MEGATHREAD End to End team PILOT

[Blackhawks54]

Is anyone noticing that they are scheduled pretty much the same thing every shift now? Like I used to have pricing shifts, Softlines shifts and FRO shifts in one week. But now it's like I'm only opening FRO. Is this part of e2e?

 

[Rock Lobster]

Ours is stuck on having TMs scheduled under salesfloor in the middle of the day to push the truck. They don't do research or zone or anything like that, and they rarely have the same TM work the same area each day.

I feel like it could work if they were more consistent about having the same people in the same area each truck, and also put more payroll into it to allow for extras like research, zoning, and even PTMing.

We are still kinda screwed when it comes to space to put the freight though. It's a squeeze most days, and we're fucked when we take a double.

Yes the space issues are going to be a major problem. They don't realize how much extra is sent to stores right now that we do not need. How many hours have been cut from the buildings that prevents things from getting done right away. They want us to stage freight and work it during the day? Cool, tell me where I can stage a truck worth of freight in the building so it's not all over the floor. The Stockroom is full of Backstock half the time.

And moving onto other tasks is going to be difficult. Most TMs are paid very little and the talent in our buildings has gotten worse and worse due to this. You have multiple areas getting freight done at different times and most TMs cannot handle finding their next step. There needs to be a TL in each area to manage these goals (food, beauty, Hardlines, Softlines) each truck or it ain't going to happen successfully.

 

[HRZone]

My observations are some stores are able to do this well in certain areas of the store. Stores that are full end to end (essentials) are struggling because it's impossible to do without some semblance of a flow team.

 

[Marcellow]

I'm finding that E2E can't be done without sacrificing one of the tasks. In my case, its the zone in Market. It's a hot mess, flexed to high heaven and theres no time to fix it. I have a coworker who couldnt push most of the freight in the granola bar aisle because it was fully stocked with the wrong item but he's not allowed to fix it.

They told us we need to focus on speed, forget accuracy.

 

[ISMike]

I'm finding that E2E can't be done without sacrificing one of the tasks. In my case, its the zone in Market. It's a hot mess, flexed to high heaven and theres no time to fix it. I have a coworker who couldnt push most of the freight in the granola bar aisle because it was fully stocked with the wrong item but he's not allowed to fix it.

They told us we need to focus on speed, forget accuracy.

What's the TGT saying? Speed is life, right? bleh

 

[Saul Goodman]

For E2E at my store we essentially only have market doing it. It's been a fail so far. But the thing that annoys me about it.. They take backroom hours and give to market team for this, then market team now rarely can finish their daily food truck, they haven't ONCE completely backstocked all of their light duty backstock, usually forget they have autofill/cafs and they just sit in the gun, rarely fill ice/water, and backroom is constantly asked to either help them pull their cafs or backstock the food truck for them.

Us in backroom were fine before backstocking and pulling all of market and food truck. Clean 100% daily. But don't take our hours, tell us another team is taking over all of that section, then want us to still do what we did before. Like gtfo. They either need to fully own their area or revert back to how it was.

 

[SitSpotSit]

So now that I've worked in both plano and price accuracy I can see how e2e, when fully functional and staffed appropriately, would be preferable to how it's done now.

And it all comes down to plano, at least from what I've experienced. When plano is behind it really messes with flow, who are getting items that should already be out so they start flexing because shelves are emptying due a new pog. Price change swings through that area and it's really hard to find stuff when it's flexed so that metric suffers. Zoning would be super helpful at this point but who am I kidding? If we were there all the time we'd be familiar with the area and could likely find those 1 item price changes among all the mess.

Anyway...

Now, plano finally gets to that area and it's full so it takes longer to set because there is so much to downstock to get started and by this point quite a bit to backstock, taking more time. And the cycle continues because once you're behind how do you catch up??

All that to say that if one team did all those processes (except flow, we need them!) for an area it would make a lot of sense, imho.

 

[Kartman]

It's workin' relatively well for my store.

I'm loving it.

 

[Kompa]

they took our backroom hours to give to cashiers lmao. cant wait to get out of here

 

[SrTLall]

So end to end is finally ending?

I heard from someone at my store that a store a few miles away did away with it last week.

That news would be great

Stores may be rolling back or delaying parts of E2E because it just doesn't work well when the Logistics portion has not been integrated, but I believe it's here to stay. Some DCs have begun the transformation and I know of one DC that has already begun shipping stores eaches.

 

[jenna]

So now that I've worked in both plano and price accuracy I can see how e2e, when fully functional and staffed appropriately, would be preferable to how it's done now.

And it all comes down to plano, at least from what I've experienced. When plano is behind it really messes with flow, who are getting items that should already be out so they start flexing because shelves are emptying due a new pog. Price change swings through that area and it's really hard to find stuff when it's flexed so that metric suffers. Zoning would be super helpful at this point but who am I kidding? If we were there all the time we'd be familiar with the area and could likely find those 1 item price changes among all the mess.

Anyway...

Now, plano finally gets to that area and it's full so it takes longer to set because there is so much to downstock to get started and by this point quite a bit to backstock, taking more time. And the cycle continues because once you're behind how do you catch up??

