Archived Flow Team Process

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The other store in my town has the bullseyes printed on the label strip. We still use the stickers.:(

Yeah, my store also uses the black bullseye stickers. Sometimes plano gets lucky though and gets strips with them already printed out. What ends up happening at my store is if we get an item that needs to be spider wrapped, we put it to the side and bring it to electronics for spider wrapping. Our electronics flow team member wraps it up, leaves it on the boat, and towards the end of the truck push process, it gets picked up and put in it's proper place. For those chi irons and perfumes that need to get locked up, our HBA/cosmetics repack sorter takes care of that before she leaves as well.
 
I completely agree with you. We get a lot of food avenue/checklanes products put on the market pallet and nobody seems to want to walk them over there. That's actually one of the suggestions I wanted to bring up to my ETL. I know a lot of the guys just stare at the department number and not the location while on the line, but I find it easier for me to look at the location of something and judge which pallet to put it on that way. Reason being that our store had remodel about two years ago and our department numbers are all mixed up now. With that in mind, if some of the guys on our line would give a glance at the location, we could better sort our pallets.

Our team lead has started auditing our backstock now while timing us. That has helped tremendously with getting items in their second locations.

For some reason we have flow on the back of the line sorting backstock. I don't know why it's not a BRTM. (I guess we need them to pull.) They seem to sort by sales floor location, which doesn't always work out. Especially when items that are near eachother on the sales floor are on opposite sides of the backroom.

That seems a little weird. Our backstock is already sorted by department because we have a pallet for each area while waving through. Do you guys put your backstock on flats and tubs instead?
 
Thank you guys for all the great ideas! I presented my thoughts and ideas to my ETL this morning with the help of your advice and it was well received. She particularly liked the 'repack wave team' idea with having three or four people working on repacks for hardlines together as a whole. Either Monday or Tuesday I'll be sitting down with her and both my flow team leads to see how we can turn my ideas into a plan of action.

And good idea, Lobster. I'll have to print that out. Thanks. :]
 
Our flow team takes spiderwrap items to the GSTLs. They have the key and the wires.The person working in electronics takes care of their own. Anything that goes to back stock is not wired.That is where the problem comes in. As those items are pulled during the day, they are never wired. I think the shelf label should have a small symbol to let the team member know it needs a wrap. Maybe a small $ sign? Of course there are team members who will ignore it. Too many people ignore the wrap list and just decide on their own what to wrap. they need to stick to the list.
 
Oh my gosh, like, you work the flow team? Like I'm so jelly.. like lime green jello jelly. We should totally have switchies

Wow. That's the sign I need to take a break from the forum for a couple of days. See you guys in a week or so, she (it?) has to be gone my then.
 
That seems a little weird. Our backstock is already sorted by department because we have a pallet for each area while waving through. Do you guys put your backstock on flats and tubs instead?
Yes, for backstock from the floor. I was actually talking about our red line. (I've heard black line mentioned on here, but I don't know what that is.) They're better about separating pets and chemicals from the floor, but the red line will have seasonal mixed with grocery because they're in the same block.
 
Black line is backstock.
So called for the black line they draw through the barcode when scanning the truck.
 
Why is ours red? Doesn't the black line interfere with the barcode if the scanner accidentally gets it on the tear strip?
 
You only S through the large barcode on the pick label. It won't scan the small barcode in the truck scan.
 
They must be a lot more careful than our scanners, I guess because they have to be.
 
Haha, must.

I scan the truck every once and awhile and sometimes it can get a bit hectic, but I do try to keep it on the big barcode. Kinda hard to miss.
 
I've been with Target for 2 years, and my primary job on the flow team is in softlines. Over this period of time, we have tried many different ways to make our process faster. At the present time, our pallets are separated by hanging, folding/one spot, shoes and baby hardlines. We have one person that does folding/shoes/one spot, generally two to work the hanging, and one that does baby hardlines/softlines. We are set up in the aisle in the area of shoes, boys/girls, baby, intimates, with the z-racks closest to the racetrack, and the folding person set up in front of boys/girls. The person that does the folding bowls out her boxes in front of the corresponding carts. Hanging places their pallet in a shoe aisle.
Pallet pulling is done by each area, with both folding/hanging ladies pulling the baby pallets when necessary. Everything with the exception of packaged underwear/socks are unwrapped (we have found that leaving these things in there respective packaging until stocking is actually faster). Since we are in view of each other (we weren't before), it is much easier to see if one area is getting a larger than usual quantity, so that we can change our personnel around a little when needed. We also have a great team of 4 people that are very willing to assist each other when needed. Once the truck is finished, we get a 5th person to help us finish.

Once the breakout is finished (generally around 7am) we break off. Two work ready-to-wear and all of the ladies, one works men's, one in boys/girls, and baby hardlines stays where she is. As soon as one person finishes, they go to wherever help is needed. Once all of the clothing is finished, we go to shoes, and if it's a really good day, then to one-spot before we go to hardlines.

I think the thing that slows softlines down most of the time is when we receive a lot of new product. We are to use the adjacency to place the new items in their proper places, and sometimes that's easier said than done, especially if there is still a lot of product in that particular area. That generally will slow us down, and I sometimes think that the TL's don't understand that. The new hanging products can really be a nightmare sometimes, and I know that the numbers that the TL's receive about the truck can't possibly include checking the adjacency. It can be very frustrating for us sometimes, but I really enjoy what I do.
 
I'm wondering something, if maybe anyone has some experience with this. I want to get our Flow team up to speed and meeting goal times more often.

Here is how it is currently:
UNLOAD:
2 throwers
1 scanner
1 pusher
1 backstock side
5 push side

1 SL tm pulling pallets and setting up SL breakout
1 grocery bowler (they modified bowl to just the ends of the aisles)
1 C&D bowler (again, modified bowl)
1 tm breaking out HL repacks
1 tm setting up HBA breakout and bowling HBA freight

Then a half hour in, we get the rest of the team.
3 more added to HBA
3 more added to SL
1 tm bowls toys/sports
1 tm bowls pets/chem

After the unload, there is no wave. We have the following occur:
3 tms pets chem
4 tms HBA (repacks and Freight)
4 tms SLs (infant hardlines, shoes and all SLs)
3 tms toys sports
1 tm small appliances
1 tm HL repacks
1 tm stationary
5-6 tms in C&D
1 tm elec sec repacks, elec freight and MMB

Once the team moves through those areas, we meet in paper (not bowled) and work that until break at 9.
Then after flow huddle, we hit grocery (yes the freight is all sitting at the end of the aisles until around 930AM)
A lot of the team leaves around the same time as finishing groc
the remaining tms hit seas then if there is time 1spot
Working bulk and paper is a mystery, I usually end up getting that during the flow team break (I'm etl log, and I jump in every truck to whatever areas need help)
Challenge usually gets worked by me after all the team leaves for the day
HBA, SL and elec/MMB tm take pretty much 8 hours of the day to get through the push.... Way too long, I know! We run with about 120-130 hours per truck, plus all my free payroll used to push (which I'm not complaining, I love working truck I just want to set realistic expectations and hold tms accountable better for when they're not performing).

I'm playing around with the idea of bowling out the same areas during the unload and waving through these areas before the break, essentially, we can get through the same stuff in the same time, but I think with team members working around each other, they will work faster and hold each other more accountable when one person is slacking off not doing what they need to be doing. We are a 6am process. Today, with 5:15 min goal time for the two blocks that cover C&D, a 5man team took almost 2 hours to get through it.... Do you have experience with a team working better during the wave rather than split up? I would leave SL, HL repack tm and HBA team alone during this time.
 
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