signingminion
WAVing in the air like I just don't care
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- Sep 3, 2014
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My dead weight is still getting the same hrs as before, so don't get your hopes up. Only the really good ones are leaving it seems.
MEGATHREAD End to End team PILOT
- Thread starter Apapaia
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HRZone
Former ETL HR
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- Jul 30, 2016
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Lol that's what pisses me off. They are driving away the wrong people
Our store did this about 3 weeks ago. 1 Thrower, 1 person does Bay 1, 1 person does Bay 2, 1 person does Bay 3,4, including softlines and all repacks except electronics. 1 person does dry market. Push all really sucks, especially on days where there is a lot of transition. There is literally nowhere to put it. Unload takes forever, but after, we do not go home, we go to our respective areas. We generally work 5 hour shifts, but it does depend on which area is assigned to you. So basically my former Flow TL is my supervisor for the unload, and since I'm not on the "flow team" anymore and I'm not in the area he supervises, I have another TL that supervises the rest of my shift.
And just let me say.....Our backroom is a mess, to the point that we struggle to actually unload the truck sometimes, especially when the food truck arrives during our unload. Our receiver has no room, our FF area is blocked. Vehicles, trash cages, left over freight, everywhere. It truly is a mess. I think the only backstocking that is being close to being kept up with is softlines and baby hardlines.
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2017
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- 343
Rock Lobster, post: 361252, member: 87"]I still feel you are not putting any type of value on the flexibility and reduced liability that this supply chain model allows. Sure, you are pointing out that a SFS model "adds touches" to the product, and therefore reduces its margin since its making a trip to store and then being shipped again (essentially calling this a wasted trip), but its not a full waste. The product within the store is serving a purpose and is available (also can be pulled from early in the supply chain in eaches) to our brick and mortar guests for a sale. By forming online distribution centers, these products inherently take on a risk and decreased value over time due to them only having one way of driving revenue once they are stuck there. There are also multiple cost drivers by forming a single supply chain into two chains. The largest and most obvious is a currently unknown to me increase in overall inventory. If we want to remain competitive, we would need to sit on more product to be able to fulfill two different businesses. We would need to form better forecasting tools far beyond our competitors. Amazon doesn't have to pay attention to whether they are locking up merchandise in this manner while we do.
First, please excuse my absence in responding. I’ve been a little tied up.
As far as order fulfillment, there is nothing wrong with 100% fulfillment as a goal. If you can fulfill an order, you want to do so as long as it is within your business plan. If it’s not, your profitability is going to take a serious hit by driving up the cost of goods sold (IMO the reason Cornell warned us of this).
Like I mentioned earlier, online and retail operations are literally two separate business units when it comes to cost and process. Flexibility wouldn’t necessarily yield anticipated benefits if it is not treated as such.
Average warehouse space cost about $5.24/sq foot (last I checked) while the average retail space is about 4 times that amount (location – could be even more). The cost ratios are about the same whether you lease or own the building/land. So when you ship out of a retail space, it’s substantially more regardless of the DC type. The primary reason you want to ship more orders out of non retail location.
Then you have cross docking (truck to truck – retail), warehouse set up, and other various packing/shipping demands that are exclusive to each of the business units. Spot even has dedicated import warehousing for holding/staging just to free up our DC operations. Space utilization is always an issue at the DC’s.
Then you have process multiplicity that requires additional hours to support when trying to service two distinct types of business requirements. We have a microcosm at the store level of the differences.
A retail sale consists of a guest bringing items to a Team Member who rings up the sale, bags it, and hands it to the guest upon completion.
An online order consists of a batch drop first to an available/waiting Team Member who then picks the order and takes it to the shipping area. Then another Team Member (same?) processes, packs, and places the order on a flat/pallet awaiting shipment.
You have retail sales under one roof requiring two distinct processes. The same would hold true in the DC operations; different picking and packing requirements for a store versus an online order. Not to mention the shear number of batches/orders for online vs. retail.
Can you do both in a retail setting utilizing a single omni channel DC? Yes as long as you can absorb the additional cost and remain competitive without supply chain disruptions to either. Under one roof, one cannot subordinate to the other unless the outcome is acceptable to the recipient (guest/store), not to the business (Spot).
