Dear D.c

redeye58 said:
Dear DC:
Please stop sending up outdated/short dated food stuffs; our compactor is getting full 😡
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Or items that have already gone salvage. Or items that are so damaged that they have to be defected out. I appreciate that your box cutter blades are sharp, but no one will buy a package of panty liners that's been slashed with a knife. Thank you!
 
Most of these issues would fall under HQ, not DC, at least the first few.
The system prints a label for everything that we need to pick and send out, so that’s what we pick and send out. How are the people that do that to know if a particular thing is salvage at any given store? We don’t even know what’s in half the boxes we ship.
The same thing sort of applies to expiration dates. The system only allows us to enter an expiration date on freight we receive if it’s received on a sweep transfer. (Even then it’s 50/50 at best) So unless the person picking food notices it’s beyond the best by date, it ships. I assume that it happens little enough that HQ decided it wasn’t worth the time to track it on things from manufacturers. Should people pay attention? Absolutely, but they won’t, don’t have time for it.
As far as trailers that are less than full, each store has a time that their trailer needs to be at the store. So if a store should have their trailer delivered before 8pm and they’re 2hrs from the DC, then the trailer needs to be out of the door by 5pm regardless of how full it is. Usually the trailer is full before that time and everything works out, sometimes it’s 1/4 full at that time but we still have to close the trailer. (This is just an example to understand, it’s by no means the true time frame) We also aren’t the ones who add trailers to your schedules, you probably know about the added trailer before we do.
As far as cutting into product and labeling selling units, is there a way for stores to report those exact cases to their DC? Seems like something that ICQA either is or will at some point be trying to address and if they have label #s it’s fairly easy to figure out who did it. Stuff like that should be caught in house before it becomes a store problem, but clearly people don’t care.
 
We had problems at my dc last night. All the OT has caused a charged battery shortage for the machines. People sent to do things they aren't trained to do. People who dont know how to load trucks loaded or half loaded trucks without supervision. Some of your stores are in for a treat 🤣
 
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InboundDCguy said:
Most of these issues would fall under HQ, not DC, at least the first few.
The system prints a label for everything that we need to pick and send out, so that’s what we pick and send out. How are the people that do that to know if a particular thing is salvage at any given store? We don’t even know what’s in half the boxes we ship.
The same thing sort of applies to expiration dates. The system only allows us to enter an expiration date on freight we receive if it’s received on a sweep transfer. (Even then it’s 50/50 at best) So unless the person picking food notices it’s beyond the best by date, it ships. I assume that it happens little enough that HQ decided it wasn’t worth the time to track it on things from manufacturers. Should people pay attention? Absolutely, but they won’t, don’t have time for it.
As far as trailers that are less than full, each store has a time that their trailer needs to be at the store. So if a store should have their trailer delivered before 8pm and they’re 2hrs from the DC, then the trailer needs to be out of the door by 5pm regardless of how full it is. Usually the trailer is full before that time and everything works out, sometimes it’s 1/4 full at that time but we still have to close the trailer. (This is just an example to understand, it’s by no means the true time frame) We also aren’t the ones who add trailers to your schedules, you probably know about the added trailer before we do.
As far as cutting into product and labeling selling units, is there a way for stores to report those exact cases to their DC? Seems like something that ICQA either is or will at some point be trying to address and if they have label #s it’s fairly easy to figure out who did it. Stuff like that should be caught in house before it becomes a store problem, but clearly people don’t care.
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There is no way you going to tell me it makes sense that my trucks should be at the store by 8pm but you closing out 1,100 piece trucks or 700 at 8AM. Then the weekend or next week is slammed with doubles in the 2100 - 2600 piece range. Clearly they were closed early so DC doesn’t cancel on their end and give themselves more time to build trucks. Store gets screwed in the end.

Additionally there is a way to report cases to DC but they get away with everything. The truck feedback form makes no headway. I doubt people even hear about it in the DC (this is also the case with C&S). My trucks are atrocious. I wish I could show you the album in my phone filled with craziness like water pallets completely fallen over on the floor due to poor wrapping and terrible truck building logic, leading team members to rebuild 7 pallets. Paper pallets crushed because heavy furniture pallets is stacked on top. Constantly putting pallets then freight then more pallets then more freight. That just stops the line and waste time. Now you have to stop the line pull out the pallets, set up the line again, then throw more boxes, then when encountering more pallets do it all over again. Pallets should be placed in the back of the truck period. Also the logic of sending 255 cases of 3 liter Poland Spring water but not on pallets so you have to throw each heavy one on the line and build a pallet yourself...lol what?

I found the only way to get some follow up is to document it and send it via email to your DTL and OD. The standards varies too much across the board as I know of a DC that does things amazingly well and those stores Inbound process greatly benefits from it. My goal is to get into a position that I can help remedy these issues. DC has their own issues they’re dealing with too.

As far as trucks being added. That’s not fair to anyone. It’s not fair to DC and not fair to stores. Especially weekend adds. You know how annoying it is trying to get team members to come in on a Saturday or Sunday because all of a sudden you have to take extra freight? This makes me laugh at the whole payroll and scheduling smart talk.

