Archived Logistics Experts - Come Hither! :)

[Salesfloor_ETL]

So my 18 months is almost up and it's likely that Logistics will be my next position. I going to start training in a couple of months but I was just wondering if anyone had any tips or advice? Does your store do anything special with the truck/backroom process that works really well?

Currently I'm at a low volume store with 3 trucks a week that average around 1800-2000 pieces. About 20 flow team members and 3 backroom TMs scheduled per truck. They struggle to come clean every truck, blow payroll every week, and (as with most stores) overstock everywhere on the floor. I'm most likely doing Logistics at a high volume + PFresh store with a notoriously difficult Logistics process. Lots of product and not a very big backroom for starters....

I'm a little worried! lol

 

[cihyfthedoor]

I'm most likely doing Logistics at a high volume + PFresh store with a notoriously difficult Logistics process. Lots of product and not a very big backroom for starters....

This describes my store. Over the last 6 months it's really taken an entire-ETL-team collaboration to get and keep logistics on process. When working overnight, there's only so much you can do with your team. Unload the truck, push the flow, pull the autofills, push the autofills, backstock everything. If dayside (my workcenter) leaves you a crummy handoff, you will be all the worse for it, which will in turn cause a crummy handoff to dayside, and so the cycle will continue until its broken.

To break the cycle and keep things going smooth, the entire ETL team and TL team during the day need to be working together to keep the entire store on process. Front end needs to stay on top of the blue bins and other mclane stuff. Pricing needs to keep up with the ticketing and other price-change-team material piled in the backroom. Whoever takes care of all the non-DC-sourced candy (all that stuff that comes in with no DC labels, I'm guess it's with mclanes?) needs to get it pushed, b-coded, and backstocked. TLs need to keep up with their pogs, orders, etc. to keep them from sitting around in the backroom taking up space and resources. Whoever is responsible for pushing CAF (salesfloor per core roles, though your store may differ) needs to stay on top of it throughout the day.

If everyone can work together as one team with one goal, this will leave the backroom clean and leave the dayside backroom team members free to pull caf and other batches, and backstock whatever comes back from the push, endcap takedowns, etc. If the backroom dayside's workload stays flowing smoothly and stays light, they will be free to pull manual CAFs all night until they go home at closing (and ideally everyone is working together to get it pushed). The more that comes out in manuals CAFs, the lighter your autofills will be. A noticeably smaller autofill workload means your overnight logistics team has less work to do, giving you a fighting chance at coming clean.

For best results, it really, really, really needs the whole leadership team working cohesively. Getting everything on process and staying there is not easy and it takes time. As a great leader, you can champion this. Gently push people in the right directions, get their stake, help them out so they can help you out.

There are a hell of a lot more people working in the daytime than there are at night. Yes the workload is higher (guest traffic alone), but by working cohesively, they can get as much as possible done during the day to set you up at night. The dayside backroom needs to be able to focus on core backroom tasks. A major part of this is having the chance to pull meaningful manual CAF batches. The more they get accomplished in the daytime, the less you will have to deal with at night and the better of a chance you will have to come clean.

What helped us with this was pushing the truck unload back a half hour, and pushing the autofill drop time back one hour. This gave dayside backroom critical extra time to work on manuals.

This was pretty jumbled and broken, and I have a lot more to say, but this is all I can do for the moment. It really comes down to a great, solid, cohesive leadership team working together as a unit to accomplish the store's goals.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Gtc to floor!
Also, we have some logistics info in our guides too!

 

[invictustaylor]

just remember that if you are lucky enough to get a solid process going, it can change very quickly when the new stl gets there or some of your good teamleaders are fired for political reasons, causing a domino effect resulting in a catastrophy that you will be accountable for. Good luck!

 

[Pfreshness]

Callouts will be the biggest pain to the process.

 

[Finditfixit]

Took a 2400 last night with 12 flow, 3 backroom and barely finished with a crap team. If you have 20 on with 2k trucks you should never have a problem ever.

 

[cihyfthedoor]

I'm most likely doing Logistics at a high volume + PFresh store with a notoriously difficult Logistics process. Lots of product and not a very big backroom for starters....

Being a high volume store with a small backroom, see if your new store is a part of OPT. If it is, and your arrival coincides with its rollout there, you will appear to be a hero.

OPT is Offsite Prevention T....(tactics? transition? technology? I forget). Stores will small backrooms often have an offsite warehouse. Functionally, it's a remote backroom. Target doesn't like having offsite warehouses, so they do what they can to get rid of them. Their biggest step in recent years is the OPT process they're piloting right now. If you're familiar with Just In Time, Demand Flow Technology, or one of the various other names the concept goes by, that's what OPT is. Basically, more of your product is held at the DC until a day or two before you are projected to need it. Instead of sending you 4 pallets of 1 DPCI of kitty litter to stuff somewhere into your bulk steel that will last you through the end of the year, you get a quarter of a pallet that will last you until the end of next week, freeing your steel up for other things. You get bulk amounts of product the day before you need it (more or less). You only have a number of eaches in your backroom for any particular DPCI that will last a week or so.

This comes down to a lot less product in your backroom. With significantly less product in your backroom, it's astounding how much smoother everything in logistics will flow and how much more free time everyone throughout logistics will have to do other important tasks (empty location reports, locu updates, detail reports, label and waco maintenance, low and tight, pulling manual cafs, etc).

Instead of shoveling 25 pounds of crap into a 3 pound bag, it'll be more like shoveling 2¾ pounds of crap into that 3 pound bag. Things may get a little dicey sometimes, but it's definitely better than the way it was.


Also, see if you can find a solid, awesome team member to be the Space Management person for the backroom. Their job is to do whatever they can to reduce the inventory of the backroom. For example, on one day you'll have them work in one specific aisle of the backroom. They'll go through and do an empty location report. Then they'll print off a detail report (for the love of god, sort it by status so that everything that's not active is on the first couple of pages) and use it to pull items not belonging in that aisle and items that are discontinued and clearance, and if they have time they can even purge all or part of the aisle or at least do a manual caf on it. Each day you can do a different aisle, or you can just have them do whatever needs to be done to make a positive impact on the backroom's inventory levels. With a small backroom, you seriously need to keep as much product out of it as possible that does not strictly belong there. This person will need to be nigh untouchable for other things like helping pull cafs, zoning on the salesfloor, doing reshops, doing cardboard, etc. Space Management will be their life and everyone will have to know it and accept it. If they're being bugged all the time, sure it might help in the short term for that day, but it won't help your long term success.



I tend to be overly verbose, but it's because I love logistics.

 

[insiteful1]

just remember that if you are lucky enough to get a solid process going, it can change very quickly when the new stl gets there or some of your good teamleaders are fired for political reasons, causing a domino effect resulting in a catastrophy that you will be accountable for. Good luck!

Well that was encouraging....