The reality is that eventually one business unit will subordinate to the other based upon the profitability.
I’m at a LV store that is benefiting greatly from the gross sales amount created by SFS. It literally keeps us afloat in regards to meeting our gross sales goal. However, if we don’t meet Spot’s profitability requirements, eventually he’ll shutter our store.
Online sales directly compete with retail sales. Whether it’s within your business or your competition, you are competing for business. You can’t avoid it.
That gives us the paradigm of “Who gets it first, the anticipated retail guest or the online order?” A retail store’s primary purpose is to have merchandise availability/selection.
This would also plague the DC’s in a single omni channel logistics operation. Who gets priority? You have to draw the line somewhere. So far, Spot has reserved high demand/low supply to the stores when it comes to online, but will that continue as the business shifts?
I learned that outages are the biggest problem with co mingled omni channels.
As for the merchandise’s life in the supply chain, this is commonly referred to as “turns” or “inventory turns”. When merchandise is either ongoing or new, it has a life cycle based upon sales projections. So the merchandise is expected to cycle “X” amount of times over given time periods through your inventory system. Once the merchandise fails to turn or is at the end of its life cycle, there usually is a procedure to flush it out of the system. This is topic that Spot needs to visit with the late inventory pushes (end of season).
Our problem is capability/capacity. We just don’t have it to fulfill on line orders at this time. So we are forced to utilize store’s infrastructure to meet demand. IMO one of the reasons Mr. Valdez wants to implement “eaches” so that the current DC’s can also eventually ship online orders within the same process.
SFS will eventually ramp down as we revamp our logistics to meet store and online fulfillment. I suspect we’ll see the same Retail DC’s, additional Online DC’s, a few Hybrid DC’s (strategic locations – retail and online), and a select number of store SFS operations in the future. This would help us to meet sales demands while maintaining profitability.
We really suck at forecasting IMO. If anything, this should have been one of the priorities on Cornell’s punch list. This is the number one reason to horizontally and vertically integrate our supply chains into our inventory systems. All of these shortages in our stores shouldn’t be happening in this day and time.
We run out of merchandise all of the time. Correct counts and none on the way. What in the world is going on with that? Every article Spot is in with a comment section, you find the same complaint about outages.
First, please excuse my absence in responding. I’ve been a little tied up.
As far as order fulfillment, there is nothing wrong with 100% fulfillment as a goal. If you can fulfill an order, you want to do so as long as it is within your business plan. If it’s not, your profitability is going to take a serious hit by driving up the cost of goods sold (IMO the reason Cornell warned us of this).
Like I mentioned earlier, online and retail operations are literally two separate business units when it comes to cost and process. Flexibility wouldn’t necessarily yield anticipated benefits if it is not treated as such.
Average warehouse space cost about $5.24/sq foot (last I checked) while the average retail space is about 4 times that amount (location – could be even more). The cost ratios are about the same whether you lease or own the building/land. So when you ship out of a retail space, it’s substantially more regardless of the DC type. The primary reason you want to ship more orders out of non retail location.
Then you have cross docking (truck to truck – retail), warehouse set up, and other various packing/shipping demands that are exclusive to each of the business units. Spot even has dedicated import warehousing for holding/staging just to free up our DC operations. Space utilization is always an issue at the DC’s.
Then you have process multiplicity that requires additional hours to support when trying to service two distinct types of business requirements. We have a microcosm at the store level of the differences.
A retail sale consists of a guest bringing items to a Team Member who rings up the sale, bags it, and hands it to the guest upon completion.
An online order consists of a batch drop first to an available/waiting Team Member who then picks the order and takes it to the shipping area. Then another Team Member (same?) processes, packs, and places the order on a flat/pallet awaiting shipment.
You have retail sales under one roof requiring two distinct processes. The same would hold true in the DC operations; different picking and packing requirements for a store versus an online order. Not to mention the shear number of batches/orders for online vs. retail.
Can you do both in a retail setting utilizing a single omni channel DC? Yes as long as you can absorb the additional cost and remain competitive without supply chain disruptions to either. Under one roof, one cannot subordinate to the other unless the outcome is acceptable to the recipient (guest/store), not to the business (Spot).
