Archived Flexible Fulfillment Question

[Magicalbeauty14]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this. But recently our store got rid of PDA''s in Ship from Store. So we use Zebras for everything. For FA's and for picking and packing. My question is, do store leaders get notified when you can't find items on the Zebra? I know they are always notified when you can't find an item for an FA. But I'm wondering about picking the batches to ship out. I usually ask when I cannot find an item, but sometimes there isn't enough time to ask about every item. Especially when they don't get me any backup to help me. Any answers would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Lazy]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this. But recently our store got rid of PDA''s in Ship from Store. So we use Zebras for everything. For FA's and for picking and packing. My question is, do store leaders get notified when you can't find items on the Zebra? I know they are always notified when you can't find an item for an FA. But I'm wondering about picking the batches to ship out. I usually ask when I cannot find an item, but sometimes there isn't enough time to ask about every item. Especially when they don't get me any backup to help me. Any answers would be appreciated. Thank you.

They don't get alerts but there is a report that updates every hour as to what you have cancelled.

 

[SFSFun]

They only get alerts for OPUs. But as mentioned there is a report updated hourly that lists what was cancelled, and there is also a weekly report that lists everything.

 

[Bosch]

Most of it will be softlines.. I now write a list of what I can't find and key them in research the next day to zero them out.

Our STL wants to be called for every single one, so I make sure to waste as much of her time as possible..

 

[slowhands]

Our STL wants to be called for every single one, so I make sure to waste as much of her time as possible..

I like this a lot.

 

[Bosch]

I like this a lot.

I understand she doesn't want us just killing orders cause a first pass look didn't find it, but I am the one who finds the not findable. But having to run down her personal check list of places and just cause she has spent an hour looking doesn't mean I have an hour to look. And I will pause batches that I know are sitting in the repacks for softlines that came off the truck this morning doesn't mean I am going to go through them three hours later when the pile is still as tall as I am when I put that batch on pause.. How about you get off your ass and crack the whip on those softlines girls(they are all women) who work so slow cause "We have to get our hours." Their snails pace is loosing your sales, STL.. Not my ability to find shit.

Sorry but just cause one day you spent an hour doing their break out to find a shirt doesn't mean I will.. Cause I would be doing it every day.. Nope Sorry oh hell to the fuck no..

 

[SFSFun]

Our STL wants to be called for every single one, so I make sure to waste as much of her time as possible..

That won't last very long, especially not with 4th quarter coming up. I go through that about once a year at my store and it rarely lasts for more than a few weeks before some LODs start telling me to just cancel it, and eventually they all say it.

 

[Bosch]

That won't last very long, especially not with 4th quarter coming up. I go through that about once a year at my store and it rarely lasts for more than a few weeks before some LODs start telling me to just cancel it, and eventually they all say it.

I know, my ETL Log has told me he trusts me. Cause I checked things in ways he never thought of, like looking in my work for the on hand(zero=1) or when it came in the door so it could be in that days truck push, looking in the bowled backstock in the stockroom and on pallets and vehicles while the truck is being pushed. That is more than enough for him when looking cause you ran a checklist of where could that item be. But the STL wants us to spend hours looking through everything.

I know me I have to run a list of where could it be or I know I would totally miss something easy..

 

[onedayetl]

Now that we've switched over to the zebra's for pretty much everything, LODs and ETLs can actually get redwire alerts for their shifts on each time a new order drops, or even when a Flex team member INFs a orders, almost immediately. Our DTL actually has it to where she wants an email from the lod of that shift to send her the INF dpci, how many we have on had etc. its a whole extra load of work, plus now etls wont let us INF, we have to suspend the order and have them INF it.

 

[Bosch]

Now that we've switched over to the zebra's for pretty much everything, LODs and ETLs can actually get redwire alerts for their shifts on each time a new order drops, or even when a Flex team member INFs a orders, almost immediately. Our DTL actually has it to where she wants an email from the lod of that shift to send her the INF dpci, how many we have on had etc. its a whole extra load of work, plus now etls wont let us INF, we have to suspend the order and have them INF it.

That will last until you are putting every single batch on INF, and they are tracking down 20-50 items a day.. That will end that shit real quick..

 

[SFSFun]

Now that we've switched over to the zebra's for pretty much everything, LODs and ETLs can actually get redwire alerts for their shifts on each time a new order drops, or even when a Flex team member INFs a orders, almost immediately. Our DTL actually has it to where she wants an email from the lod of that shift to send her the INF dpci, how many we have on had etc. its a whole extra load of work, plus now etls wont let us INF, we have to suspend the order and have them INF it.

Assuming you're talking about OPU, you could already get those alerts on the Zebra. You could also get them on the old iPods and even on the PDAs.

