All stores are heading that route. We, as pilot stores, were informed that because of our work over the past year, they've decided to just do Research and to do away with Outs. My impression with the email is that it will just be implemented into the task list, so that it will only be RSCH and RIGs in there. I HOPE that it's not every aisle every day though, or else they are going to have to allocate more payroll to instocks. There's no way that 3 people can walk every aisle in the store every day in just a measly 3 hour shift. I'll be interested to see how this turns out!
Archived Instock Team Going Away in March
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All stores are heading that route. We, as pilot stores, were informed that because of our work over the past year, they've decided to just do Research and to do away with Outs. My impression with the email is that it will just be implemented into the task list, so that it will only be RSCH and RIGs in there. I HOPE that it's not every aisle every day though, or else they are going to have to allocate more payroll to instocks. There's no way that 3 people can walk every aisle in the store every day in just a measly 3 hour shift. I'll be interested to see how this turns out!
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salesfloor tls used to do the instocks job. it was great!
Not at my store. When I started more than 10 years ago we had a Research captain. Then we had an MPG captain with a research captain. Then we had an instocks team. Why was it great? Did it work better? Was it more consistent? Was there better accountability? I'm very curious to see how this could all work better because IMO it isn't working so well now.
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TL's took care of RSCH in their departments back in 2007 and earlier.
I have to agree it was probably the best way of doing it. Why? Basically because TL's knew their department.
Take me, for example, I was over toys/mmb/electronics/sporting/hardware/seasonal. Because those were the only departments in the store I really focused on, I knew exactly what we were selling, what had instock issues, etc. Because of this, I knew exactly what items to check, how much I had on hand, etc. This allowed me to make sure items that sold were instock.
Instock team - because they work the entire store - may not be that familiar with items. Also, the fact is that they are stretched too thin to worry about it. For example, if a Canon camera is a huge seller and needs to be researched because it is out of stock, do they really have time to constantly be thinking about it? Not really, but as the electronics TL I did have that time.
Before I left Target, my STL was always asking me why it was my departments were more instock than any other department in the store. The reason for that? Basically I kicked instock team out of certain areas that I realized they weren't hadling properly. For example, I told them to leave cameras, TVs, games, MMB, most other electronics aisles, and certain parts of toys alone. I had my 2 specialists and myself research those areas. Also, we did research much more frequently than instock. For example, I did cameras daily. (FYI - I was usually in the top 100 in the company on camera sales as a C volume store, and I attribute personally making sure we were instock at all times as the reason) Also I took the initiative to get on workbench and report instock issues. No one on instock team ever did that. (Can't blame them because they didn't even know how)
I still think instock team is a good "fall back" team to do that extra check and make sure things are instock, but I think TLs should go back to being actively involved as part of their core roles.
We were an instocks pilot store in 2007, so that may be why your TLs were doing research. I was a TL before that - never did research. I have always thought that TLs should do the research in their areas so that there is more ownership. We no longer have TL's that are responsible for one department or even just one area any more so I don't see this as a viable option any longer. I think that they should use the task list because it's a good checks and balance to POG ties and items that are no longer carried (reference Replace Label) As for instocks not being familiar with items I would disagree (at least for our store). Our team is more familiar with the signing, merchandise, new sets, etc. than any other team BECAUSE we are in every department every day. If anyone has questions about what we carry, where it is, and what's on sale or has gone clearance, they know they can trust that the IS team knows what and where it will be. Doing research in an area once per week is best practice. Our team reports issues to the TL so that they are aware of them and it is the TL's responsibility to manage any opportunities. When I started on instocks we were told it would be a "checks/balance" sort of team to help identify systems that needed tweaking. That's not really how it has evolved - and that's too bad. I sort of thought the team would have been unnecessary by now. I'd like to have seen it evolve into more of a "merchandising team" focusing more on managing and merchandising the MPG and clearance areas more effectively - more PTM management - and given the daily instocks over to the TL's and salesfloor teams (yes, I know that the IS team is a salesfloor team).
great post. miss these days. you hit it right on the head.
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My instocks team the swat team at my store. Because the etl log has trained them to "fix" things quickly. To support all teams at a moment notice, like backup cashiering, ad setup, zoning, backstock, push cafs, unload truck, push pfresh, help guests & still do research tasks too. The only things they dont do is clearance, endcaps & pricing. Gtc card to them!
I love my IS team.
I love my IS team.
Yeah for your team - the only team in the store that has been required to know every department and is the lowest paygrade of all "special teams".
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So sad, but true.
Zeek is correct that OUTs goes away as part of the upcoming software release. The research schedule also goes away. So it does take you through the whole store each day but it should be a good thing. You'd scan less of each department each day but can simply follow the flow team as they finish and not have to worry about them finishing the research area. The flow, instocks, and backroom teams can work the same routine each day. 
As far as simply pushing your whole truck that is totally unnecessary if your teams are correctly trained. The DCs recently rolled out segmented OTLs which has greatly reduced our backstock and more freight scans push to go straight to the floor. Our pulls have reduced by about 14,500 eaches a week greatly reducing our workload but it relies on having accurate research, so it's not going away.
