Dear D.c

jinxed myself. Got 1/2 a Repack full of single products with break pack labels stuck to each and every item. Defected out all.of.it.
Packers are obviously not being told that this is a no-no. It happens far too often.

But as a thinking human being, why would anyone find the idea of putting those on actual merchandise a good one? Damn things bond like super glue.
 
The problem is that Target waited too long to update their process to match technology. Before that, they waited too long to update their technology.

About 3 - 4 years ago, maybe less than that, we were still using Microsoft 7 platform to support our systems (old rf guns). We changed after they quit supporting it.

Our DC's are not configured correctly to support the direction Corporate Leadership has taken us.

Omni Channel is a support to a fulfillment process, not the process. Our model is a stop gap to our inability to ship from designated fulfillment centers like our DC's. Simply they are not configured correctly to handle individual items or less that case quantities in high volume .

So they have pushed that to the store level. An additional level of unnecessary cost that has to be absorbed at the store level.

Modernization was an attempt at correcting inventory control problem without a major overhaul of the entire process which would have included a massive restructuring of the DC's and Store's inventory processing configurations.

Either build new DC's like Wal Mart did or take existing DC's off line for reconfiguration.

These are just a few of the many reasons we will not see any relief at the DC and Store level any time in the foreseeable future.

By the way, I used a similar type of pull system back in the early 90's. We were configured to handle individual pieces, case quantities, and pallet/truckload shipments.

I can only imagine how bad the problems are that exists in our DC's trying to support our current process.
 
The problem is that Target waited too long to update their process to match technology. Before that, they waited too long to update their technology.

About 3 - 4 years ago, maybe less than that, we were still using Microsoft 7 platform to support our systems (old rf guns). We changed after they quit supporting it.

Our DC's are not configured correctly to support the direction Corporate Leadership has taken us.

Omni Channel is a support to a fulfillment process, not the process. Our model is a stop gap to our inability to ship from designated fulfillment centers like our DC's. Simply they are not configured correctly to handle individual items or less that case quantities in high volume .

So they have pushed that to the store level. An additional level of unnecessary cost that has to be absorbed at the store level.

Modernization was an attempt at correcting inventory control problem without a major overhaul of the entire process which would have included a massive restructuring of the DC's and Store's inventory processing configurations.

Either build new DC's like Wal Mart did or take existing DC's off line for reconfiguration.

These are just a few of the many reasons we will not see any relief at the DC and Store level any time in the foreseeable future.

By the way, I used a similar type of pull system back in the early 90's. We were configured to handle individual pieces, case quantities, and pallet/truckload shipments.

I can only imagine how bad the problems are that exists in our DC's trying to support our current process.

I think auto rebin will help with this. The dc being able to ship products to stores, not by zone but by aisle should help immensely. We shall see how that works though in the future.
 
I think auto rebin will help with this. The dc being able to ship products to stores, not by zone but by aisle should help immensely. We shall see how that works though in the future.

This will help some, but it's not the solution. It's the process in the entirety that is flawed.

The system will eventually have to be taken down and reconfigured to reflect the new way business is done.

An example is how Home Depot runs their DC's. They went from warehousing to shelfless distribution to keep pace with their business model.

If we do not transition into DC pick pack operations along with store replenishment support, the unit cost will eventually put us at a sales disadvantage. Stores should support on line sales as part of an omni channel operation, not be the omni channel.

Short term, you do what you need to do. Long term you do what you need to stay in business.

"The last day of the Sears Catalog was the first day Amazon went on line."
 
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Short term, you do what you need to do. Long term you do what you need to stay in business. Last day of the Sears Catalog was the first day Amazon went on line.
.
Close, but not quite. Sears took their last catalog order on May 27th, 1993. Amazon's first online sale was on April 3rd, 1995.
 
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.
Can't place all pallets in the back of the truck if all pallets includes water because the back of the trailer would not make the scales on the interstate. No offense but true nonetheless.
 
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."
We double stack Nestle water in the DC because we run out of room if we don't but I would never do it in a trailer because it doesn't come from the vendor that way and five thousand pounds in one footprint is a TAD MUCH for a trailer floor to expect to withstand. I would definitely document this and follow up if it came to a store that way. I can't see it making scale that way considering the vendors themselves never do it.
 
We received an Easter assortment today on our truck. Why..
Don't feel bad. We are running out of bulk locations from Halloween and Christmas Trees already. Considering how covid is effing 2020's prospects of being a good year, methinks some higher-ups are being overly (& overtly); optimistic at Spot's chances for a boisterous Black Friday Sale. Black Plague Friday more like it.
 
