MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

[Lazy]

Tomorrow is day 3 of our remodel and so far we've only gotten our carts and the conveyor belt. They better deliver the rest of my supply pallets or else this remodel is gonna be a lot longer than we planned. As much as I've complained about the wide openess of the bottom two shelves of the carts, they're so smooth to push around. I'm not too happy about having to manually print out 2 parent locations and 18 holds x2 for 42 carts though... Someone that makes a lot more money than I do decided that our conveyor belt and pallet sort should be heading away from the loading dock instead of toward. There was some serious eyerolling at that from all of us.

16 hold x2
2 hold x1... And yes the first time I saw our conveyor belt I thought they did it wrong.

 

[Amanda Cantwell]

Not sure if this is a known issue but if you toggle to a different app while doing RTS in move, and then go back to finish it, the app will let you finish that location but then give you an error and kick you out, and make you do that last location over again.

 

[LearningTree]

How much does a brand new Flex Fill TM make at your store? What about external vs internal hire into the position? OPU only stores vs stores with OPU/SFS?

I'm about to take over the department at my store and I'm looking to completely revamp it, starting by hiring more TMs. Ideally I would love to hire salesfloor TMs into the position but I highly doubt their ETLs will give them up. I know I'm going to have to hire a few externals.

 

[PackAndCry]

Extrenal hires have a really difficult time, considering that SFS TMs need to know everything about salesfloor, everything about backroom, and all the SFS specific stuff too. It's why I find it especially stupid to have all the SFS seasonals for Q4, they're gone just as they were starting to understand the process. 🙄

 

[Yetive]

SFS and Salesfloor are the same paygrade--12 for existing, and 11 for those hired after May 5. Have your HR post for Hardlines, and present the newbies to ETLSF in exchange for the ones you want to take.

 

[OneArmedJesus]

How much does a brand new Flex Fill TM make at your store? What about external vs internal hire into the position? OPU only stores vs stores with OPU/SFS?

I'm about to take over the department at my store and I'm looking to completely revamp it, starting by hiring more TMs. Ideally I would love to hire salesfloor TMs into the position but I highly doubt their ETLs will give them up. I know I'm going to have to hire a few externals.

I remember starting of at 11.75

 

[JohnSith373]

How much does a brand new Flex Fill TM make at your store? What about external vs internal hire into the position? OPU only stores vs stores with OPU/SFS?

I'm about to take over the department at my store and I'm looking to completely revamp it, starting by hiring more TMs. Ideally I would love to hire salesfloor TMs into the position but I highly doubt their ETLs will give them up. I know I'm going to have to hire a few externals.

In the sunny state of California, my store starts general hiring for $12. OPU/SFS start at $12 (unless they had some prior experience), no incentive unlike the previous paygrade system. My local minimum wage is $11.
Transferring people from any salesfloor-oriented department is a smarter idea. Like @PackAndCry, said it’s way more efficient with time and learning process. At least cross-train them for 4th quarter and the days when it gets randomly heavier.

 

[PackAndCry]

There's also nothing wrong with trying to have experienced people pick and non-experienced people pack, that's the whole idea of the JIT Fulfillment seasonal position (although 99% of stores don't follow it). When we were short some FFTMs and kept getting random cashiers scheduled with us, it worked a lot better having the FFTM pick and the cashier pack than what HQ seems to want now, which is each FFTM picking a batch then immediately packing it before going out to pick again.

 

[JohnSith373]

...what HQ seems to want now, which is each FFTM picking a batch then immediately packing it before going out to pick again.

Is this all stores or just pilot Stores? My TL/ETL keep changing the expectations “HQ wants” and I really want to know what HQ really expects of us in this pilot.

 

[PackAndCry]

Is this all stores or just pilot Stores? My TL/ETL keep changing the expectations “HQ wants” and I really want to know what HQ really expects of us in this pilot.

We aren't in any pilot and didn't get a remodeled SFS area (other than the steel being moved during our store remodel so we don't have as many Crown accidents in our area), but our DTL said that was her expectation unless there were special circumstances. We'll see how long that lasts.

 

[SnorlaxTM]

...what HQ seems to want now, which is each FFTM picking a batch then immediately packing it before going out to pick again.

HAHAHAHA we’ve been told to do that too, pretty sure my eyes rolled into next week because all I envision is a fiery shithole much like our SFS process now

 

[PackAndCry]

The one thing I will say about that process is that it avoids the "packing is easier than picking" issue and does get more shipped out on time, at least if your store had the tendency to pick until everything was done, then do all the packing like mine did.

 

[Bosch]

There's also nothing wrong with trying to have experienced people pick and non-experienced people pack, that's the whole idea of the JIT Fulfillment seasonal position (although 99% of stores don't follow it). When we were short some FFTMs and kept getting random cashiers scheduled with us, it worked a lot better having the FFTM pick and the cashier pack than what HQ seems to want now, which is each FFTM picking a batch then immediately packing it before going out to pick again.

We don't let the newbies pack at all. When we have done that they do stupid shit like not bag or tape any of the chem, just put the dish soap and in a box and send it. Or follow the sheet to the letter so send a t-shirt in a 454 packed or not with bubble wrap.. The complaints just went through the roof when we did that. We were lucky if they could actually get the entire order in the box..

