Archived Silly questions that need answers!

[SrTLRep]

Just some of those niggling little questions that I think about every once in awhile but never think to ask or no one seems to know..

Every once in a blue moon, like twice since I've been with Target, we see a *gasp* Great Value (Wal-mart) product come out of the truck. How does that even happen?

Who does the empty box audit? I mean who says today is the day I empty a box, tape it back together and see if they notice?

Why Kehe pallets? I mean they make me cry..seriously. No answer needed, just had to be said.

Water pallets on top of paper towel PIPO's? (That's a lot of defecting to do, just sayin) Yes, we send it up, but I had to ask. Do people get coached for that or is it a huddle we talk about it type of situation?

What does PIPO even mean? None of my ETL's know or care to know, I always thought something like pallet in, pallet out. How far off am I?

We call it the grocery truck, but the frozen/dairy/produce, does that come out of my regular DC or is it different? Probably something I should know, but I don't.

Speaking of our "grocery" truck, where do you find some of these truck drivers? They are scary. We had one the other day that I'm pretty sure shops at baby gap for his clothes.

When I call you and ask to cancel a double or add a sweep, do you want to reach through the phone and punch me in the nose? I try to be nice, I really do, you always sound SUPER irritated.

Seal Audits, do the truck drivers know the seal is wrong? I've always wondered that. If someone misses it, what happens? I'm not aware of our store ever missing it, so I have no idea what happens if you do. I'm sure its on a report somewhere, lol. I do know when I call it in my ETL always asks me to check if it was an audit.

If it's not an audit, what is it and what happens next?

Those cameras in the back (front) of the truck..First, you can only use them for a limited amount of time since they get covered first and uncovered last, so, um, why? Do they actually get monitored or are they just for show? Really curious about this cause they seem so pointless.

That is all for now. I'm sure I have some other pointless questions buried in my head somewhere

 

[Bullseye Flow TM]

Sometimes I wonder, SrTLRep, how experienced are the people that load our trucks? I too have seen items come off our truck that are WalMart merchandise. Also the skids of pet food are often not stacked well & when you pull them off the truck you will inevitably get a ripped bag or two. I've also seek pallets of Capri Sun on top of paper. I'm most often in H & B sorting repacks during unload. Quite often I'll find shampoo that is leaking, or an item that the lid wasn't on tight. What a mess this creates if I don't catch it as I'm sorting.

You are correct about PIPO being pallet in pallet out. With our sweeps we do those every other week. We're not a super Target & don't get as many trucks as you do.

Good question about the seal audits. The seal #s are on the manifest, don't know if the driver even checks them or not. I do know it's our job to make sure they are correct. As to the empty box audit, I don't think we get those very often. When I worked the unload sometimes we'd have some type of electronics item missing. But was it stolen when it was put on the truck or an audit to see if we were alert enough to catch it?

 

[Formina Sage]

Just remember that in Outbound at a DC, there is one guy loading many (10 or more) trailers at a time, with boxes being fed to him through a chute.

 

[Bullseye Flow TM]

Yes, I'm aware of that, FS. We had a BR TM join us that had worked for a DC. But that doesn't answer the questions about how the pallets are stacked.

 

[commiecorvus]

On the subject of pallets, why do the people who build signing pallets routinely make them so as to destroy the contents?
You would think that they might realize;
"Hey, these are made out of cardboard. Having them hanging off the edge where everything can slam into them or sticking up higher then the door really isn't a good idea."
Then there's stacking the boxes of bar fixtures on top of the softline's sock holders.
I pretty much spend an hour after I unpack the pallets on TIPP ordering all the things that were damaged.

 

[Bullseye Flow TM]

I sympathize with you, commie. We have the same problem in our store. Often one of the worst stacked pallets coming off the truck.

 

[Petey Pulls]

Yeah PIPO is pallet in, pallet out. The DC receives the item (water, paper towels, etc) as a full pallet then sends it to stores intact, it doesn't get broken down and sent down the conveyors to be split up to different stores.

Your grocery truck probably (or eventually will) comes from the "FDC" - food distribution center. These are owned by target but operated by Supervalu as far as I know. You may still just receive your stuff from Supervalu or a local distributer right now but I think the goal is to use our own centers in the future.

 

[DCdude]

Water should never be stacked on paper towels. In fact we only try to stack up like items. There are machines that automatically unload pallets onto a conveyor labeled and sent to the store. if there is a box that is wrong it is easy to miss. Remember vendors sell to Walmart and Target both. The store signing (MNSE) pallets are made someplace else and shipped to the DC. They are unloaded and sent to the store asap. It can be a challenge to get them to the trailers intact. We don't talk about the cameras...

 

[redeye58]

Hi, DCdude! Thanks for the answers.
I've always been curious about the occassional errant Walmart item. We had some WM windshield washer fluid make its way all the way out to the floor once.

 

[Formina Sage]

We had some Meijer waffles come on our FDC load! There isn't even a Meijer in Minnesota as far as I know!

