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My ETL(?) ordered one. Some crap about them having to shuffle the flats around the district/redistribute them? I guess it doesn't matter though...all of our flats are currently full of week old BTS push/pulls.
Archived Calling all 6a.m. Flow Leaders and Team members!!!
- Thread starter FloorReplenishor
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I know that glare, I wear it a lot.
As I said when I stop having to help overnight finish pushing and backstocking your trucks, then pull the overstock from what they do actually push, I might not talk so much crap. Oh and those paper pallets in bulk steel, locate them when you toss them up in the steel. I know some of the guys work hard but their slackers use up all their credit by being so bad.
This week alone, I have worked more hours in backroom than In-Stocks and I did a 36hr week. 4th quarter is going to be ugly if this keeps up.
View from In-Stocks.
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- Jul 7, 2013
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4th Q is going to be absolutely abysmal in my store. We already average 1:30 on EVERY. SINGLE. UNLOAD. Doesn't matter if its 1500 pieces or 2500 pieces..we don't finish before 720-730. I finally got the MMB push caught up from the last week and a half today...25 cases of DVDs/BluRays/CDs and 2 cases of books...then had to deal with the stuff that came in today (8 cases of books and 2 repacks of CD/DVD...I'm already stressing about 4Q
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- Nov 20, 2013
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This will be my first 4th Q in electronics...not looking forward to it.
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- Aug 13, 2014
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OK, I work at a larger store; I am quite sure that my TLs will know exactly who I am if they see me on here. We routinely get 2050-2400 pieces on the truck EVERY night (last night we had almost 2200 pieces, and it was nothing but large plastic, housewares and HBA; push is about 17,000-20,000). We begin at 12:30, but we will soon be switching to 4:00 am. We usually unload the truck in fewer than 80 minutes, but always more than 60 minutes. Our strength is definitely at the line; we have a fairly decent system.
Although we have strength in numbers, we have had two new hires work two days or fewer, and quit (a third one is assumed to have quit; he did not show this morning). I am still the newest one on the flow team; I was not trained very well, at all (the two trainees were told more by our SrTL in three minutes than I was during the "training"). On the first day, I begin by pushing (no one was at the truck) the boxes on the belt. Shortly thereafter, I began unloading the truck (TL's, do not get any ideas, please) until I was told to work the back side of the line (I usually work the front, but sometimes I will switch back and forth). After doing a sucky job at stacking, I learn how to bowl and push, in about 2 minutes. I did get to shadow a guy, but I quickly learned how to do it. I even helped with the baler, and I know how to use it! Problem is, we can never get the store pushed by opening time (8:00). I have worked there 13 times, and only once, did we finish by 8:00 am.
The TL's are urging us to pick up the pace; because I am new, I still find myself wasting time looking for locations (I am getting better at just looking at the shelf without looking at the pick label). I try to push as much as possible; I will re-arrange. Someone else keeps flexing, and we are not allowed to, unless we have PTM's. I try to do it correctly, but it costs me speed (the HBA aisles and the tissue paper seem to be the worst). I would love to find a way to double my speed; I take pride in my work. Although the TL's have never personally talkedto me about speed, I get the feeling that my speed is lacking (I seem to push more; I had the hand-soap/women's deodorant aisle and I had to put most back-stock on an end-cap; I opened 39 boxes in that aisle). However, I feel that if I am even 10% faster, our group would still finish pushing after 8:00 (we usually aren't even done pushing the TRUCK, then we have pulls and auto-fills). I am getting faster, though. We will transition to 4:00 am starts in a couple of weeks; I hope we find a way to pick up the pace. I don't believe that any of us are slacking; we are working the entire time. The TL's will ensure that no one is slacking. I suppose that the one benefit is that we often stay until it is finished (this means more hours, as I have stayed two to three hours past my time to leave).
