Archived DC questions

[Beckt5500]

Hey guys,
I'm a ETL Logistics relatively new to the company and interested in why we have many of the processes we do. Many of the questions are critical but I'm not interested in the blame game only in trying to develop a better process for my store so please help me out. I was hoping someone with some experience in the DC could help me out with the following things:

Re packs - Why? They dramatically slow productivity in the store as they have to be sorted, even if they are the same department class that tends to be multiple aisles and while I put a clean process in place it still cuts efficiency dramatically. Why do we use these?

Softlines- Sizes are almost always off, the DCI report says I'll get the following and 50% of the time the sizes are off. It plays hell with my flexible fulfillment so I'm curious how we get so few MSPKs in hardlines (1 in 200) and so many in soft lines (1 in 10).

Trailer loading - the load bars are amazing, simple but really effective. Naturally I'm sure y'all hate them because stores often fail to return them and they take more of your time, but they cut down on damage a lot. But how are the trailers loaded? I understand weight distribution plays a key role, but I often find things like a box of tide on a box of pillows at the top of the trailer, or pallets all right by the entrance causing unload to slow as the trailer will be weighted down to much for automatic equipment.

Trailer feedback forms - Lets be realistic about feedback, the DC gets about 10% of the feedback it needs because that form is so detailed. Precision is important, but I don't have time in the middle of the unload to stop everything and get the trailer #, DCI #, Pallet #, Carton Number, Etc etc. Often I'll note what happened, and try to give feedback at the end of the day only to find the my support cannot go through without often irrelevant information.

In Stocks - the pressure on the DC has ratcheted up substantially as the company focus is now heavy on being in stock, what effects is this having on you guys and have things gotten better? Just curious because my in stocks are actually getting worse which tells me someone who was key at my DC either left or got termed.

Thanks in advance for info!

 

[dabeastfromtheeast]

I'll try to help with as much as I can:
We use the packing process so the store doesn't have a backroom overloaded with backstock. A lot of breakpack casepacks come in higher-quantity unit counts than your typical casepack, i.e., most breakpack boxes have unit counts of 48, 72, 144, etc. It doesn't make too much sense to send a casepack of say nail polish, which typically comes in a casepack of 72, when the shelf can hold maybe 10 of that color and a waco maybe another 20-30 if you really stuff it.

Not too certain on the softlines mspk's, but since they come up very often on our own DC audits, I get the impression that they are packed up by hand at the vendor before we get them, resulting in occasional mspks.

For getting things like pillow boxes crushed, that's on the TM who loaded the trailer, since light boxes are supposed to go top of the wall, however, the TM's in doors have production they have to meet, on top of keeping their trailer chutes empty enough so they don't back up the building. Compounding this, the TM is usually loading anywhere from 3-20 trailers simultaneously. Not that I condone their actions by any means, but many TM's will simply do whatever it takes to empty their chute for that trailer quickly so they move onto the next trailer. There's no real weight distribution rules that we follow, per se, mostly just rules for building full, stable walls without leaving any empty air-space in the trailer. The only weight rules I know of involve water PIPO, where we have two pallets toward the front, four in the middle and two in the rear, and that a trailer can't go too far over a 40k lbs weight limit.

As for the pallets, our best practice says we need to have a pallet of PIPO/FPS/non-con/non-merch in every wall on the store's preferred side, going side-by-side when a particular trailer door gets too many pallets down it's lane, or when it's the first/last wall of the trailer. We try to leave around a foot or two empty at the back, but (fun fact) the DC dock plates are a few inches shorter the store-side ones, so TM's sometimes build further than they should without realizing it.

I don't know too much about the feedback forms. I think they're processed by our executive-level, who then pass on info during our start-ups, or to individual TMs if they track down something specific to them.

I guess? It sorta depends. If you're a guy who just likes a typical 36-40 hr week, and nothing more (most DC guys) then no. Since I'd say May/June-ish, things have really been ratcheted up a couple notches. Had mandatory OT for a couple months there (and I suspect there will be more in about a month or so). I thrive on OT and keeping my wallet well-lined, so this boom in business and in-stocks has been nothing but good to me.

For your own instocks falling, that probably means your DC isn't hitting it's LOS goals. LOS (level of service) or basically getting product to stores within set deadlines, is the big DC metric. Those past few months really put a lot of DCs on edge with LOS, and I really wouldn't be surprised if a few a still trying to catch up. Right now, the DCs are onbarding a lot of new hires for what's sounding to be our biggest Q4 ever, so there maybe some lost LOS there. Could even be some bug or glitch in the software sending labels and such to the DC. Either way, if it continues, I'd definitely follow up with your DC to see what's the deal.