Archived Flow Schedule that works

[Dekaf]

So I'm facing the interesting situation of running both my backroom/instocks teams and now Flow for about 6 weeks. I'd like to get some feedback on what everyone's flow schedules look like on truck days. I understand ASANTS but I'm determined to make this work center green and it's going to require some drastic changes. As much detail as possible would be greatly appreciated!

Background info:
3-4 trucks a week
2200-2500 average
Push all
Current flow schedule is a constant 26 TM's, with almost 120 hours scheduled yet they haven't finished a truck on time in months or without considerable support from the entire store. (Can't count the amount of times I've taken my backroom team out to the floor to push an entire fill group due to us running out of backstock)

 

[Leonhart621]

About 4.5 hrs for each TM? No wonder they can't get the truck done.

 

[Dekaf]

What would you recommend?

 

[mrknownothing]

Does your flow team push in a wave? If so, have the backroom team help push in the first one or two areas to get them done quicker, then they can start backstocking as flow pushes the rest of the store.

 

[Targe]

Definitely have BR help in the wave for a few areas, enough to have some backstock and to get the wave moving. How many BRTMs do you have? CAF sizes? (If applicable)

 

[Dekaf]

They do push in a wave. My AM backroom team is 3 TM's and myself. Autofills are 2200-2600 on truck days, hourly CAF's are insignificant due to the CAF redesign.

I've considered a few options, primarily adjusting the custom blocks and changing the scheduling to be focused around a wave through the heaviest areas. The productivity can be managed through coaching, but a large portion of it is the team just doesn't know what they're expected to accomplish, I'm a firm believer in giving them the knowledge they need to have a chance before coaching. The pace and expectation I can set.

 

[balthrop]

stop the push all

 

[MasterofLOG]

I do the following:

B Volume, PFresh 4 DC 2100-2400, 3 FDC, 1 McLane,

I have:

1 - Scanner
2 - Throw
1 - Bulk/T and they also get Seas/Mini freight to sort/stack
1 - Backstock
4 - Sorting to Custom Blocks
1 - Sorts repacks for mixed repacks
1 - Sorts out the paper/plastics/storage freight, and sorts the elect to their pallet, and SL to their flats.

The rest of the team is broken out into persons who are ASSIGNED to an area

3 - HBA - They split it up from those horrible repakcs and sort out case pack, 2 pushes cosmetics, and 1 pushes the case packs, one of these is responsible for going to get their pallet of freight

1 - Elect - They deal with 100% of Elect repack sorting, book sorting, DVD sorting, and pushing

3 - Market - This AREA IS BOWLED to the floor! TM(s) here push from the start, and there is a person who does nothing but runs to get the pallet of freight and bowl it.

5 - SL Girls that deal with the mess of SL they sort repacks out and split out their stuff, and the go push it. They are responsible for coming to get their flats of boxes/repacks. We use 1 flat shoes, and 1 for all the other repacks/boxes. SL girls have their own areas, ie: one pushes girls and then does accessories.

1 - Infants Gondolas - one person is responsible for getting their freight and pushing it.

1 - Pets - they drag out their freight and push during unload. Those pesky pallets of bag food are dragged to the floor to work first, after about the first 1-2 pallets, we put it on FLATS.

1 - Chem - they drag out their freight and push during unload.

** Pets/Chem *** is PARTIALLY BOWLED... We bowl it out and then push... We keep an eye on it to keep from picking

2 - Bed/Bath/Domestics - One person here is responsible to sort out the "middle" repacks and starts pushing this their freight. They move from Bath/drapes/HIPA to Bed/Domestics/Home Decor stuff

1 - Paper/Plastics/Home Storage - this person

1 - Toys - They go get their freight on flats and start pushing

1 - Statnry - They sort out their boxes, repacks and push. They come back to get their tub of freight.

Plug - Sits till after dry grocery

Sports/Auto - Sits till after Toys

Mini/Seasonal - Sits till after Toys

Playground - AFTER the truck unload and the repack sort is completed this person then pushes Playground

ALL AREAS handle the autofills as well. We do NOT touch reshop!

We do not handle "fast service," call boxes, or anything else SF, unless a guest were to come up to a TM and ask. The majority of the team is not "SF/GE trained" in that way... The few that are the AWESOME ROCK STARS who fill in in a multitude of areas from IS to PC to cashier to CA to FA for CO, NCNS, or swaps. We have at most 2 who have mytoys and a radio, as SF, POG have to have all the equipment. So we let them have it.
5 people in a valley with radios and mytoys..

There is a CORE TEAM that comes in at 0530 which is TL, scanner, one unloader, and one other person. We clear out the mess the SF and BR leaves when "setting the line." Then start unloading the truck to have freight ready for the remainder of the team.

Schedule

0530 - Core Team arrives
0600 - Remainder of team

The scheduled time for them has been 4 hours 0600-1000, with cuts it is now down to 0930. You can read the debate in another thread, there are 4 who leave at 0915. We do NOT take a BREAK. That was a TEAM DECISION.

Positively 100% we come clean all unload and push daily.

