Archived Going All Push

[Going with the Flow]

I know this has been addressed earlier as a pilot in some stores, well next week we are starting this and I was just wondering if those who have been doing it a while now had any feedback on how it went. Any ideas on what works and what doesn't. What did this do to hours for backroom? Flow? The actual unload, how did it change?

We are a 4 am, B volume Super Target.

Thanks

 

[SFTguy]

Whats that...havent heard this one?

 

[Going with the Flow]

Basically everything from the truck is pushed to the floor and once the floor is filled it then goes to back stock. No Scanner on the line, not sure about all of it but supposedly its a good thing yay? haha I know there are threads here about it and I've read them as they came up but now that its been going on for a bit in those stores I'm wondering how it really works.

 

[anathema]

I've not heard of this, seems like you're asking for trouble when you're sending 300-500 extra cases out onto the floor and into backroom at once.

If this happens, I'd love to hear the process as well.

 

[commiecorvus]

Is this the one you're talking about?

http://www.thebreakroom.org/showthread.php/4124-February-PUSH-ALL-test

 

[Going with the Flow]

Yep that's it..looks like its gonna be interesting.

 

[SFTguy]

Ahhh... thats how it USED to be...everything went to the floor and was pushed...then the whole went and did their own backstock.

 

[Bucky]

We have been an all push store since the beginning of April. We don't start the unlaid until 7:30am. We open at 8am. I think we were done with the unload at 8:10 today. We have a pretty good system. We have black pallets on the salesfloor until 11am. Everyone pushes. Pricing. Planogram. Even backroom until 9:30. I do the transition and non-set backstock. I am at the front of the line right inside the dock. I take off any staged product and any product that has no salesfloor locations. The truck was 950 and I ended up with 3 skids of product. the two biggest hurdles we have to overcome are ... 1) We have so little backroom hours that most of the time, the truck does not get all backstocked until the following day and 2) planogram and pricing struggle on truck days to be able to finish their workload. The PPTL has to be efficient and plan to set only the smaller sets on truck days.

 

[backroomdude]

The truck was 950...

Did you leave a number off your truck size?

 

[konk]

Can't it not have a sales floor location on the label, but have a sales floor location? Flow team does this too.

 

[Bucky]

backroomdude ... LOL. No, that was the actual number. Ultra low volume here. Which is why the store is opening and we are still unloading the truck.

Konk ... mostly, no. If an item comes off the truck and the pick label has no locs on it, it doesn't get pushed. Rarely, we will get random things that I know are set. For example, for some reason, the pillows in the endcap pillow cage never come with locs on the pick label. Yes, it's tied. I have triple checked. No idea why. It goes down the line and is pushed.

 

[dyskrasia]

backroomdude ... LOL. No, that was the actual number. Ultra low volume here. Which is why the store is opening and we are still unloading the truck.

My store is ULV and we don't ever see a truck lower than 1500.

 

[backroomdude]

backroomdude ... LOL. No, that was the actual number. Ultra low volume here. Which is why the store is opening and we are still unloading the truck.

My store is ULV and we don't ever see a truck lower than 1500.

Wow that is a small truck. Sad part is I'm in a Super and with the flow team I have it would still take them all day.

 

[Rock Lobster]

I've not heard of this, seems like you're asking for trouble when you're sending 300-500 extra cases out onto the floor and into backroom at once.

If this happens, I'd love to hear the process as well.

I don't want to brag but I did suggest going all push like a year ago 🙂

Theoretically it should go well! If you think of this from a staffing perspective, you can take a scanner off the line (no reason) and just have people throwing in the trailer and then line people to sort out everything by area! One person should be on the old backstock side to handle transition coming off the truck and handle random things like PIPO... You just got someone off the line and put them out to the floor (bowling out if this isn't an ULV store)... The backroom team's autofills should be slightly smaller AND they no longer have truck backstock, which means they can help stock the truck as soon as they are done pulling! Even though there is more freight on the floor at this point in the process, your team is larger, and your floor is getting more full due to items close (but not quite reaching) to the trigger getting sent to the backroom instead of the floor! After a few weeks of this, much of your product will be kept on the floor instead of the backroom! This also removes MANY errors from occuring due to taking all the intricate details away from the process!