 

[SFSFun]

Got this off Twitter

What are those black and orange stacks in the steel? USPS pallets?

Does everyone just pack directly onto the conveyer? And is it an actual conveyer or just rollers like the unload line?

they're so smooth to push around

So were the 3-tiers...for the first few weeks. I’m sure the new carts will start squeaking soon.

 

[PogDog]

Question for those of you that have had your remodel (we are just about done with ours, but still shut down.) The training guides said we HAVE to use locations for the carts that ONLY start with the letters P and Q. Did you follow that guideline? We only have about 25 of the new ones, but with every picker carrying a clip board (for INF's) with a sheet attached with one additional cart location (used for exiting our batch and doing a Flex) I am afraid we will run out of locations. And in 4th quarter when we have help picking using shopping carts and temporary cart location sheets, I see problems ahead. Just wondering. Thanks.

PA-PZ is 26 parent locations.

If you'd go AA-ZZ. That's 676 total possible parent locations. You probably don't even have 676 shopping carts in your store.

 

[PackAndCry]

We don't let the newbies pack at all. When we have done that they do stupid shit like not bag or tape any of the chem, just put the dish soap and in a box and send it. Or follow the sheet to the letter so send a t-shirt in a 454 packed or not with bubble wrap.. The complaints just went through the roof when we did that. We were lucky if they could actually get the entire order in the box..

Too bad damage reports aren't a metric for SFS. My store doesn't give a shit about it- our STL says that once it's out of our store it's UPS's fault if it's damaged. Most of our new people have been decent at packing, though, once it's been thoroughly explained to them, but that's also because we tell them that we can see who packed what and that it'll lead back to them if there's damage.

Re: the cart locations for the tub/three-tier/library cart love child, I'm just curious why PA-QZ are so special.

 

[PackAndCry]

Oh, well, we can't see them and nobody at my store seems to care, so...

Also that's a hilariously flawed metric so I guess I can see why it was ignored

 

[Lazy]

What are those black and orange stacks in the steel? USPS pallets?

Does everyone just pack directly onto the conveyer? And is it an actual conveyer or just rollers like the unload line?


So were the 3-tiers...for the first few weeks. I’m sure the new carts will start squeaking soon.

Yes USPS pallets.. we pack on tables and push onto the electric conveyor belt that sends it down to sorting.

 

[Lazy]

Too bad damage reports aren't a metric for SFS. My store doesn't give a shit about it- our STL says that once it's out of our store it's UPS's fault if it's damaged. Most of our new people have been decent at packing, though, once it's been thoroughly explained to them, but that's also because we tell them that we can see who packed what and that it'll lead back to them if there's damage.

Re: the cart locations for the tub/three-tier/library cart love child, I'm just curious why PA-QZ are so special.

They were the only letters not used by almost all the stores... There was some stores that reached the Point of so they had to stay with Q

 

[PackAndCry]

They were the only letters not used by almost all the stores... There was some stores that reached the Point of so they had to stay with Q

It'll not matter fairly soon since only myFA cares about whether a hold location actually exists or not, so I'm fairly sure that myWork 2.0 will let people print whatever label regardless of if the cart was ever created or not. Weird.

 

[MOVEbatch]

There is a damage metric. Tracked on the SFS Dashboard on Greenfield. Team member who packed (read scanned) the order gets dinged if the guest returns the item and the service desk hits 'damaged package / product'

My guess is that this is part of the reason why they no longer want us to cheat the system by scanning collates to meet goal time, then packing later. There's no accountability when you have no idea if the person who scanned it is actually the person who packed it. Personally I'm all in favor of that, since I've seen some really shitty packing jobs by people they pull in to help pack who either don't know what they're doing or just don't give a shit. I'd rather not have my name attached to it just because I was told to scan collates and leave the packing for someone else.

 

[Bosch]

There is a damage metric. Tracked on the SFS Dashboard on Greenfield. Team member who packed (read scanned) the order gets dinged if the guest returns the item and the service desk hits 'damaged package / product'

That is exactly why I refuse to scan out orders for others packing them assembly line style. I got dinged for a lot of this BS last 4th quarter and will not deal with it again.

 

[Figurehello]

My store recently got a few new RFIDs allowing us to find stuff faster then waiting if the RFID is available. It doesn’t help us though when all, but 1, can be lost.
My TL got frustrated after awhile and got a bright idea. Our TL was able to get tags for softlines that can’t be purchased online and attached the tags to the RFIDs. If one becomes lost, we can locate it in a day unlike waiting a week or two for someone to find it.

 

[Lazy]

My store recently got a few new RFIDs allowing us to find stuff faster then waiting if the RFID is available. It doesn’t help us though when all, but 1, can be lost.
My TL got frustrated after awhile and got a bright idea. Our TL was able to get tags for softlines that can’t be purchased online and attached the tags to the RFIDs. If one becomes lost, we can locate it in a day unlike waiting a week or two for someone to find it.

Just req out a 4 pack of tiles.

 

[Figurehello]

Just req out a 4 pack of tiles.

ETL didn’t allow it I’m guessing.