You have to PUSH PUSH PUSH the unload to be 1HR MAX, Period. Real world happens, a little over is fine, more than 15mins and its time to go back there and set the pace! Any more you are wasting time for the "mini wave."

Those from the line sorting freight are divided up into areas.. 2 to chem/pets, Some times we send some to grocery, some times we can send one to mini/seasonal. A lot depends on who got clobbered that day.

The goal is that dry grocery is completed 100% by open at 0800, that means clean and clear.

You need to have teams pushing from the moment they come in, and as another post. NUKE THE PUSH ALL! WASTE! Scan that freight! BS the BS! Don't drag it to the floor for some one to waste $$$ to push to find its BS.

Our Bulk person is responsible for dealing with paper PIPO, and getting pushed. The scanner is sort of a floating pusher. After they get all the pallets back into the BR and sorted, and the floor guest ready they will help the bulk person with T/Bulk. Again they may get reassigned on who gets clobbered.

SL Girls are pretty much left to their own design, no matter how much they get clobbered

Elect if they really have a ton, we will send them help as other areas are completed.. rarely happens.

Grocery is completed and they will divide up into HBA, Plug, or start into Bed/Home Decor etc...

As each area is completed we push towards the back of the store.

IDEALLY we complete Dry grocery, HBA, pets, chem.

I will adapt a "mini wave" to grocery or HBA or something depending on size. Everyone from the ETL to TM work the trucks. Due to the cuts its not uncommon to be missing 1-3 TM(s) to keep things in line. Thus the ETL will get in and throw the truck. It also helps to ensure the pace at times.

Your scanner needs to be forceful! They need to set the pace, if they don't replace them with some one who will.

I do not deal with BR/IS, period. They have their own TL, and they do their thing. The only thing that may happen is if they have CO, VAC, NCNS they will steal my BR cert'd TM(s). This is an internal politics issue here.

Flow needs ROCK STARS.. My SL Girls are that, my one middle TM, and the TM who bowls/pulls grocery is a GOD! They pull/bowl dry, they move full freight pallets/flats to other areas, and more.. They

The TL, ie: ME, and YOU need to be everywhere at once! Pushing the pace on the line, monitoring BS AUDIT AUDIT AUDIT! This is why areas have persons assigned to that area, so they know the EC and stuff to get that stuff pushed to the 2nd LOC. TM's still should be walking the EC front and back to check.. but my teams areas have TM's who are like walking talking breathing scanners.. they know the EC/2nd LOC when shown an item. These TM's ROCK!

 

[semantics]

Push all is going to kill you no matter what with trucks of that size.

We unload 2200 in an hour, 2600 in hour fifteen with scanning which slows us down usually. We use the wave and bowl everything out get including boxes from the autos. We also use the wave as because of high turn over we had to switch from having people cover personal areas. We get all of the floor and come back to carts, only 20-22 scheduled for flow usually, with 1-3 as full shifts +TL.

Rarely do we full get to schedule 26-28 TM which is what we're suppose to have. 4 a.m. process 6 trucks a week usual 2100-2600, believe it's around 120 hours for a truck. Float between A+ and AA in volume although we keep staffing mostly for a A+ to keep payroll in check and prevents hard cuts if we drop volume.

2-3 breakout softlines while truck is unloading we'd put anywhere from 3-6 total depending on how heavy softlines is for the day, 1 breakout red boxes if repacks are under 200, 2 if it's bigger than 230 and we have people to spare they'll get the remaining black repack boxes once that is done. 1 in electronics who starts after the truck is done(usually a full day), same with baby hardlines, there is little to no bulk outside of paper and water as we break down all pallets if possible that is often done by one person in less than 30 mins usually the person who deals with the cardboard.

2 throwers, 1 scanner, 1 blackline, 5 in the front, 2 pullers-4 pullers if the unload team is really moving, the pacer is either ETL-log or the TL, even the STL if they come in early. Everyone else is bowling and stocking, if the bowling group is big enough we'll split it into two groups one will concentrate on grocery, seasonal and toys, while the other concentrates of pharm, hba, stationary, chem, pets and paper. They'll both cover home, bath etc as that's the middle of the store if they get ahead they'll stock in their respective location for awhile till next pallet comes out. Most days though it's 1 bowling group because team is too small, often also reducing pullers to 2.

The wave is split in two; 5-6 people start in grocery and will get grocery, seasonal, toys, sporting goods the rest will get the rest of the floor often they'll meet in the middle of the store.

Truck and backroom team comes in at 4a.m. everyone else comes in at 4:15

The floor is always done by the time the store opens at 8a.m. Carts can go quickly or horribly depends on the size of the repacks. Although i'd find it difficult for your backroom to ever come clean with those truck sizes from a push all they'll just never get the backstock quick enough too much of their shift will be wasted not back-stocking if they come in the same time as flow. We schedule 4 at 4a.m. in the backroom then 1 more at 8a.m who'll cover the renaming backstock and help out on CAFs when they drop, we have blackline to deal with though.

Get the truck unloaded quick that sets the tone for the rest of the day, work on that first.

