You're not going to replace 3 case trucks with 3 watches model trucks. I'd say most trucks I saw at our store were $150-180K. Anyway. Instead of sending 150k in case packs to one store, one truck may split the truck a number of ways (50:25:25, thirds, half, etc) to fill wasted space. The touches decreases in that instead of taking freight into DC > warehouse> pick and label > load > unload > push. THEN > backstock if needed > pull > push. In that scenario you're close to ten touches. Strictly talking touches, if you look at DC > (warehouse) > breakdown > load > unload > push, it's a similar count. The difference is loading racks instead of cases, so by rolling it right off the truck there no unload teams needed. Roll right off the truck and park for working as TMs come in.
Throwing out estimates we don't have access to is a rough way to go at it and criticize spot so blatantly. Until you have concrete numbers there's just things we can't account for. overhead, operational costs, labor, anything from the freight getting to DC then to the store is mostly unknown at store level.
The DC handling makes or breaks the process, it's value added for stores to not have all the backroom nonsense. Those 150-300 hours for backroom can be shifted to the floor (mostly).
And at this point I feel like we're all just speculating on this......I strayed from the point I may have had....
The most disturbing thing I saw when I first arrived at Target was a hand packed truck. I had not seen one in over twenty years. I thought everyone had moved onto knockdowns, reusable containers (not cardboard boxes), or some other reusable dunnage within their logistics chains. Then I ran into system where case quantities were ignored. I could not believe it.
I spent over twenty years working with IE's (Industrial Engineers) who engineered logistics processes. I've been involved in good ones and bad ones.
I've managed freight in a JIT environment to managing multi link supply chains across borders.
I can say without hesitation that Target had a very good inventory system at one time. However, for what ever reason, it's been allowed to fall into a state of decay. We are truly behind our competition. The more I learn and research about this topic, the more I wonder what Spot's been doing the past five years. If you were in my shoes you would see it to. It's rather disturbing.
So when I point out things, it come from experience of being on the successful side and on the side that experiences the ultimate failure. Once you experience the latter, you know what it looks like before it even get there.
Don't take what I say or anyone else for that matter as being hyper critical of Spot. Just concerned about heading in the wrong direction that's all. .