and pull goals are pretty easy to make, the other 2 always seem to have roadblocks. And when you do have call offs it is really tough. They are so hard to replace at 4am. During Christmas week, we took 5 doubles,2 unscheduled and made all 4 major goals each day but still had the wrath of the STL because we were over payroll by so much. Sometimes I feel like the Bears coach.....

 

[spikegrouchy]

I actually laugh out loud when the stocking goal is 3 hours later than the team is scheduled. So even if you beat all major goals (unload, pulls, stockin and back stock)you get grief because you went over payroll. I agree that unload and pull goals are pretty easy to make, the other 2 always seem to have roadblocks. And when you do have call offs it is really tough. They are so hard to replace at 4am. During Christmas week, we took 5 doubles,2 unscheduled and made all 4 major goals each day but still had the wrath of the STL because we were over payroll by so much. Sometimes I feel like the Bears coach.....

This is why very few ETL's last more than a couple of years in Logistics. I would love to be able to tell your STL, that he/she will have to run the team because I quit...hand him my keys and walk out the door.

We have a jackass as an STL, too. I just found out tonight that my Flow Team Lead is considering quitting because of all of the negative emails and comments that she got from our STL over the fourth quarter. I was surprised...well not really, because he is the main reason I stepped down in March. He is a bully who has no solutions but he sure can give negative feedback especially when he has spent the night out at the local strip club drinking himself sick and comes in with a hangover. He can't lead a team properly and he can't handle problems without threatening someones job.

Really classy guy...don't you all want someone like him at your store?

 

[spikegrouchy]

As a Flow Team Leader, my team did not initially believe in RWT push times and regularly missed RWT push times when I first took over. Most days we meet RWT or exceed it, now. The days we miss it are typically by 15 minutes at MOST. They were always strong with the unload. We beat it by an average of 30 minutes still daily which gives us a cushion for the push.

If your team isn't beating the unload goals you either have too many people on the line and not enough pushing OR your team on the line and or throwers are being lazy.

The keys to a successful flow team are making sure that they stay focused and only chat with each other if they are able to stock at the same time.

Also... if any given truck has a LOT of repacks, you can pretty much kiss your push time goodbye. Repack push times are completely unrealistic in most cases. Repacks can literally make or break an overall push time.

And we are a 6 am store.

Great job. Write yourself up a Great Teams Card and sign my name to it!!!

 

[Backroomguy23]

Wow regularly beat rwt as 6am? Impressive! How do you utilize your team? like how many for the unload how many pulling, unloading, ect

 

[flonomo]

Wow that is good. Unload and pull times are easy. Repacks around 150 and things were ok. Pushing 170 to 200 repacks and forget about it. So much little stuff.... I tried to get the new ETL log to understand that the repacks can make or break you. I used to love when they hit 120 or under.

 

[Formina Sage]

Anon, how big is an average truck for you guys, 4th quarter or not? When do you start pushing grocery? Or was that what you meant by market? I think the biggest problems for our flow team (we're a 4am process, B-into-A volume store with trucks in the 2200 neighborhood) is a middle aged team that gets pretty chatty. We also don't rotate throwers because there are basically only two guys who do it anyway. Our line could be running a lot faster and I'm not sure what our unload goal times are but I'm confident we're not hitting the panel-every-20-minutes guideline, or whatever it is. What departments would you bowl vs not bowl?

 

[Leonhart621]

Since we're on the subject of RWT, had anyone of you guys beat backstock goal times? I dont know why we keep getting unrealistic backstock goals. I always push myself beyond my limit but not enough. STL worship what the computer tells him so I'm trying to figure out how we getiing these bs goal times in the backroom

 

[Backroomguy23]

We have the exact opposite problem. Our backroom makes up for a slow flow team but they hurt our imps when they brig back push that will fill the floor challenge as well as autofill backstock that wasn't pushed correctly. Our backroom pulls, backstocks the autobackstock them pushes fR a bit then the 4 backroom team plus a few flow team will comes and clean up backstock from the push but we consistently can't meet the push time without backroom support. We have around 18-20 flow team and 4 backroom team members
For a 6am process with trucks averaging 1400-1800

 

[Ludwig3]

We use to have a time chart posted but we quit writing the times down.