So, the reason I asked the question above was because I came up an idea recently and the other leaders at my store really like it, especially my SD. I asked the same question on myChat and got a similar answer (the system prioritizes openstock and then fewest steps).
What if the system prioritized openstock and then the location with the fewest eaches? It would certainly increase the steps taken for a one for one, but I'm wondering if the benefits outweigh the cost. The benefit would be a much more organized backroom because there would rarely be any DPCIs with multiple locations. This means backstocking would be easier because there are more open wacos and fewer DPCIs per waco. That might create fewer mistakes and would certainly decrease steps when backstocking.
It would have a side effect of helping out with perishable items, too. It would force you to pull from the location that has 1 or 2 eaches in it instead of pulling from the full case that you just received recently, therefore pulling the oldest items first.
Thoughts? I'm proposing this in my myChat. I'm at a small format store, so my backroom is absolutely tiny. We have 4 regular aisles plus 6 really short aisles plus 5 really REALLY short aisles, and a small amount of bulk space. We can't afford to have inefficiencies in our backroom because it's so small. It also means we can afford to lose efficiency on one for ones because realistically our backroom is so small that we don't take many steps in the first place and can't add many more steps.