Next is to get bowling and stocking done quickly as well. Using the wave it's important to keep team members notified of where they need to be next making sure to break TMs off after pharm, hba, chem, pets and paper is done often 2 tm's will stationary and kitchen starting at opposite ends of B the rest of the team will be sent to opposite ends of C and D when A is getting close to done on the floor.

Once the floor is done everyone is broken off to do carts, most will do A carts, 2 will do grocery carts, carts can be done in an hour or less depending on autos and repack who things will go horribly wrong and will require many people to extend because repacks were 340. The full shifts are often the 1 in electronics, 1 person to do card board, 1 person + TL to get renaming carts as often only the L is done. If we had more people consistently full shifts outside of TL wouldn't be necessary.

I don't know how much of that was just a rambling but hope it helps.

 

[redeye58]

The scheduled time for them has been 4 hours 0600-1000, with cuts it is now down to 0930. You can read the debate in another thread, there are 4 who leave at 0915. We do NOT take a BREAK. That was a TEAM DECISION.

Yeh, I'm sure the four who leave at 9:15 would beg to differ.

 

[keynesian]

I would advise against push all for a number of reasons, mostly to do with transition. Also if you're bowling out everything to the floor, then you're more likely to spend money on non-productive labor (i.e. on breaking out cases of backstock and then putting them on a flatbed/pallet after you realize they're backstock). You're actually quite lucky that you've fixed the logistics process on the backend of things first - as stronger data integrity yields a more accurate scan when you do scan the truck.

Secondly, your flow process should use about 25 people for about 4-5 hour shifts. Honestly how you break it down for the store mostly depends on your team. I remember one team we had about half of them were older and half were younger - the older ones took care of repacks, cosmetics, stationery, softlines, and then there were about 10 young guys in the wave who took care of HBA casepacks, grocery, paper, pets, hcdy.

Every store has a specialist for electronics on flow - if you're an early morning process, this is to reduce the need for guest service coverage over there. One person should push and backstock pipo pallets, and non-con pallets should be dropped off in their areas for the team (which part of your team depends on what kind of non-con it is, its usually just pets or furniture) to break out and push. I'd always suggest a cosmetics specialist, because it is too difficult to wave through it.

Also, be critical of everything in a red process - its easy to assume "we do this because we've always done it" when that could be the thing that's killing you. The first thing I saw at my store was something like 6 people from flow over in softlines. Once the leadership turned over, it was reduced to 4 people - and they were able to still get it done because they A) stopped breaking out in the backroom and B) started over there first thing when they came in an hour after the unload started - instead of spending 24 hours of flow in softlines they spend only 16 - that's 8 more hours for your wave.

LET THEM LEARN. I cannot emphasize the importance of this enough. Do not expect new TMs to be able to push to the piece, check endcaps, push 2 cases a minute, breakdown all their cardboard, learn to read a pick label, learn to recognize a mispick, learn to help guests, learn to respond for backup, learn where they're supposed to go all in a single day. Hell, before they get it all together, give them at least a month, especially if they're only working 12-20 hours a week.

Cut your losses - it can be tempting to try to teach and old dog new tricks, especially if you are being told you have to. Look, some TMs have years of experience, they're mediocre workers, and they will only do so much for you. Either performance them out, or just ask them to do it as efficiently as possible. I'd say you can afford 2-4 people on your team like this. This can be useful - for areas with specialists that's hopefully where you will keep this crowd. However, if someone has "always pushed toys" and now you're asking them to work in the wave and they can't, 86 'em.

Where does your store get busy? Maybe BP says to start in grocery, when in actuality the front of your store is what you need to address first - whatever may be up there. Or maybe you heavily sell domestics and housewares? think about starting parallel waves - one for commodities one for non-commodities - and have one run by a "flow captain" of sorts - great for development.

To be perfectly honest with you, you will have to adjust your process truck by truck. learn to read to trailer prep reports in WPT the day before so you can map out where you think you may need help. 500 casepacks for dept. 3? you will need to start in chemicals that day. Maybe depts. 7 and 30 only have 4 casepacks coming in a piece - softlines should then finish baby in 5 minutes and can help out with the rest of the store when they finish. 800 cartons of grocery, but 700 to backstock? maybe you send back a flow TM to help backstock grocery transition, so your BR team doesn't fall behind on the pallets of scanned backstock.

At your core though, if you're like most stores since the remodels, is your core commodities wave. If you can have a few key TMs blitz out the other areas of the store and meet your wave in the middle of it, then not only have to knocked out toys, small apps, housewares, domestics without using a ton of labor, but you can give your wave a morale boost by having everything go quicker at the end - having the wave start at, say 13 people, and balloon to 20 by the end of the truck, you could save one large area for the end and blitz it out with everybody.

Repacks are difficult everywhere I've been. Mostly I would suggest getting comfortable with the transition report - if you see an area with a lot of transition and its not coming out in the casepacks, it will come out of your repacks. Always break out transition from repacks separate from everything else - it will make it quicker to both push and backstock. Also, have two people familiar with the repacks in the different areas of the store - this is to both cover for absences and for extra unexpected workload. Especially important for back to school is having 3-4 TMs familiar with number 6 repacks, as they will need to push over there all day long during BTS.