The reality is that eventually one business unit will subordinate to the other based upon the profitability.
I’m at a LV store that is benefiting greatly from the gross sales amount created by SFS. It literally keeps us afloat in regards to meeting our gross sales goal. However, if we don’t meet Spot’s profitability requirements, eventually he’ll shutter our store.
Online sales directly compete with retail sales. Whether it’s within your business or your competition, you are competing for business. You can’t avoid it.
That gives us the paradigm of “Who gets it first, the anticipated retail guest or the online order?” A retail store’s primary purpose is to have merchandise availability/selection.
This would also plague the DC’s in a single omni channel logistics operation. Who gets priority? You have to draw the line somewhere. So far, Spot has reserved high demand/low supply to the stores when it comes to online, but will that continue as the business shifts?
I learned that outages are the biggest problem with co mingled omni channels.
As for the merchandise’s life in the supply chain, this is commonly referred to as “turns” or “inventory turns”. When merchandise is either ongoing or new, it has a life cycle based upon sales projections. So the merchandise is expected to cycle “X” amount of times over given time periods through your inventory system. Once the merchandise fails to turn or is at the end of its life cycle, there usually is a procedure to flush it out of the system. This is topic that Spot needs to visit with the late inventory pushes (end of season).
Our problem is capability/capacity. We just don’t have it to fulfill on line orders at this time. So we are forced to utilize store’s infrastructure to meet demand. IMO one of the reasons Mr. Valdez wants to implement “eaches” so that the current DC’s can also eventually ship online orders within the same process.
SFS will eventually ramp down as we revamp our logistics to meet store and online fulfillment. I suspect we’ll see the same Retail DC’s, additional Online DC’s, a few Hybrid DC’s (strategic locations – retail and online), and a select number of store SFS operations in the future. This would help us to meet sales demands while maintaining profitability.
We really suck at forecasting IMO. If anything, this should have been one of the priorities on Cornell’s punch list. This is the number one reason to horizontally and vertically integrate our supply chains into our inventory systems. All of these shortages in our stores shouldn’t be happening in this day and time.
We run out of merchandise all of the time. Correct counts and none on the way. What in the world is going on with that? Every article Spot is in with a comment section, you find the same complaint about outages.
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2017
- Messages
- 343
You can see this problem in our current model in live action. Look at our Patio supply this year in all stores (terrible), but its because Target cannot really finance the risk of allowing enough inventory to supply at any given time enough of a depth of stock to fulfill both store and online. They have to either remain at bare minimum inventory levels for both (which results in OOS and long wait times on replenishment) or they have to attempt to forecast it perfectly. Either that or they need to keep these items higher up the supply chain for as long as possible and wait last minute as the needs arise to replenish (which again results in longer wait times, and lost sales to competitors who can fulfill the order faster).
I agree about a needing to do this in a different way. As time as gone on, we are having a more difficult time with handling this merchandise.
Sets come in incomplete while the accessories are often mismatched as well. Replenishment often comes in too early making it difficult to find place to back stock the excess due to the irregularities, size, and amount.
We also do not physically have the display space at the store anymore for what Spot wants to sell. We cannot even set up a Gazebo and its accessories without encroaching on another display. It is not very guest friendly.
A few years ago, we received one color of bistro glass table, another chair color, and another umbrella color. Nothing matched and they did not start to sell until the end of the season when the matching colors finally showed up. By then, it was too late. Markdowns started taking there toll on the available inventory which left us with mismatched colors and patterns.
Spot needs to reduce the offering, or limit store availability and move the rest to online only – direct shipment. Having this staged at tactical warehouse locations seasonally would benefit all of us.
I agree about a needing to do this in a different way. As time as gone on, we are having a more difficult time with handling this merchandise.
Sets come in incomplete while the accessories are often mismatched as well. Replenishment often comes in too early making it difficult to find place to back stock the excess due to the irregularities, size, and amount.
We also do not physically have the display space at the store anymore for what Spot wants to sell. We cannot even set up a Gazebo and its accessories without encroaching on another display. It is not very guest friendly.
