Push time

[FlowTeamChick]

That is not best practice anymore that was best practice at stores that had a dc sort the repacks by aisles. It was slightly better but not really. Definitely wasn't worth the money it cost to have the dc do it, and im assuming thats the reason it was reverted back. Best practice has all repacks being sorted out during unload, but depends on how well the stores want to sort them. Most stores just sort by department but we sort by valley in my store for otc and hba

Not sure we get enough to make it worth sorting by valley? (We're not a high-volume store.) I do get a pile of repacks, more for OTC than Pers Care, and maybe it makes a difference how a store's aisles are situated, but I don't know that this would help. A repack will hold items for aisles that aren't even next to each other.
I used to sort all the HBA repacks, including what's now Beauty, and I don't recall them ever being sorted better by the DC. There for a while, Stationery and HBA regularly saw things come mixed up in each other's repacks, glad that doesn't happen anymore. Since I've been doing just OTC & Pers Care, which has been for a few years, it's been the same. Well, except for taking "20" from Oral Care and giving it to Style. Now toothbrushes etc. come in the "21" boxes along with pain meds and cough & cold.

Editing to say that I don't think I understood your post. Do you sort the repacks in the back room during or after unload and put product into 3-tier carts? Then push from the carts?
I can see how sorting by valley would work that way; it's similar to how I used to use shopping carts way back before we even had 3-tier carts and u-boats. Not sure we have enough 3-tiers for all the repacks to be sorted into, plus have some left for Fulfillment to use. (They use them because we don't have enough of their special carts.)

 

[Go2TL]

We don't sort repacks out on the line, as it's a major waste of time for our unload process. OTC, HBA and Cosmetics repacks can all have products for each of those departments sorted into those repacks from the DC, so we just have the pushers sort the items out and deliver to the appropriate department.

Our goal time to unload each truck is 1 hour, sometimes we're under, sometimes we're over, depending on how good or how crap the DC decides they want to pack the truck. We like to submit Load Quality chatbots for the terrible ones.

1 hour for your unload!? That's unattainable! Are you a small format store?

 

[alwaysoverstock]

I asked my ETL today about where to find that documentation again and they said it was in a Communication when they made the changes to add stocking times to MPM. I do remember them reading it to me during a floor walk. Neither of us had any idea about how to access past Communications, or if it's even possible.

We both dug through Workday and couldn't find anything at this time, so, yeah.

Does anyone know if past Communications can be accessed, and if so, how? I would hope it could have made it to Workday by now, but if it has, our searchfu wasn't very good.

The information is in Inbound Trailer Dashboard under the "help" tab. It's been there for years but no one clicks that tab. The updated communication was mainly about stocking time being added to MPM. How they come up with the stocking times hasn't changed in a while.

 

[HInbound]

The information is in Inbound Trailer Dashboard under the "help" tab. It's been there for years but no one clicks that tab. The updated communication was mainly about stocking time being added to MPM. How they come up with the stocking times hasn't changed in a while.

Ohhh, nice! I'll check that out when I go in to verify. Thanks!

 

[HInbound]

1 hour for your unload!? That's unattainable! Are you a small format store?

Nope, regular store, 110Mil+ a year.

We took 5 trucks last week, started early at 7pm, finished at 1210'ish.

It also depends how well the DC packs the trailers. If shit is stacked like they want to murder our throwers, it can take longer, but for most nights, an hour a truck is the norm.

2 throwers, 1 facilitator, 4-5 sorters.

 

[ION the Prize]

... 2 throwers, 1 facilitator, 4-5 sorters.

What's a "facilitator"?

 

[HInbound]

What's a "facilitator"?

Someone who keeps the boxes flowing down the line as the sorters remove the boxes. Keeping the line full ensures the sorters always have something to sort.

 

[MrT]

Not sure we get enough to make it worth sorting by valley? (We're not a high-volume store.) I do get a pile of repacks, more for OTC than Pers Care, and maybe it makes a difference how a store's aisles are situated, but I don't know that this would help. A repack will hold items for aisles that aren't even next to each other.
I used to sort all the HBA repacks, including what's now Beauty, and I don't recall them ever being sorted better by the DC. There for a while, Stationery and HBA regularly saw things come mixed up in each other's repacks, glad that doesn't happen anymore. Since I've been doing just OTC & Pers Care, which has been for a few years, it's been the same. Well, except for taking "20" from Oral Care and giving it to Style. Now toothbrushes etc. come in the "21" boxes along with pain meds and cough & cold.