 

[onedayetl]

That will last until you are putting every single batch on INF, and they are tracking down 20-50 items a day.. That will end that shit real quick..

We try to aim for 100% accuracy on our flex fulfillment as well as our SFS but on days where we cant find anything and constantly call the LOD for INFs you would think they'd get tired of it, but thats where you're wrong. maybe this is just coming pressure from the DTL but they've made it clear on the INFs, they even have handed out a couple of write ups for this.

 

[onedayetl]

Assuming you're talking about OPU, you could already get those alerts on the Zebra. You could also get them on the old iPods and even on the PDAs.

Most defiantly, but redwire on the PDAs and the old iPods weren't always the most current, we were always experiencing lag for the notifications for meals, flex etc. on the zebra, its the most instant notifications I've seen so far!

 

[Moosechives]

We try to aim for 100% accuracy on our flex fulfillment as well as our SFS but on days where we cant find anything and constantly call the LOD for INFs you would think they'd get tired of it, but thats where you're wrong. maybe this is just coming pressure from the DTL but they've made it clear on the INFs, they even have handed out a couple of write ups for this.

Maybe for smaller SFS, but I sure as hell don't have time to stop and get an LOD to sign off on everything that we don't have. If we had to get everything checked, we'd never finish the workload. We're getting 1500+ orders a day come peak so I agree with everyone else. That will end REAL quick lol.

 

[Bosch]

We try to aim for 100% accuracy on our flex fulfillment as well as our SFS but on days where we cant find anything and constantly call the LOD for INFs you would think they'd get tired of it, but thats where you're wrong. maybe this is just coming pressure from the DTL but they've made it clear on the INFs, they even have handed out a couple of write ups for this.

I understand I we do too, but our softlines is fucked, ETL is a moron and lazy to boot. So her laziness prevails through most of her team so finding things is impossible sometimes. I worked in a clothing store for a couple years so I know a few trick to pull out when looking for things and I get with a couple of the softlines peeps who know their shit and we search the corners and nooks and crannies and come up empty we call it. We have had some peeps written up for killing flex orders cause they just didn't want to look hard enough..

And yep its coming from the DTL cause its is sure money and I wonder if say your store drops the order if it flips to mine as an example? I don't know the backside of how orders get dealt out to stores cause from where we ship stuff there is almost no logic behind it. But the DTL wants those sales to "HIS" stores if that makes sense.. And learning the more orders you process the more you can get = bigger sales..

But no they do get tired of it cause at least in my store %99 its softlines and that ETL is the first one to tell us "Just go ahead and INF it." She never gets off her ass to help us look.. No questions of "where did you look?" So they know we checked all the possible places.. Nothing, just INF it! At least the others want to hear your check list and when they don't hear all the places they will tell you to check what you missed and come back.. Then you can INF it..

 

[spotlife]

It's not just a metric that's green or red, this is something that directly affects our guest. In our SFS mini-boot camp, our operations manager for the district was explaining INF from a guest standpoint. It could take 48 hours from when you INF an item for it to go to another store to attempt to fill the order. During that time, the guest never gets another email informing them of a change in expected delivery time. So now target has to expedite shipping to meet our promised delivery times which cost us millions last year Q4. It's just leadership asking us to do everything in our power to fulfill the order

 

[slowhands]

It's not just a metric that's green or red, this is something that directly affects our guest. In our SFS mini-boot camp, our operations manager for the district was explaining INF from a guest standpoint. It could take 48 hours from when you INF an item for it to go to another store to attempt to fill the order. During that time, the guest never gets another email informing them of a change in expected delivery time. So now target has to expedite shipping to meet our promised delivery times which cost us millions last year Q4. It's just leadership asking us to do everything in our power to fulfill the order

I totally get that but it shows a disconnect from the reality of what happens at the store level. We aren't given time to look for the last medium black mossimo shirt of a discontinued style, the pajamas unlocated in the backroom, or the NOP toy that is flexed in some random location. The new move app has just made things worse. For some softlines items, we dont even get a size or department. Finding the one pair of GOM black panties that are NOP with not even a size listed is impossible.

Target just needs a better system, from communication with guests about order status to a better picking system.

 

[Bosch]

I totally get that but it shows a disconnect from the reality of what happens at the store level. We aren't given time to look for the last medium black mossimo shirt of a discontinued style, the pajamas unlocated in the backroom, or the NOP toy that is flexed in some random location. The new move app has just made things worse. For some softlines items, we dont even get a size or department. Finding the one pair of GOM black panties that are NOP with not even a size listed is impossible.

Target just needs a better system, from communication with guests about order status to a better picking system.

This I shouldn't need to flip over to Mywork and target.com to get a complete picture of what I am looking at. Also stores need to get their act together and have stuff actually zoned and sorted - you want fill percentage to go up? You have to have stuff where the system says it is.