A few years ago, we received one color of bistro glass table, another chair color, and another umbrella color. Nothing matched and they did not start to sell until the end of the season when the matching colors finally showed up. By then, it was too late. Markdowns started taking there toll on the available inventory which left us with mismatched colors and patterns.
Spot needs to reduce the offering, or limit store availability and move the rest to online only – direct shipment. Having this staged at tactical warehouse locations seasonally would benefit all of us.
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2016
- Messages
- 435
I agree about a needing to do this in a different way. As time as gone on, we are having a more difficult time with handling this merchandise.
Sets come in incomplete while the accessories are often mismatched as well. Replenishment often comes in too early making it difficult to find place to back stock the excess due to the irregularities, size, and amount.
We also do not physically have the display space at the store anymore for what Spot wants to sell. We cannot even set up a Gazebo and its accessories without encroaching on another display. It is not very guest friendly.
A few years ago, we received one color of bistro glass table, another chair color, and another umbrella color. Nothing matched and they did not start to sell until the end of the season when the matching colors finally showed up. By then, it was too late. Markdowns started taking there toll on the available inventory which left us with mismatched colors and patterns.
Spot needs to reduce the offering, or limit store availability and move the rest to online only – direct shipment. Having this staged at tactical warehouse locations seasonally would benefit all of us.[/QUOTE]
When we set our patio seasonal I hated it. It was really disappointing to put out all that great stuff only to see the displays be so cramped and, frankly, damn lame.
Now that I've been walking by it for months I've had time to think...here's what I think would help sales...
Put out 1 or 2 great looking areas (depending on a store's display size) so guests can just see what's possible. Keep the same aisles of chairs, bbqs, pillows, lights, rugs (but small ones, ours are constantly tipping) and all the accessories. Then, install a kiosk right there with online access where guests can shop the larger items for delivery to their home.
If I were a guest ready to drop hundreds on the gazebo-thing or the sectional but had a hard time tracking down help I'd leave and buy elsewhere pretty fast. But if I could order right there at my leisure and have it delivered to my house I'd be thrilled.
The name of the game is gratification. We all order off Amazon and wait 2 days just fine. Target could sell big items to guests in store this way...and drive red cards right there as they are ordering!!
Sets come in incomplete while the accessories are often mismatched as well. Replenishment often comes in too early making it difficult to find place to back stock the excess due to the irregularities, size, and amount.
We also do not physically have the display space at the store anymore for what Spot wants to sell. We cannot even set up a Gazebo and its accessories without encroaching on another display. It is not very guest friendly.
A few years ago, we received one color of bistro glass table, another chair color, and another umbrella color. Nothing matched and they did not start to sell until the end of the season when the matching colors finally showed up. By then, it was too late. Markdowns started taking there toll on the available inventory which left us with mismatched colors and patterns.
Spot needs to reduce the offering, or limit store availability and move the rest to online only – direct shipment. Having this staged at tactical warehouse locations seasonally would benefit all of us.[/QUOTE]
When we set our patio seasonal I hated it. It was really disappointing to put out all that great stuff only to see the displays be so cramped and, frankly, damn lame.
Now that I've been walking by it for months I've had time to think...here's what I think would help sales...
Put out 1 or 2 great looking areas (depending on a store's display size) so guests can just see what's possible. Keep the same aisles of chairs, bbqs, pillows, lights, rugs (but small ones, ours are constantly tipping) and all the accessories. Then, install a kiosk right there with online access where guests can shop the larger items for delivery to their home.
If I were a guest ready to drop hundreds on the gazebo-thing or the sectional but had a hard time tracking down help I'd leave and buy elsewhere pretty fast. But if I could order right there at my leisure and have it delivered to my house I'd be thrilled.
The name of the game is gratification. We all order off Amazon and wait 2 days just fine. Target could sell big items to guests in store this way...and drive red cards right there as they are ordering!!
SFSFun
Ship from Store: Don't call it Ship To Store!!
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- Jan 12, 2015
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- 6,090
Sounds like fun then... We are already struggling and failing to keep the backroom clean and transition properly sorted with the almost non-existent backroom team. We start doing the metered unload on Monday.
There's also a high likelihood that we will have to take a double at some point next week. How the hell is that supposed to work?