Editing to say that I don't think I understood your post. Do you sort the repacks in the back room during or after unload and put product into 3-tier carts? Then push from the carts?
I can see how sorting by valley would work that way; it's similar to how I used to use shopping carts way back before we even had 3-tier carts and u-boats. Not sure we have enough 3-tiers for all the repacks to be sorted into, plus have some left for Fulfillment to use. (They use them because we don't have enough of their special carts.)

Yeah understandable. Some dcs had repacks sorted by aise and not ssz for a while. For that it was best practice to have the repacks on the uboat and just push from repacks. When they are sorted by ssz then the should be sorted. We sort during the unload we have one person dedicated to sorting repacks and two people on the corner as the boxes come out if there is a lull in the unlaod they will help catch up and sort.

We wave push the uboats so we take our 5 uboats for hba and 2 to 3 uboats for otc and have about 4-6 three tiers usually by the end of the truck of sorted repacks. The 8 people we have for unload then take the uboats out and we push hba first 3 people push the 3 tiers for hba until they are done then move on to otc. The other 5 each have a uboat for hba to push and then they sort the backstock into the 3 tiers we had as the team finishes up some break off into otc and some do the backstock in the 3 tiers. Thats the only area we use the 3 tiers for repacks. The rest get sorted under the line and put onto uboats. We just find it works best for the really small items in hba and otc. Some hba ubaots are smaller then others so they get to move into otc faster. I say we are averaging being out of hba and otc in an hour. And moving onto the next area. The TLs will bring back the empty uboats for the team and start bringing out the next area, usually chem but it just depends on the day. Usually by that time the person or 2 backstocking just keep backstocking and pushing pipos as the rest of the team finishes areas. Using either the uboats or 3 tiers for backstock. We just never want to be behind on hba or otc repacks so we always do that first. My previous store pushed market first everyday with the wave push because they didnt want that to ever get behind.

Edit just to mention the sorting by valley. Some aisles dont really get items from the repacks so it isn't too bad sorting that way and its not always 100% but its usually pretty close. Hba we usually fit in about 4-5 3 tiers and otc is usually 3-4 so at most we use 9 and mi imum of 7. We only use it for hba so we make sure our night pullers have them empty and we make sure they are empty for them to use at night.

 

[ION the Prize]

Someone who keeps the boxes flowing down the line as the sorters remove the boxes. Keeping the line full ensures the sorters always have something to sort.

Huh.

That you have two people throwing PLUS someone pushing the boxes down the line sounds so foreign to me.

Truly ASANTS!

 

[HInbound]

Huh.

That you have two people throwing PLUS someone pushing the boxes down the line sounds so foreign to me.

Truly ASANTS!

It has truly made a huge difference for us. Getting trucks done fast gives the team that much more time to push, backstock and move on to help other areas.

Being a high volume store, we probably have the hours and number of TM's to give us that ability, but if any store has the ability to do something similar, I would highly recommend to give it a try and tweak what's needed for their staffing. On double nights, we can generally have the trucks completed by the time our non-truck team comes in to push and they can just get to work right away.

 

[spytfyre7]

Huh.

That you have two people throwing PLUS someone pushing the boxes down the line sounds so foreign to me.

Truly ASANTS!

This is how we've been doing it, too, for about a year----2 throwers, 1 facilitator (or pusher) and 5 to 6 sorters on the line. 2 throwers are faster than one, but you have to have fast sorters or the line will get backed up.

 

[Him]

Huh.

That you have two people throwing PLUS someone pushing the boxes down the line sounds so foreign to me.

Truly ASANTS!

@ION the Prize ASANTS agreed. However, you have to see what works best for your specific Store 🏬. As long as the majority of your work shift isn’t spent unloading the truck and ample time is given to actually push the freight.

 

[Wildcard]

It has truly made a huge difference for us. Getting trucks done fast gives the team that much more time to push, backstock and move on to help other areas.

Being a high volume store, we probably have the hours and number of TM's to give us that ability, but if any store has the ability to do something similar, I would highly recommend to give it a try and tweak what's needed for their staffing. On double nights, we can generally have the trucks completed by the time our non-truck team comes in to push and they can just get to work right away.