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
Looks like the recall date is 7/23 and it takes 7 days from DC to store so I think maybe the recall didn't happen until after the truck left?
 
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.
If I find Xmas stuff after Xmas; I just pull it and set it in the salvage aisle or sweeps salvage. I don't even ask. It's blatantly obvious that it's worthless at that point and the DPCI will cease to exist at some point.
 
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.

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.
Load quality is exactly what it is... load quality. That's the DC's problem. Not the companies wrapping the pallets.
 
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 🤣
What dc # is this?
 
Load quality is exactly what it is... load quality. That's the DC's problem. Not the companies wrapping the pallets.
Unfortunately with covid, spot has no face to face interviews. As long as people pass a background check, we are now stuck with them until it becomes blatantly obvious they don't want to work for a living. Also, I love the human race in general but we had a flex in to WHS from MBP who put a label on the top of laundry detergent, which was awesome but then placed the laundry detergent box on its side in the cart... so it leaked out. Wisdom comes from experience. From cart building to trailer building.
 
Unfortunately with covid, spot has no face to face interviews. As long as people pass a background check, we are now stuck with them until it becomes blatantly obvious they don't want to work for a living. Also, I love the human race in general but we had a flex in to WHS from MBP who put a label on the top of laundry detergent, which was awesome but then placed the laundry detergent box on its side in the cart... so it leaked out. Wisdom comes from experience. From cart building to trailer building.
Idk how many times I end up saying this but they stopped doing interviews before covid. New hires are all done through corporate. I was one of many to get hired without interview and just scheduled orientation months before covid became an issue (I was also drug tested on site) and even my trainer said it was Targets new hiring policy against discrimination. Everyone gets a chance. If you apply and pass a background check you're hired. The only thing they aren't doing for covid is the drug testing and it shows with the amount of people willing to walk in the front door smelling so strong of that good stuff. Mass hiring. Mass orientations. 4-5 new trainees per week this season. One minute an OM tells someone to put the box on the most conveyable side then the next days it's they need to pay attention to the this side up arrows. Constant back and forth with that shit since I've worked here. Might as well just make it all non con since nobody is on the same page 🙄
 
Background check?????

We have rapists, pedophiles, guys fresh outta prison for violent crimes who then went back in for violent crimes and then got out and are back.

I'd love to know what they are looking. Cause starring on to catch a predator doesn't exclude you.

We all joke that you apply and you get emailed. Captcha thing to see if your human and then if you complete it you get a congratulations your human heres a job.
 
Background check?????

We have rapists, pedophiles, guys fresh outta prison for violent crimes who then went back in for violent crimes and then got out and are back.

I'd love to know what they are looking. Cause starring on to catch a predator doesn't exclude you.

We all joke that you apply and you get emailed. Captcha thing to see if your human and then if you complete it you get a congratulations your human heres a job.


Seems like a thing now. New hires still on parole. They're telling their buddies where they can get hired for a decent paying job. Some of these guys are driving 2 hours one way to work for a 12 hour shift before realizing they're spending so much on gas that it's not worth it. A lot of the guys aren't bad they just want to work and be left alone.
 
Seems like a thing now. New hires still on parole. They're telling their buddies where they can get hired for a decent paying job. Some of these guys are driving 2 hours one way to work for a 12 hour shift before realizing they're spending so much on gas that it's not worth it. A lot of the guys aren't bad they just want to work and be left alone.

Yeah we all really enjoy working with the greazy freak who brags about drugging a 13 year old and raping her.

Or the one who just got fired for threatening to kill an inbound teammate over a badly built waterfall cart.

I could go on and on.

Yeah they aren't bad people. Mmmmmm hhhhhh.
 
DC continues to close out small trucks or outright cancel a truck to gear up massive triples for my store. My SD and DTL is at the point of frustration however the OD seems to believe there isn’t much he can do about it. They constantly playing games with our store so I really hate my DC. Terrible load quality, truck manipulation, and disregard for the in store work. I’m not blaming the team members they do what they’re told, but who ever is in charge over there needs some accountability thrown their way.
 
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DC continues to close out small trucks or outright cancel a truck to gear up massive triples for my store. My SD and DTL is at the point of frustration however the OD seems to believe there isn’t much he can do about it. They constantly playing games with our store so I really hate my DC. Terrible load quality, truck manipulation, and disregard for the in store work. I’m not blaming the team members they do what they’re told, but who ever is in charge over there needs some accountability thrown their way.
They killed me this past two night Sunday Softlines break out 39h , last night 29.7h
 
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