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- Oct 21, 2016
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- 379
My old store kept an iPad mounted at guest service for that purpose, though now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen one provided for that use by my current store... Was that phased out or just a thing they did there?
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I don't know if it's just a distribution issue at my DC or what but for the past month it feels like our diaper shipments have changed...we've literally not gotten any bulk pallets and it feels like they're starting to send just barely enough to fill the floor (if even enough), so what we get for a lot of items is sold before noon and then we get angry guests for the rest of the day/until the next truck, especially when we're running gift card deals on them. I'm trying to do research 3+ times a week at this point to keep the product coming but it's still trickling in. I know part of the new logistics model is that they will be sending less product on each truck to thin out the back room - I really hope this isn't that because it's definitely hurting more than it's helping. And it only perhaps coincidentally started around the time of the E2E rollouts.
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- Oct 25, 2016
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- 135
I'm fairly sure my team gave up on keeping the backroom clean a while ago. So much untouched backstock and trash, not to mention the U-boats
At least half of them are usually empty and serve only as bumps in the road for the wave machines. If last Q4 was any hint, there'll be a war over space between flow's leftover work and the grocery team's.
Speaking of grocery team, are they actually supposed to shoot and pull their own RIGs? My store gave that responsibility to them for a couple days, but bounced the job of shooting right back to me when no work was done.
At least half of them are usually empty and serve only as bumps in the road for the wave machines. If last Q4 was any hint, there'll be a war over space between flow's leftover work and the grocery team's.
Speaking of grocery team, are they actually supposed to shoot and pull their own RIGs? My store gave that responsibility to them for a couple days, but bounced the job of shooting right back to me when no work was done.
So, I had a convo with my ETL tonight about what in the heck is happening, BR not coming clean. 100 hours cut for the week but yet we are supposed to BS the entire store? H/S looked like I had a dick (sorry) on my forehead when I explained what my idea of End to End is, called they are getting the hours to pull and back stock. The look of anger on his or her face was like whoah..I'd better back this up. Some really have no idea what is coming.
HRZone
Former ETL HR
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- Jul 30, 2016
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When it's done right it is a huge success for your store. No empty spots, theft deference and the hardest area to zone in A owned by a dedicated person
SFSFun
Ship from Store: Don't call it Ship To Store!!
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We have an iPad mounted at guest services, but it's for TMs to process SPUs. Is that what you're thinking of?
Our diapers are really light too. Not sure what's up with that, and it's been months since we last got a PIPO of pampers.
Yes, but it's become clear that each store is doing whatever they like in the absence of clear directions from corporate.
What the hell did they think was supposed to happen with E2E? Double salesfloor hours, while cutting an equal amount from Flow and BR, and everyone still does the same amount of work as before?
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- Joined
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The one I'm thinking of was definitely for guest use--I assisted a few with it myself! Though maybe it has since been repurposed for SPUs; I think that was a relatively new feature for that store when I left.
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nope but not to many days after that horrific walk thought the produce section I did find a cucumber with some black spots that might have been a just a smidge to fuzzy and squishy. Chucked the lot of'em into the QMOS bin. where I am sure our crack team will get to it in a week or so, maybe
one more thing it wiggled a bit when I shook it.
maybe tomorrow I'll pick up an avocado and a alien face hugger will pop out of it. Now that might surprise me… no who am I kidding it wouldn't not at this point in the game. I just might welcome the sweet cold dark embrace of an alien xenomorph
E2E in market is a disease. and it is spreading.
Flow Warrior
progenitor of thalassophobia
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- May 24, 2016
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3 to 4 hour shifts 6 am unloads and out by 10.
Flow Warrior
progenitor of thalassophobia
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which is why eventually they will because 4 to 6 am will stop. Eventually unless you are above 63 million there will be no 6 am, no 4 am, no overnight. So no need for those people.
Flow Warrior
progenitor of thalassophobia
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Oh, dear lord, yes. WE need one of those in numerous places.
Flow Warrior
progenitor of thalassophobia
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Actually I would just wack it with a clearance shovel.
Flow Warrior
progenitor of thalassophobia
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and it looks beautiful. If you are a detail oriented person, this can only help if you want to go up the chain.
Flow Warrior
progenitor of thalassophobia
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