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- Aug 13, 2014
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There is no way that the truck should take 3 hours to unload. We just had a 2200 piece truck, with one guy not showing up, and we got it done in 79 minutes. Why are you guys not putting flats on the line to begin? This is very inefficient and will curtail your speed. You guys do it WAY different from us (although we start earlier; 6:00 am starts is a terrible idea). We use flats to load; if we run out of flats, we use pallets, and they go to the floor (we bowl out as soon as we can). After bowling out, we begin in "B", and then work our way through HBA, pets, paper, chemicals, home, etc (every TM takes an aisle; if some aisles have many boxes, then two, maybe three will work that aisle). Our TL's are very adamant on efficiency. Sometimes we have seasonal and toys bowled out; sometimes we do not (Market, Home, domestics, HBA, and stationary are ALWAYS bowled).
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It depends on how many tm's show up at spot, at least at my store.
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We're a 6 am style process store and it's absolutely abysmal in moral and productivity. The moment we went dayside everyone went from 25 to 30 hours a week to 12-16, with the expectation that the cartons would be pushed by store opening. This has not happened, we are struggling with high turnover and massive time wasting due to being a push-all store and only half the pallets being bowled. Because we are being cut to the bare minimal, any callouts are catastrophic depending on their position.
Truck thrower calls out? Unload will take 15 to 20 minutes longer easily.
Electronics calls out? Toys/Electronics takes twice as long.
Softline callout? Repack sorting takes 15 minutes longer, with an easy 30 to 60 minute of time lost due to poor sorting.
We have very strong team members who handle certain areas, and its not due to training but lack of motivation that we can't shore up the rest of the team due to them losing hope of earning enough hours to manager their bills and life. Because of this over half of the flow team have second jobs so the moment 10 am strikes they leave, crippling productivity even faster as we barely have a salesfloor/process team presence already when the store opens to assist us. This is compounded even further by an incompetent ETL who would rather just hide than be on the floor with her leaders to ensure success.
This is not all doom and gloom, but it needs to be understood that a 6 am process requires a very strong, very well motivated team plus leadership. One of the most important factors in determining speed is starting the process. The faster and more efficiently the truck and pallet system can be done, the better the team can perform to push the cartons. Leaders need to be keeping track at all time where everyone is and doing what they can to improve their efficiency. Is there a pallet filled with over stock items? They should check that to ensure that no one is wasting time bowling overstock, etc. Small stuff like this can add up quickly in a positive way!
Vehicles must be used to their maximum capability, it is imperative that there are enough vehicles to quickly take away backstock to keep the floor clean as you go.
The ETL MUST partner with salesfloor and backroom to try and garner assistance if the truck is large or the team is lacking. I feel it is also an absolute that they find a way to repay the salesfloor by helping out on days the truck is light. We can't just take from dayside, we have to give back as well. I make sure to challenge my peers and leaders to offer backup cashiering when we can, and also to further push the team to help out price change and instocks when we can.
Truck thrower calls out? Unload will take 15 to 20 minutes longer easily.
Electronics calls out? Toys/Electronics takes twice as long.
Softline callout? Repack sorting takes 15 minutes longer, with an easy 30 to 60 minute of time lost due to poor sorting.
We have very strong team members who handle certain areas, and its not due to training but lack of motivation that we can't shore up the rest of the team due to them losing hope of earning enough hours to manager their bills and life. Because of this over half of the flow team have second jobs so the moment 10 am strikes they leave, crippling productivity even faster as we barely have a salesfloor/process team presence already when the store opens to assist us. This is compounded even further by an incompetent ETL who would rather just hide than be on the floor with her leaders to ensure success.
This is not all doom and gloom, but it needs to be understood that a 6 am process requires a very strong, very well motivated team plus leadership. One of the most important factors in determining speed is starting the process. The faster and more efficiently the truck and pallet system can be done, the better the team can perform to push the cartons. Leaders need to be keeping track at all time where everyone is and doing what they can to improve their efficiency. Is there a pallet filled with over stock items? They should check that to ensure that no one is wasting time bowling overstock, etc. Small stuff like this can add up quickly in a positive way!
Vehicles must be used to their maximum capability, it is imperative that there are enough vehicles to quickly take away backstock to keep the floor clean as you go.