I’ve been doing flow/inbound for too long and I know bridging the gap between DC and Stores is the key to success. HQ unnecessarily slams stores with freight anyway forcing everyone to panic and make brash decisions.
 
SilentCrow said:
There is no way you going to tell me it makes sense that my trucks should be at the store by 8pm but you closing out 1,100 piece trucks or 700 at 8AM. Then the weekend or next week is slammed with doubles in the 2100 - 2600 piece range. Clearly they were closed early so DC doesn’t cancel on their end and give themselves more time to build trucks. Store gets screwed in the end.
Click to expand...

Didn't read them claiming at any point that it made sense, I worked outbount for close to two years. Trust me very little makes sense in regards to trailer schedules other than the fact its scheduled and unless the dc is desperate for trailers the door gets cut when its full or the system says its time to cut it.

SilentCrow said:
Additionally there is a way to report cases to DC but they get away with everything. The truck feedback form makes no headway. I doubt people even hear about it in the DC (this is also the case with C&S).
Click to expand...

We would hear about it. Outbound is one of the most physically demanding roles in the building. It's 10/12 hours of straight throwing boxes. Our production expectations were around 450 cartons an hour. I absolutely loved the day i actually ran prod, typically you end up running around 500 - 520 for the day. But often you would see spikes upwards of 800 - 900 cph dealing with other departments going over. We have 4 departments feeding freight to outbound at my dc and when they all go over... your fucked.

So, we often heard about quality... but its hard to hold team members accountable to it while they can barley manage the amount of freight being pushed to their lanes.

SilentCrow said:
My trucks are atrocious. I wish I could show you the album in my phone filled with craziness like water pallets completely fallen over on the floor due to poor wrapping and terrible truck building logic, leading team members to rebuild 7 pallets. Paper pallets crushed because heavy furniture pallets is stacked on top. Constantly putting pallets then freight then more pallets then more freight. That just stops the line and waste time. Now you have to stop the line pull out the pallets, set up the line again, then throw more boxes, then when encountering more pallets do it all over again. Pallets should be placed in the back of the truck period. Also the logic of sending 255 cases of 3 liter Poland Spring water but not on pallets so you have to throw each heavy one on the line and build a pallet yourself...lol what?
Click to expand...

Anything pipo we don't wrap, it comes from the vendor exactly how you see it in your trailers.

I'm not sure how much space you think we have in the shipping department but there isn't a lot of space allocated to each lane, we tried a new process of putting all pallets in the front/back of the trailers. It was terrible. The wing was full of pipo and non con pallets. Unfortunately in regard to space inside the trailer its best to push the non con pallets in when full and build them into a wall.

I'm not making excuses for everything you find wrong as trust me I've seen some shitty handoffs before in regards to build quality. But when dc's are so desperate for workers they just stop holding people accountable. Most people are going to take full advantage of that sutuation.

SilentCrow said:
As far as trucks being added. That’s not fair to anyone. It’s not fair to DC and not fair to stores. Especially weekend adds. You know how annoying it is trying to get team members to come in on a Saturday or Sunday because all of a sudden you have to take extra freight? This makes me laugh at the whole payroll and scheduling smart talk.
Click to expand...
Yeah, unfortunately trucks get full when they get full, sometimes the DC gets slammed by a huge drop that just has to be worked. The freight shows up when it shows up and we just have to work it. No one likes it. Its the same thing when they schedule an extra 10 people for OT for one department to work a large drop to have the plan cut in half right at startup and asking everyone to go home.
It is unfortunately what it is.
 
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Theres a lot of dumb things that make sense on paper, but in practice usually isnt going to work as planned, at the store level. I have no reason to believe that it isnt the same if not worse at the dcs. But ive seen some really dumb shit come off a trailer like water pallets on top of paper pallets, that are just plain dangerous and plain stupid.
 
That is stupid, it only takes a few moments to stack them the other way round, paper up top water on the bottom.

I can say I've never in my life stacked water on top of anything else. *in a truck that is, I disagree with water pallets being double and triple stacked for storage, but its not my call at the end of the day."
 
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InboundDCguy said:
As far as cutting into product and labeling selling units, is there a way for stores to report those exact cases to their DC? Seems like something that ICQA either is or will at some point be trying to address and if they have label #s it’s fairly easy to figure out who did it. Stuff like that should be caught in house before it becomes a store problem, but clearly people don’t care.
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It's been done. Photo taken of the repack label on the box with the damaged product included in the picture. I don't unpack those particular repacks any more, but as I recall, it took a very long time with several photos of the same problem to get it fixed.
Sometimes, I wish the DC TMs could shadow me as I unpack my repacks and see what I deal with. I don't think most of them are actually trying to make my job harder. But that's the end result some days.
 