Now there are downsides... Your backroom will need to be eventually reprofiled... The items that DO go to backstock will now be more open stock than case stock (versus MUCH of our product is in case stock form)... Therefore more wacos will be necessary! The question then becomes are you saving more time this way? I think Target found yes... When you figure out how many errors you are removing by going all push, how much fuller your floor is because of it (think of the sales that occur more often because there isn't just 2-3 left of something on the shelf and more in the back), and the ability to get freight done quickly (while sacrificing some efficiency in your backroom), it becomes obvious...

 

[Bucky]

I am still on the fence regarding the all push. Some of the things that need tweaking ...

1) When backstock starts flowing into the backroom, 99% of boxes are open. For example, you will get in 5 boxes of Angel Soft DPCI 253-04-4573. Identical. All open. So, now I have to tape each one up. Repeat 100 times.

2) Backroom hours have been slashed. I don't know how much of this is due to overall cutbacks. But, usually, we do not get the truck backstock done until the following day. If transitions are heavy, that makes it even worse.

3)Any delay in the unloading process (oversized pallets, stacked pallets in the truck, etc) strands the whole line. We have had to take the line apart to get pallets off the truck. Then you have all those people just standing there.

 

[backroomdude]

I am still on the fence regarding the all push. Some of the things that need tweaking ...

1) When backstock starts flowing into the backroom, 99% of boxes are open. For example, you will get in 5 boxes of Angel Soft DPCI 253-04-4573. Identical. All open. So, now I have to tape each one up. Repeat 100 times.

I hate the open boxes, an old FTL and myself argued about this for a long time. He kept telling them to open everything and "stock by sight", I argued that is wrong teach them how to read the freaking smart schematic before they open it. My ETL didn't want to get involved, I think he liked when we argued. We just backstocked them didn't tape em just folded them shut. Inventory time the FTL had to tape up all the boxes in stockroom, LOL, he changed his tune after that.

 

[konk]

I would vote for all push, but push to the case. I think we spend way too much time on eaches. Have the trigger be the case quantity, at least for grocery.

 

[backroomdude]

I would vote for all push, but push to the case. I think we spend way too much time on eaches. Have the trigger be the case quantity, at least for grocery.

It was like this when the case pack logic system first rolled out. HQ wasn't worried about the shelves being full and with the higher triggers there was ALOT of empty shelves. Part of the reason why that was changed and the PIPO miscalculations.

 

[Bullseyeismydog]

My store is also ulv, 7:30 am unload. The all push is helping the store, it looks fuller and zone is better. They separate transition and no location spls straight off the truck. All of our logistics teams work the truck for about 4 hours. Backroom pushes electronics after pulls, then starts backstocking when done with push.

 

[Bullseyeismydog]

They also redid the custom blocks, i think we have twice as many as we used to. The push pallets go all the way around the line now.

 

[konk]

Seems like this would help with palletizing the transition and spls. We never do it with spls and not always with transition.

 

[odie]

Even if my store went to this, not much would change. Flow flexes EVERYTHING, then those of us on salesfloor have to take it back down and put it in backstock. They aren't supposed to, but the flow managers tell them to anyway.

 

[tuvile]

Ugh, you guys make the process sound amazing, but it still makes me cringe when I think about it. It's bad enough we bring back quite a bit backstock without an all-push, but I don't want to even imagine if we did an all-push every truck day. We've done this before rarely, and it never went well. It was a mess. Sometimes I wonder if our inventory numbers are extremely messed up by the crazy backstock we bring back every truck day. I know in part some of it is from flow not doing their job correctly, but I've come across multiple things, especially repack items, that tend to come in bulk and there is just no space for it, and no second location.

 

[Going with the Flow]

So Far this is not going well, the backstock is crazy, the case opening is out of control and f~ing back to school crap just started flowing in...our backroom team lead is gonna have a heart attack I swear. UGH!

 

[Jennifer325]

For people doing this, have your trucks gotten smaller? When they first told us we were starting it, they said the trucks would be smaller. Now they're acting like they never said that and we were told the trucks will not be smaller.