All that to say that if one team did all those processes (except flow, we need them!) for an area it would make a lot of sense, imho.

Sure, on paper it makes sense. In reality, things would get worse.

Trucks (and smart huddles and back up cashiering) would take priority.... POG, zoning, Research, pricing, back stocking et. al would all fall behind.

 

[BoxCutter]

They told us we need to focus on speed, forget accuracy.

When I've trained, I always concentrated on accuracy first with trainees, then speed. If you stress speed over accuracy, it is extremely difficult to improve accuracy later. You are just setting everyone up for failure.

 

[SrTLall]

Sure, on paper it makes sense. In reality, things would get worse.

Trucks (and smart huddles and back up cashiering) would take priority.... POG, zoning, Research, pricing, back stocking et. al would all fall behind.

That's assuming all processes stay the same, which I highly doubt they do. Trucks will be drastically different, I know of at least 1 DC/regular store that are already running the eaches model. Backstock will be reduced once your store starts receiving eaches. Instocks, as we know it, is definitely going away. I've always argued that the closing zoners should be doing research anyways, killing 2 birds with 1 stone. I assume pricing will soon be stupid-proof, providing images of each item along the way.

 

[SitSpotSit]

Sure, on paper it makes sense. In reality, things would get worse.

Trucks (and smart huddles and back up cashiering) would take priority.... POG, zoning, Research, pricing, back stocking et. al would all fall behind.

Exactly, on paper it's great. And, as I mentioned it needs to be staffed appropriately for the workload. My store is run on a skeleton crew and one call out can wreck a good plan.

Unless Corp is willing to fund this transition with payroll support to help stores make this transition (haha!!) you're right, it's gonna get worse. Hopefully its a gets worse before it gets better situation.

 

[HRZone]

they took our backroom hours to give to cashiers lmao. cant wait to get out of here

Aren't you the one who demanded they schedule more cashiers? Can't have your cake and eat it.

 

[Kompa]

Aren't you the one who demanded they schedule more cashiers? Can't have your cake and eat it.

No? You can't have more cashier's will less stuff coming out the back. There's nothing to buy

 

[SFSFun]

Some DCs have begun the transformation and I know of one DC that has already begun shipping stores eaches.

Any word on how fast the changes will come? And will they will continue to change DCs through 4th quarter, or pause it at some point in the fall and resume in January?

 

[Doglover89]

Is anyone noticing that they are scheduled pretty much the same thing every shift now? Like I used to have pricing shifts, Softlines shifts and FRO shifts in one week. But now it's like I'm only opening FRO. Is this part of e2e?

No. I also work those areas, plus others. I'm usually scheduled as softlines-salesfloor but I could actually be working pricing, FRO, truck push, planogram...whatever needs to be done.

 

[SrTLall]

Any word on how fast the changes will come? And will they will continue to change DCs through 4th quarter, or pause it at some point in the fall and resume in January?

Only thing I know for sure that the DCs are rushing to get done is upgrading their Flexible Fullfillment capabilities. The DC TMs on here have more insight on the eaches transformation.

 

[jenna]

That's assuming all processes stay the same, which I highly doubt they do. Trucks will be drastically different, I know of at least 1 DC/regular store that are already running the eaches model. Backstock will be reduced once your store starts receiving eaches. Instocks, as we know it, is definitely going away. I've always argued that the closing zoners should be doing research anyways, killing 2 birds with 1 stone. I assume pricing will soon be stupid-proof, providing images of each item along the way.

Many things are idiot proof, and still done incorrectly. ie Even with an accurate Pick Label, shit is still stocked incorrectly. People still zone incorrectly. Even with a picture, pricing still makes mistakes.

Also, less product on the trucks = less payroll.

So, unless corporate stops flipping aisles during resets, changes how they process Pricing, stops flooding stores with d-code or transition product, and increases the stores' payroll (Ha!) - things are going to get worse.

 

[SFSFun]

Only thing I know for sure that the DCs are rushing to get done is upgrading their Flexible Fullfillment capabilities. The DC TMs on here have more insight on the eaches transformation.

That's interesting. My understanding was that regular DCs didn't have any capabilities to do Target.com orders, and that it was handled by dedicated online fulfillment centers.

It seems like it would require a lot of space since most items are sent to the stores by the case, and they would need places to store opened cases.

 

[Frontlanegirl]

Aren't you the one who demanded they schedule more cashiers? Can't have your cake and eat it.

They need to be adequately staffing cashiers and the floor.

 

[StockerAce]

Now we are being told we aren't eliminating overnights...we are just doing E2E in a few aisles in grocery (to go with cosmetics and "kind of" softlines). Not all of grocery, just a few aisles. LOL

 

[Flow Warrior]

BTS brings in a key demographic.... people that have kids. Kids need new stuff all the time.... clothes, shoes, backpacks, groceries, school supplies, stuff for their dorm room or first apartment, etc.

So, yes, BTS is valuable.

Then we need a permanent section. I believe it is called Stationary? How about make that BTS year round. Saves man hours and all that other bs that goes with it.

 

[Flow Warrior]

They need to be adequately cashiers and the floor.

Well as the meme goes 'the floor is adequate cashiers'