Archived How do I push quickly as Flow?

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I'm a fairly new (< 90 days) flow member, and I'm ashamed to admit that I've been mostly ignoring FIFO and non-obvious multi-locations.

Doing FIFO seems to require removing all stock that's already on the shelf and estimating how much new stuff to push. In CS terms, I have to use a stack (LIFO) structure in a FIFO manner, and that's inefficient.

And most of the multi-location items I encounter seem to be somewhere other than endcaps. How do I quickly figure out where to push these?

To sum up, how do I FIFO and fill multi-locs while still keeping the 10s-30s per box goal time?
 
Alot of it is having quick hands and feet. Other than that, it comes with experience and being aware of your surrounding. Pay attention to your endcaps/ side caps, and try to get a recollection of in aisle secondary locations.
 
Fair enough. But how do I find the other locations without a PDA?
 
Walk the store often. When doing grocery I fill the home then set all boxes with second locations to the side of the aisle or in a shopping cart. If I can't find an item and there is quite a bit that would be going to backstock, I pair with my TL/ETL and use their PDA to scan. Remember that not all boxes marked with an asterisk actually have a second location. Some used to have one and it has recently been taken down while others are going to be set soon.
 
What exactly do you mean by "walk the store"?

When you go on break, don't take the same route all the time.
Pay attention to the endcaps and areas that the plano teams are working on.
The big part is asking questions, there are so many little details that no one will know everything but the more questions you ask the better job you will do.
 
Most of the flow in my store or atleast the good ones, when walking back for the truck they walk 1 side of the grocery aisles. When truck is done they do pulls first for grocery so they walk the other side of grocery going to the pulls. Doing this lets them see pretty much all the end caps that matter real quick. Now they pay attention the checklanes when they go on break (still working grocery) and look at HB endcaps while going to the back with backstock.
You question of rotating product, general rule is always think producivity. Do not remove all product from a shelf to throw half a case behind it. Move the old product to the left, then new product behind it if you can or just on the right. New doesnt always have to be behind the old just seperated. Locations with only 1 facing is where you really have to look at is it worth removing the whole shelf? If its only a few items to remove then remove them and rotate like you should, if the shelf is half full, just stock the new product in the front. Productivity is very important and if your rotating everything 100% it will take you forever to stock.
 
Don't feel bad. Most of our flow team carries around PDAs and still will send back 2 cases as backstock because the home was filled and they don't think to even scan the box to check for second locations.

General rule of thumb, if you have 2-3 cases at the home and only one (maybe not even the whole case) will go out, there probably is a second, or even third (Think checklanes), location.

Being aware of your surroundings helps too. After enough times of stocking certain areas you will be able to figure out pretty easily where stuff goes, and what probably has a second location.
 
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1 box per minute. cannot find the location then put in a repack box for backstock.
and do not overstock what so ever, as we zone during the day there is so much overstock on the shelves.
 
1 box per minute. cannot find the location then put in a repack box for backstock.
and do not overstock what so ever, as we zone during the day there is so much overstock on the shelves.

OP, just remember that while having backstock is OK, be very suspicious of full cases. The system wouldn't flag it as push when scanning the truck if it didn't think it needs to go out. You will have full cases from time to time but just be careful. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking someone on you team who has a PDA to scan some boxes that have an asterisk or that you get that "second location" feeling from.

You can be the fastest person on the team, but if you're sending back tons of challange, your speed doesn't help anyone.
 
at my store if something has a second location you leave it at the end of your isle... then a designated person comes and takes care of all of the second locations when the team is done...

fifoing is not the easiest thing... i usualy take everything that in there already and put it to the left side quickly (a lot of stuff in market has two or more facings)... then i put the new stuff on the other side.... that way one side is new, one side is old... as long as your constantly taking stuff from the right facing and putting it behind the left facing it will work its way up... this way your kinda fifoing but kinda just trying to get your work done fast... and it works out for all!!!

this doesnt always work all the time obviously if there is only one facing.... if its one facing i usually just put stuff in there and move on... you will always have those fifo people that take everything off the shelves and check everything.. so as long as you got a couple of those people that are ALWAYS doing it then there shouldnt be a problem...

if it gets to a point there where you store is constantly finding stuff that is way out dated then obviously everyone should try to fifo... but that doesnt happen at our store much...

lets be realistic... if everyone fifoed 100% of the time... the team would never make it out of market
 
First in first out. It is for any kind of food. You want to sell the food that is going to expire the soonest first so that you won't ever sell expired food.
 
FIFOing slows down the entire process. If it ain't meat, or something else in the fridge, it's getting push back if it cant be fifo'd in 2 secs
 
FIFOing slows down the entire process. If it ain't meat, or something else in the fridge, it's getting push back if it cant be fifo'd in 2 secs

This is how it is at my store. If isn't meat or stuff we know that isn't popular we just push it back. We do have two Flow TMs who check for dates every Sunday, which is a non truck day. So basically they're responsible for checking every item in Grocery within 5.5 hours.
 
I don't think we have anyone checking zones unless it's done during truck push.
 
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