As far as simply pushing your whole truck that is totally unnecessary if your teams are correctly trained. The DCs recently rolled out segmented OTLs which has greatly reduced our backstock and more freight scans push to go straight to the floor. Our pulls have reduced by about 14,500 eaches a week greatly reducing our workload but it relies on having accurate research, so it's not going away.Rock Lobster
Executive Team Leader
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Zeek is correct that OUTs goes away as part of the upcoming software release. The research schedule also goes away. So it does take you through the whole store each day but it should be a good thing. You'd scan less of each department each day but can simply follow the flow team as they finish and not have to worry about them finishing the research area. The flow, instocks, and backroom teams can work the same routine each day.
I'm confused... So they are increasing the Instocks workload by making us research every aisle everyday? To me, that seems overly excessive and a waste of payroll hours...
No, I think that it should even out the workload. You scan the entire store each day but it's not going to have you scan the same items every day. They get rid of outs so that workload goes away. Anything scanned is in research, it doesn't seem to take them any longer than normal to complete the task list though. Our team used to use outs to shoot items that were low on product. With research instead the idea is that it pull the exact right amount to fill (assuming the capacity is correct) where before it would pull capacity and we'd backstock the excess. That was a waste of payroll. It becomes more important to mySupport capacity issues and not use EXFs to fill. Everything should work better.
Besides you were supposed to shoot outs in the whole store each day anyway, this just takes you around the store through the task list, if you are shooting items that are critically low each day you wouldn't have to go back in stand alone.
Besides you were supposed to shoot outs in the whole store each day anyway, this just takes you around the store through the task list, if you are shooting items that are critically low each day you wouldn't have to go back in stand alone.
mrknownothing
purveyor of things
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You would be moving through the whole store every day, but you would only research the items on the day's task list. A week's worth of task lists would cover every item in the store.
Rock Lobster
Executive Team Leader
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This isn't really answering my question though? You are going from 1) Researching only a certain set of aisles a day and scanning outs in the rest to 2) Researching the entire store everyday...
In section 1 you only scan new outs (not critical lows and not already dotted) in most of the store, and only scan all dotted outs and critical lows with the research... in section 2 you are scanning all outs (dotted and non dotted) everyday in every aisle and critical lows? That is not a decrease in workload so I am confused... I am also ignoring the "use outs to shoot items that were low" because that is not a best practice and actually hurts your accumulator which is why most stores do not do that...
So unless our definition of research is changing I am seeing an increase to the instocks workload?
I have read through what is expected and what I understand is that we will go to EVERY aisle AND include softlines tables. On a daily basis we will only research NEW outs and critical lows and once a week there will be an all-store research day. I can hardly wait to research cosmetics and intimates and shoes all on the same day. How anyone can say this is LESS work is beyond me. I do think that it will be helpful to keep counts updated though. What I am concerned about is that the scanning hours will not change and now we will have to wait for backstock to be completed even on heavy truck days (we have days when we cannot start research until after 8 am but will do outs since backstock is not vital to this.)in order to research.
The idea is that you should be able to work out a routine with the Flow team. You should be able to work and backstock one area of the store everyday and start your research there. The instocks team and Flow team should be able to work the same routine everyday and not have to change up their processes based on the research schedule. Your rescan day should be the day you schedule the whole instocks team. Our all-store research day is on Wednesday and the way I understood it we were able to chose the day based on our truck schedule.
hey the bp for the new instocks roll out says you can pick your day or split it. it's up to your etl/stl.
we're breaking it down just like the old research schedule. every dept has one day they get completely scanned, old and new outs. our team is being scheduled in staggering from 630-8.
we're breaking it down just like the old research schedule. every dept has one day they get completely scanned, old and new outs. our team is being scheduled in staggering from 630-8.
Yeah that's what I thought. I had heard that we were researching certain areas on specific days still (such as shoes, cosmetics etc..) but I wasn't 100% positive if that was still going to be the case after the final rollout to everyone, sounds like it will be.
Rock Lobster
Executive Team Leader
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The idea behind this is that every store has a different truck schedule... so in general you would pick one day during the week that your store has no trucks (and therefore should be clean on backstock) to scan everything (and this is when you would schedule your entire team plus all your backups) and then for the other 6 days of the week you could schedule the same everytime since there isn't randomly hard days thrown in and your schedule has to adapt to it...
Oh my goodness what a nightmare that was... Four people to attempt to full on research the entire store wasn't too successful. Only made it about a third of the way through softlines! I've been trying to explain to my ETL that we need more people on the instocks team... hopefully he understands now!
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they got it done in my store. Although they must have been shooting blue while they were pushing it which I can't stand. But the pulls were not huge so I guess no big deal.
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Aww, I wanted to make a new 'It has Begun! The end is nigh! Repent, repent!' thread for this. Yeah, there's only two of us on our team and we barely scathed Grocery. Also, you'd think that the [!] button would now filter out RSCH and just show RIGs, right? Well now the button does absolutely nothing. Smooth moves, corp.
The rollout info said it would no longer work. I had thought it would be smart to be able to separate them, too. Scans go SOOOO much faster when the 100+ RIGs are already done. Just wondering how (or IF) those of you getting through your list (ours was over 650 tasks today) are doing this while waiting for backstock and challenge to be completed and if you are checking your backroom to see which areas have red backroom location accuracy.
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