This is going to be a rather large reply but I am going to attempt to address what I can and also want to thank everyone for your time and advice, means a lot! This is the kind of communication and perspective I expect to be available from my ETL. Unfortunately, it isn't. I understand not everyone will want to read all of this but I am hoping that some will.
I encourage anyone to leave advice on where they think I could improve. This is essentially how inbound was before I stepped into this role, so I tried to learn how things are being done currently before I attempted to make any bigger changes. I finally feel comfortable enough to start this process. I also want to mention I have only been in fulfillment in my 1 year and 3 months at Target prior to joining inbound. I was given very little TL or Inbound training. I had one day training with a TL and then that TL got Covid, the next 3 days I had a TL come in with me but was not helping me at all, they were only there to answer questions over walkie when I could think of them. I did not train at another store, and have never worked at another store, so I only know how things operate at my store.
How do you feel about staffing? Are you adequately staffed for what you want to accomplish?
Inbound is usually scheduled adequately, but I expect one callout per shift which usually leaves me throwing/on the line, which IMO kills efficiency, I am not able to guide the unload. I have to leave the backroom often to unlock equipment room, let TM's in the store, answer the phone. High rise in covid has hurt us lately too. Biggest scheduling issue I see is in fulfillment. Coming from FF, I may be biased. But on most days OPU is going crazy and most of GM is jumping in batches to help and along with helping the check lanes. In my opinion, FF should be over scheduled and help with push/OFO when it is slow. If we don't have the hours then we could ask if someone wants to go home. We are in a college town and most TM's are 18-22, conservatively 75%, and all would leave early on slow days. Not to mention attendance is not great across the store which could probably be attributed to that age group as well.
Can’t speak to the rest of it, but only pushing Toys, or pushing Toys first, during Q4 is pretty standard procedure because that’s where a lot of the money is and Spot doesn’t want to lose those sales or get stuck with a bunch of unsold ncf toys whose value drops about 75% (at least) at 12am on December 26th.
It makes sense complete sense to me why we target high margin areas, just wanted to hear about other stores.
As for cheating to manipulate BRLM, seems like that was standard procedure, too, at least at my store, when leadership kept racking their brains to come up with more and more ingenious ways to game the system and demand that the team use them.
The BRLM part bothers me, but I just accept it. Possibly in the future it will be something I address, but I don't want to take on too much at the moment. If everyone does it, surely corporate would be aware and remodel the process to hold stores accountable, otherwise it can be agreed that it negatively effects the business, right?
To be successful it starts with a good sort so custom blocks plays a huge role in that . Custom blocks shouldn’t be changed more than once a year once during q4 and right after q4. Best way is to fix your custom block is based on dbos.
I am very interested in changing the CB's, but don't feel qualified or have the experience to make those decisions yet. We are transitioning GM ETL's, the new ETL is also interested but admitted the outgoing ETL is better/has more experience at that. It is a priority, but I am giving it time as a lot is going on in our store at the moment.
Also how many bays do you have ? You can only do so much if you have less than 5 bays,
We have 3 bays, but it is a very crowded area. The way our BR is set up makes it very hard to move full vehicles from the line to empty bays. One bay is usually full between powered equipment and random fulfillment pallets/flats, second bay is used for empty flats to replace when others get full, and we usually have 2 pallet size spots empty available for PIPO as we unload. Only one bay makes sense to unload from (im sure this is normal). We share this space with receiving and FF. FF is always messy, leaves flats of ship alones on bays, stores pallets under steel in front of middle bay, leaves ship carts everywhere with packages in their shared area with receiving and definitely limits our space.
you are staffed for success so I’m confused as to why everyday you have to push roll over.
See my reply to
@Planosss enraged for my opinon on staffing, feel free to give your take.
How many hours is inbound schedule for ? Are they also schedule in their own departments? What I’m going to say now I will assume that they are not and only scheduled for 4h.
They are scheduled for a minimum 5.5 hours, when hours are available we ask them to extend to 8 hours, on average 2 will stay. Also, two are DBO's, one C+D and one Sporting Goods, sometimes they are scheduled 8 sometimes 5. When we finish C+D at 8, they split off to their areas.
4 am unload so by 6-6:15 the latest your truck should be done , call break and 6;30 they return to push. You want to push the areas that got hit the most . With 1 and half hours left your 6 team members could and should push half of the truck be in the back room to feed them the vehicles for example : rugs , furniture , pillows those are quick and easy shouldn’t take more than 10-15 minutes .
We spend 15-30 minutes setting the line due to rollover and docks not being cleaned, putting bales in steel, etc. This is something I will be bringing up tomorrow. I closed in FF the last 6 months, in which I made sure to do these kinds of things when possible but I didn't really see the positive effect it made but did it out of courtesy anyway.
We usually finish the unload at around 6:15-6:30, and sometimes as late as 6:50. We then take all C+D vehicles to the floor, then they go on break, I will then bowl bed and bath while they are on break, and we try to finish by store open at 8. If we are ahead I will bowl kitchen as well. Regardless, we stay in C+D until it is both done. From there we push whatever areas have no DBO scheduled that day or call out, and even when they work 8's we usually leave at least a few vehicles of some department left and in some cases we don't even touch some departments. We take care of our own trash/backstock as well.
Once they go home the dbo would be left with the rest and they should come clean . So you should have a clean line coming in the next day .
I have never seen a clean line except for when trucks get cancelled or we have a visit. Beauty/HBA ALWAYS behind with 3-5 vehicles left between them, among others.
Utilize the replenishment reports , look at your bulk list and what gets hits
I am still trying to get comfortable enough to be able to efficiently utilize these resources. I always print off replenishment reports and use it to see who is going to push what (DBO's or Inbound), but as for determining how many vehicles we will need I still struggle with that but am getting better.
Be prepared for transitions . Freight for transition arrives 10-14 days before it sets.
I would like to hear some best practices for handling transition. My ETL mentioned that we would check out the Weekly Inventory Update but I have not seen it or know exactly what it shows, I will try to find that tomorrow and figure out how to utilize it.
I assume you are referring to all that I listed, which of those should I discuss with my ETL/Team about first to improve efficiency?
I'm not inbound but hoping this helps (I know what they've started doing recently and it's helped by leaps and bounds).
Our inbound is all very tenured, including the TL. After Q4 IDK if freight changed or what but we started really backing up and morale went way down all over. Like your store, ours pushed C&D because it was mostly flats. The ETL had the inbound TL start looking at the schedule then looking at what we had the most of.
For example, if we had a lot of high B carry over from the day before and now 3-4 more flats and u-boats then the inbound team goes and pushes high B. If it's a toss up between C&D and high B they look at the GM schedule for the day and who is there. We hardly ever have anyone in high B so maybe they'll throw 4 of them to high B (since it takes longer also) and then 1 of them to handle C&D flats. Randomly departments like Pets go in there too or paper if that guy has the day off. Literally anywhere that starts to really need the help.
TL;DR - don't just focus on one department for push. PARTNER with the other leads and get a feel for what areas need the most help and on what days. You'll start to see trends and be able to schedule the team's time better. You can also brainstorm on what can be done in other departments to improve productivity. Get with your ETL on that one as well).
Thanks for this, I appreciate the insight. I am definitely big on communication and think our leads altogether could do much better. Also, im not familiar with high B. (my guess would be HBA/OTC? that would be high A at my store assuming I am understanding the term correctly.)