 

[Guest Attendant]

You must be at this store then


Wal-Mart or Target? by Airplane Lane, on Flickr

 

[DotWarner]

You must be at this store then


Wal-Mart or Target? by Airplane Lane, on Flickr

I remember when I first started at Wally, there were a couple of casepacks of Up and Up TP in the back near where the maintenance crew keeps their supplies. It took a while for those to get used up.

 

[konk]

Why are the pick labels put on the bottom of the case?

 

[researchr]

I love when we get food that's not ours. Most times the lod will let it go to the breakroom so we can eat it!

 

[tgtfla]

We received a full pallet of plastic bags awhile back and inside the target boxes were .....winn dixie bags.

 

[Greenshirt]

konk: from first hand experience it can be as simple as the box flipping over when coming off an auto-depal. without specifics on the exact label that was placed on the bottom of a carton, none of the DC staff here will be able to give you an exact answer. next time give us a photo.

researchr: obviously your food is coming from one of our third party partners for the time being, this should not happen once we build a FDC that services your district.

tgtfla: Target doesn't manufacture the bags we use a third party for that, save the casepack and partner with your ETL's. We should get money back on that lot if there not our bags

 

[iluvtarget]

no. tell your people to do their jobs correctly.

konk: from first hand experience it can be as simple as the box flipping over when coming off an auto-depal. without specifics on the exact label that was placed on the bottom of a carton, none of the DC staff here will be able to give you an exact answer. next time give us a photo.

researchr: obviously your food is coming from one of our third party partners for the time being, this should not happen once we build a FDC that services your district.

tgtfla: Target doesn't manufacture the bags we use a third party for that, save the casepack and partner with your ETL's. We should get money back on that lot if there not our bags

I'm tired of giving y'all carton label numbers and you STILL can't manage to circle the repacks correctly. It's ridiculous. Circle the correct number for the repacks. Put the correct crap in the correct box OR just say the hell with it and tell us to consider all REPACKS AS COMBOS.

 

[daninnj]

Might be for distribution or the store may know... What does "DPQ" mean on certain boxes of stuff like toliet paper?

 

[nanofano]

......Those cameras in the back (front) of the truck..First, you can only use them for a limited amount of time since they get covered first and uncovered last, so, um, why? Do they actually get monitored or are they just for show? Really curious about this cause they seem so pointless.

Is it a "camera", or does it look more like a speaker? What you're seeing is probably an (ultrasonic) cargo sensor. It is used to detect the presence of cargo in the trailer. Using these, in conjunction with a gps tracking unit, logistics always knows where a trailer is, and if it has freight in it.

 

[eatcowsnotCAFS]

I have no idea what we do *behind the scenes* (if we call anyone and let them know or anything), but when we get a "mis-ship" and end up with someone else's food-- for instance, today we were delivered 200 McDonalds Apple Pies!-- we get to eat them. It's fantastic! When it's edible and we either really can't or really shouldn't sell it, we get to eat it. Like, when it says Great Value (obviously Walmart) or clearly says another store's name on it, etc. But if it's a brand we just don't carry typically, sometimes we'll put it out "as is" and sell it for a fraction of the regular price.

 

[HardlinesFour]

I have no idea what we do *behind the scenes* (if we call anyone and let them know or anything), but when we get a "mis-ship" and end up with someone else's food-- for instance, today we were delivered 200 McDonalds Apple Pies!-- we get to eat them. It's fantastic! When it's edible and we either really can't or really shouldn't sell it, we get to eat it. Like, when it says Great Value (obviously Walmart) or clearly says another store's name on it, etc. But if it's a brand we just don't carry typically, sometimes we'll put it out "as is" and sell it for a fraction of the regular price.

You should partner with a ETL and serve those at FA.

 

[Orchid]

Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?
Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong?
Who put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop?
Who put the dip in the dip da dip da dip?

 

[TiedAndDropped]

In regard to "PIPO" - there is a list of Target acronyms - a huge list - on the Target Wiki. You can get to the Wiki from the page that comes up when you log out of EHR after checking your paycheck (on a Target computer, not from home).

 

[eatcowsnotCAFS]

You should partner with a ETL and serve those at FA.

If only we had a food ave. I'm not sure if there's many stores like mine out there, so advise me if I should delete this detail, but we only have a Starbucks. No Pizza Hut, no Food Ave., nada.

 

[rugrat]

Can anyone explain exactly how a store directly impacts what comes on their trucks. When we research items on a daily basis are we technically sending an order for these items or is this automatically generated based on our on hands being a certain amount on a item regardless of it being researched in any time frame? Is their any direct difference between on hands being zero, at critical low or is it the OTL that dictates this? Are their specific days for departments where correcting an on hand impacts the time frame on when certain items will be sent, or is it strictly based on on hands for any item at a given time and whether the DC has it? Is their really a pecking order based on store volume whether certain stores get priority over others in what they receive? Does correcting mispicks really work or are you better off just correcting on hands through research?