To help with newbies (or long-time employees in other departments at Kroger) can someone explain clearly exactly what CAP and CAO stand for, and what they mean? Is CAP used in ALL departments? What departments do NOT use the RF scanners and/or have no need to use or understand CAO and CAP?
I know some of this is Old Stuff that You May Already Know, but it might be helpful for other employees who don't know what is being discussed in some of the other threads. Thanks!!
CAO is computer assisted ordering. It is exactly what it sounds like. It is ordering that is done by a computer based on the movement of items in your department. So as things are sold or scanned out of stock, the computer keeps track of your balance on hand (BOH) and automatically orders you more when needed. This is why it is important to mark down, scan out, and adjust your BOHs. It helps to make sure the computer has an accurate view of what you have.
CAP is computer assisted production. It too is as it sounds, a computer generated report that tells you what to produce. An example of this would be, in the deli, you have prepared 8 piece chicken boxes that are kept cold. If you scan the tag for an 8 piece fried chicken cold under the CAP menu, it will tell you how many you have sold and how many you should make to keep up with your location's demand for the item. This helps to reduce shrink as well as make the most of your display case space by showing you what your customers are buying, what they aren't buying, and helps you plan how much to make so you can use your time efficiently (no sense in wasting time making things that wont sell). CAP reports are useful data collection tools but they require the users input to make predictions...so it takes a couple weeks for you to see the results of keeping track of production in your CAP reports.
I am not entirely sure if all departments use CAP and CAO, though. Hopefully someone else can answer those questions.
Every department uses CAO to an extent. Anything that is not produced by CAP normally should be an active CAO item unless its supplied by an outside vendor. Some outside vendors now use CAO data to order, since vendors used to over order and cause excessive backstock. Order Evolution adds another characteristic to CAO, but orders depending on your stores item movement. Deli, Bakery and Meat use CAP/Meat Cutting Tool which predicts items movement/sales.
Pharmacy doesn't use CAO with the RF gun for RX meds. Our program EPRN takes care of that. RF guns are used for some OTC items that we stock, but not all.