I’m curious, how big is an average single trailer for your store? Also, how many additional non-truck TMs do you typically have for a single? Lastly, are responsible for working the entire truck along with A&A sort/push?

 

[HInbound]

I’m curious, how big is an average single trailer for your store? Also, how many additional non-truck TMs do you typically have for a single? Lastly, are responsible for working the entire truck along with A&A sort/push?

Trailers can range from 1200-1800'ish for our store, but we always take at least 2 (unless there's a visit), so generally on an "easy" night for us, we're taking ~2500-3500 cartons.

We have 2 throwers, a facilitator, and 3-5 sorters. 1-2 runners (1 is always a TL) to keep the vehicles cleared as sorters fill them up.

Inbound is responsible for all sort/push. Style, Tech, Cos/Beauty, Frozen & Chill (2 nights a week), etc. Whatever we can't finish due to callouts, etc., it will generally get cleaned up during the day. If not, we add it to the next night's work load.

 

[Wildcard]

Trailers can range from 1200-1800'ish for our store, but we always take at least 2 (unless there's a visit), so generally on an "easy" night for us, we're taking ~2500-3500 cartons.

We have 2 throwers, a facilitator, and 3-5 sorters. 1-2 runners (1 is always a TL) to keep the vehicles cleared as sorters fill them up.

Inbound is responsible for all sort/push. Style, Tech, Cos/Beauty, Frozen & Chill (2 nights a week), etc. Whatever we can't finish due to callouts, etc., it will generally get cleaned up during the day. If not, we add it to the next night's work load.

So to clarify, you only have 7-10 TMs, including at least 1 TL on each night to sort and push about 3500ish pcs? How many payroll hours are you allocated per truck?

 

[HInbound]

So to clarify, you only have 7-10 TMs, including at least 1 TL on each night to sort and push about 3500ish pcs? How many payroll hours are you allocated per truck?

Oh, no, that's just for the unload. We have 2 TL's and an ETL at all times. ETL is usually meeting with closers, touching base with ETL's they don't usually crossover with that are LoD that day, etc. TL's drive the unload team, 1 runs vehicles off the line, 1 will help on the line, throwing if need, or help run vehicles to the floor.

We generally have around 20'ish total, the rest come in 1-3 hours after unload starts.

Not sure of allocated hours tbh. Shifts are 5-8 hours, so, guesstimate of 130 hrs. It can fluctuate obviously.

If trucks are on the low end of the carton count, our team will help support with priorities (better for us, clears out the back room), stray, OPU if needed as they clear their work load. We don't get to dawdle being a high volume store, always something to do.

 

[Wildcard]

Oh, no, that's just for the unload. We have 2 TL's and an ETL at all times. ETL is usually meeting with closers, touching base with ETL's they don't usually crossover with that are LoD that day, etc. TL's drive the unload team, 1 runs vehicles off the line, 1 will help on the line, throwing if need, or help run vehicles to the floor.

We generally have around 20'ish total, the rest come in 1-3 hours after unload starts.

Not sure of allocated hours tbh. Shifts are 5-8 hours, so, guesstimate of 130 hrs. It can fluctuate obviously.

If trucks are on the low end of the carton count, our team will help support with priorities (better for us, clears out the back room), stray, OPU if needed as they clear their work load. We don't get to dawdle being a high volume store, always something to do.

Ok that makes sense. I appreciate this info, it’s very helpful. One last question. Regarding the goal times stated in greenfield, do you have any issues with your team being able to consistently achieve those goal times or are finding them to be generally unrealistic?

 

[HInbound]

Ok that makes sense. I appreciate this info, it’s very helpful. One last question. Regarding the goal times stated in greenfield, do you have any issues with your team being able to consistently achieve those goal times or are finding them to be generally unrealistic?

Generally, they're pretty accurate. Our high performers can beat the time, and low performers can take upwards of 2-3x the goal time.

The main department we see with bad goal times is H&H, and they give too much time. I understand why, it's a disaster of tape, plastic, styrofoam, etc. but our team can reliably finish it under goal time. There's always anomalies, but we catch those when we walk the floor to assess the actual push with recommended goal time. 1 hour push time in Greenfield and 8 pallets on the floor. Yeah, nah.

 

[ION the Prize]

... 1-2 runners (1 is always a TL) to keep the vehicles cleared as sorters fill them up ...

OMG!

Never seen this, never will.