The ETL MUST partner with salesfloor and backroom to try and garner assistance if the truck is large or the team is lacking. I feel it is also an absolute that they find a way to repay the salesfloor by helping out on days the truck is light. We can't just take from dayside, we have to give back as well. I make sure to challenge my peers and leaders to offer backup cashiering when we can, and also to further push the team to help out price change and instocks when we can.
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Great answer, neo! Gtc's to you.
mrknownothing
purveyor of things
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Not enough flats. And yes, 6AM unload is a terrible idea without the ultimate flow team.
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- Aug 13, 2014
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That is what you call LEADERSHIP. Leaders are to direct and MOTIVATE, along with training and mobilizing. There has to be give and take; there has to be support from the leadership. My ETL is a very good MANAGER. However, yelling at us to speed up isn't enough, especially with our hours being cut. We were two people down on Thursday morning, and it took us 107 minutes to do a 2450 piece truck. Our SrTL is better at the truck, as he is more adept at moving bulk pallets and moving the line as needed (our ETL had someone jump off the line to move bulk pallets). There were times when the line had to WAIT for the pallets to be moved. I had the market and plastic pallet and market had double what it normally has. Softlines are much easier than hardlines in our store. I am the newest, but definitely not the slowest. I would guess that I am in the middle. However, I will take the biggest aisles; I took the unzoned corner of tissue and try to push. Then I get no flat, no re-packs, no cage, and I am forced to go to the backroom to grab that crap.
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- Jun 27, 2014
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Anyone getting the "MUST DO PUSH ALL through end of December per corporate" ? Talk about a Flow Process mess this past week....
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- Jun 27, 2014
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2.5 hours average for a 2100 unload ( used to be 3!). I can see the issue with our unload. I noticed most flow posts have talked about 60 - 80 minute unloads for these trucks. If we had an unload under 90 minutes, we'd be heroes. I took note that TM's on the line/unload are summoned to do bulk, but few actually visit the floor to push after break, they seem to disappear, which seems to cause havoc towards the end of sched time to be finished with my push. I'm expected to zone-push-guest service Home/HWare/Furn/Plastics/Storage 5 hours alone (and hey, don't forget your auto-fill, whats another 3 flats of fun gonna hurt?), is this norm? I seem to never finish, especially with push all. TL will send a few to help in the last 30 minutes, if I'm lucky...
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- Jul 19, 2014
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2.5 hours for 2100 pieces? We just had a truck that size today and did it in around 1.5 hours, definitely under goal. 2 unloaders, 1 scanner/pacer, 1 or 2 people to stack the backstock/transition and 4 in bays to load the rest of the freight onto vehicles. If we're not shortstaffed there's a dedicated pacer/puller to handle PIPOs and full vehicles on the line. 3 or 4 pullers to pull and breakout or stage freight on the floor.
There's one or two backups that slow the line down but as long as that's it and they're cleared quickly we're beating goals.
Of course, unload's the easy part. It actually pushing all that stuff where we stumble. Sometimes, pretty badly.
There's one or two backups that slow the line down but as long as that's it and they're cleared quickly we're beating goals.
Of course, unload's the easy part. It actually pushing all that stuff where we stumble. Sometimes, pretty badly.
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- Nov 20, 2013
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8 people (4 bays, 1 backside, 2 throwers and 1 scanner). This time last year we were unloading 2700's in 70 minutes. Now it's an hour and a half no matter what size. Not a problem for me anymore, I have more than enough to keep me busy while the truck is unloaded.
we seem to struggle with a fairly large incline from in the truck to the line (The nose of the trailer is usually like 2 feet lower than the tail of the trailer) which requires us to have a pusher from inside the truck to push freight to the scanner(who doesn't push the freight to the line...)
Does anyone else have this issue? Usually I join in pushing and I usually pull pallets out of the truck (ETL Log here)
I've played around the idea of trying to adjust the nestaflex so the incline isn't so noticeable but everyone keeps saying that it will just fall back to the lowest level after maybe a week... So there's that!
Does anyone else have this issue? Usually I join in pushing and I usually pull pallets out of the truck (ETL Log here)
I've played around the idea of trying to adjust the nestaflex so the incline isn't so noticeable but everyone keeps saying that it will just fall back to the lowest level after maybe a week... So there's that!
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