Seriously. I know you guys can’t have recall in your dc , but why the hell would you send me 2 pallets of it ?? That shit is gonna fill my esim bins and my pick is 3 months away . God dam
 
It be nice if the DC didn’t send full box batteries in white repacks I can understand the tiny boxes (hearing aid or watch batteries) but a full box of AA 20 don’t work especially for the amount of times that 1 repack can be handled plus other product that could get damaged or crushed in the same repack
 
Someone found a couple of old xmas ornaments, just some silver colored letters so they didn't look especially festive. Luckily I saw the wondershop logo before I sent them to some poor random store lol.
 
ItChecksOut said:
Didn't read them claiming at any point that it made sense, I worked outbount for close to two years. Trust me very little makes sense in regards to trailer schedules other than the fact its scheduled and unless the dc is desperate for trailers the door gets cut when its full or the system says its time to cut it.



We would hear about it. Outbound is one of the most physically demanding roles in the building. It's 10/12 hours of straight throwing boxes. Our production expectations were around 450 cartons an hour. I absolutely loved the day i actually ran prod, typically you end up running around 500 - 520 for the day. But often you would see spikes upwards of 800 - 900 cph dealing with other departments going over. We have 4 departments feeding freight to outbound at my dc and when they all go over... your fucked.

So, we often heard about quality... but its hard to hold team members accountable to it while they can barley manage the amount of freight being pushed to their lanes.



Anything pipo we don't wrap, it comes from the vendor exactly how you see it in your trailers.

I'm not sure how much space you think we have in the shipping department but there isn't a lot of space allocated to each lane, we tried a new process of putting all pallets in the front/back of the trailers. It was terrible. The wing was full of pipo and non con pallets. Unfortunately in regard to space inside the trailer its best to push the non con pallets in when full and build them into a wall.

I'm not making excuses for everything you find wrong as trust me I've seen some shitty handoffs before in regards to build quality. But when dc's are so desperate for workers they just stop holding people accountable. Most people are going to take full advantage of that sutuation.


Yeah, unfortunately trucks get full when they get full, sometimes the DC gets slammed by a huge drop that just has to be worked. The freight shows up when it shows up and we just have to work it. No one likes it. Its the same thing when they schedule an extra 10 people for OT for one department to work a large drop to have the plan cut in half right at startup and asking everyone to go home.
It is unfortunately what it is.
Click to expand...

As I said I’m sure there is issues that the DC deal with however unloading terrible trucks, push it, backstock it, and try to be brand by the time guest open is a level of stress beyond comprehension. Tie that with attendance you’re trying to manage, training, schedules, etc it’s crazy.

I wish I can post pictures I have but I don’t want anyone that may be aware of them to out me. Water pallets on top of that paper, pallets stacked to the brim of grills, 3 liter water cases not on pallets (makes no sense to me), chemicals stacked on top of boxes very high to the point that team members have to Neo dodge in the truck.

At the end of the day it’s really just HQ putting unnecessary pressure on everyone. I believe if they slow down the freight flow give stores what they need and just let them push that and shop out of their Backroom. Most stores don’t need two-three trucks every night. It’s just a danger zone. God forbid you remember that you employed humans that may have something come up and call out. Now you’re trying to manage chaos.

Funniest part is them pushing “safety” 😂.
 
SilentCrow said:
As I said I’m sure there is issues that the DC deal with however unloading terrible trucks, push it, backstock it, and try to be brand by the time guest open is a level of stress beyond comprehension. Tie that with attendance you’re trying to manage, training, schedules, etc it’s crazy.

I wish I can post pictures I have but I don’t want anyone that may be aware of them to out me. Water pallets on top of that paper, pallets stacked to the brim of grills, 3 liter water cases not on pallets (makes no sense to me), chemicals stacked on top of boxes very high to the point that team members have to Neo dodge in the truck.

At the end of the day it’s really just HQ putting unnecessary pressure on everyone. I believe if they slow down the freight flow give stores what they need and just let them push that and shop out of their Backroom. Most stores don’t need two-three trucks every night. It’s just a danger zone. God forbid you remember that you employed humans that may have something come up and call out. Now you’re trying to manage chaos.

Funniest part is them pushing “safety” 😂.
Click to expand...
I agree with you with the way the load the freight . Some trucks should be condemned from the moment I cut that seal. However as much as I’m tired of doubles everyday I need them . My floor still is empty just as fast as I unload those trucks .
 
Lots of stuff going on in this thread. All of it I completely sympathize with as a store team member who made the transition to DC to get answers for myself. The very basic answer I can give you is that 80% of those problems would go away if an entire trailer was loaded by a compitent person.
The problem is right now 25% of the "veteran" shift are within their first 90 days. DC cant keep people to save its life and so it's the blind leading the blind.
I spent my entire day, again this is on the "veteran" shift B1, the one that used to take 3-5 years minimum to get onto at my DC, knocking down yellow lights in the wing because of the 15 people in doors, 11 were in orange vests!
And their walls made my worst days look like masterpieces.
When you are started in loading trailers, you get a single 5 hour training session with a trainer and then are sent off on your own. Technically yes the trainer is supposed to be around to continue to help and he tries his best but he has 10 other guys to help on top of his own production responsibilities.
 

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