Today it was several orders of PJ's that are all Xmas themed. Our softlines peeps are so behind they just tossed them all in repacks wrapped them up and stuck them up in the steel.. Guess what I needed today? Yep 7 separate orders all INF since we know they are up there but no time to dig through all of them..

 

[H2Owned]

This I shouldn't need to flip over to Mywork and target.com to get a complete picture of what I am looking at. Also stores need to get their act together and have stuff actually zoned and sorted - you want fill percentage to go up? You have to have stuff where the system says it is.

Today it was several orders of PJ's that are all Xmas themed. Our softlines peeps are so behind they just tossed them all in repacks wrapped them up and stuck them up in the steel.. Guess what I needed today? Yep 7 separate orders all INF since we know they are up there but no time to dig through all of them..

Your store sounds like how mine was with my old STL and ETL GE/SF....... thank goodness our new STL and ETL GE/SF are on top of everything.... they are always one step ahead .... honestly I feel like it is ETL GE/SF/LOG... Cause my ETL Log doesn't do anything except truck team and backroom.... ETL GE/SF works with the POG team and Pricing team more than the ETL Log...

 

[Flow Warrior]

Most of it will be softlines.. I now write a list of what I can't find and key them in research the next day to zero them out.

Our STL wants to be called for every single one, so I make sure to waste as much of her time as possible..

Since someone our new people don't get trained enough and ask me to help them find it, Once its reported missing it gets zeroed out then. Seriously the system is so effed up I wonder how items that sits unsold for days and doesnt move gains or loses on hands (it happens)

 

[Flow Warrior]

This I shouldn't need to flip over to Mywork and target.com to get a complete picture of what I am looking at. Also stores need to get their act together and have stuff actually zoned and sorted - you want fill percentage to go up? You have to have stuff where the system says it is.

Today it was several orders of PJ's that are all Xmas themed. Our softlines peeps are so behind they just tossed them all in repacks wrapped them up and stuck them up in the steel.. Guess what I needed today? Yep 7 separate orders all INF since we know they are up there but no time to dig through all of them..

What is in bold is insane, and why I complained about A&A raises. No soft lines or repacks ever go in the steel. Even the paperwork from previous years is labeled and elsewhere

 

[Flow Warrior]

It's not just a metric that's green or red, this is something that directly affects our guest. In our SFS mini-boot camp, our operations manager for the district was explaining INF from a guest standpoint. It could take 48 hours from when you INF an item for it to go to another store to attempt to fill the order. During that time, the guest never gets another email informing them of a change in expected delivery time. So now target has to expedite shipping to meet our promised delivery times which cost us millions last year Q4. It's just leadership asking us to do everything in our power to fulfill the order

I was unaware of this (as I dont do flex, so I am somewhat clueless about the ins and outs.) It is enough to ride heard at times to make sure frieght isn't so totally effed up. These are days I wander what flow TL is doing then I think back to when I was on offloads know.

Still chew through an hour doing sorting I shouldnt so my location accuracy is 98 or 99.

 

[spotlife]

I was just trained on SFS as I'll be SFS TL for Q4. I was told it doesn't get zero'd out in the system if we cancel an order. So we need to go in and research it. The BR TL who trained me actually goes into the reports and confirms INFs were researched, checks to see if any were sold after the order was cancelled (if 1 sold and we haven't received a shipment then it was still around somewhere), also can see pick time for OPU and if you only spent 5 minutes trying to find an item there's an issue. Also, you can use the RFID gun and an old mydevice to try to find softlines items. It was a lot of useful knowledge as I've never worked logistics im excited for this new assignment

 

[Bosch]

I was just trained on SFS as I'll be SFS TL for Q4. I was told it doesn't get zero'd out in the system if we cancel an order. So we need to go in and research it. The BR TL who trained me actually goes into the reports and confirms INFs were researched, checks to see if any were sold after the order was cancelled (if 1 sold and we haven't received a shipment then it was still around somewhere), also can see pick time for OPU and if you only spent 5 minutes trying to find an item there's an issue. Also, you can use the RFID gun and an old mydevice to try to find softlines items. It was a lot of useful knowledge as I've never worked logistics im excited for this new assignment

RFID guns only work if it has a tag attached, and it gets zero'd out when the order drops in the system if you have one, so when you INF it should go back to one. Which is why next day I zero it out. I can't spend hours digging through things and honestly knowing our softlines people you look but you don't kill yourself looking since they don't do you any favors as they work their day. Meaning they don't follow their own rules and maps for where product is supposed to be. One person says that sweater goes with the coats, the other says it goes in the exact opposite corner of womens. This girl doesn't know where something goes she dumps them in the clearance racks.. I saw that one happen..