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Post Info TOPIC: Grocery work tasks
Anonymous

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Grocery work tasks
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What are the "by the book" ordered tasks for a night time grocery clerk -vs- how it usually ends up being done? For example 

1.run back stock 

2.scan residual

3......



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Anonymous

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3. = whatever the on duty manager tries telling you is 'by the book policy'



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#3 as mentioned above.

In a perfect world, with more than enough happy workers and hours, zero mispicks, and a motivated well organized day crew:

1:  Night crew clocks in and meets for a team huddle and cheer session.  Everyone is on time and ready to rock.

      Night manager assigns sections to everyone.

2:  (Day crew already did the Replenishment(Fast Movers) routine because they are always busy.   Night crew runs all Active Backstock carts first daily.  Slow Movers are ran when needed but atleast once a week.

3:  The pallets are already neatly stacked and organized by sections from the warehouse(aisle friendly).  The store has plenty of working pallet jacks.  Either alone or in teams, Night crew members run stock directly off of pallets.  Cardboard goes in a shopping cart and plastic in a plastic bag for recycling.  It is ok if baler is full, there is always plenty of time to change the bale.  Day crew always cleans up after themselves so time will never be spent cleaning up after them.  They also keep the backroom well organized.

4:  Next, after everything is stocked, one or several people walk thru store to scan and pick up all backstock.  It must be separated per what CAO residual scan says after you press enter; Fast mover, Slow Mover or if blank, it goes on the Active backstock cart.

5:  Night crew members work together or separately conditioning the entire Center store.  This is the easy part of the night.  Click list selectors always condition after themselves.  Store managers always condition and pick up go backs when doing the continuous store walk. 

Random thought:  "Cheap, Fast or Done well.  Pick two, you won't get the third."

My Reality:

1:  I assign sections to everyone.  I assign people to work alone because there is always too much talking.  I set a list on my desk.  I barely clock in and a driver is ringing the back doorbell.  I open door and catch his wrath because he has been ringing the bell for 30 minutes.  After 10 minutes, I get driver out of there.  I go onto floor and find my employees standing around socializing and discussing how tired they are.  I tell them to get to work.  Every day, same people.  Everyone knows what to do.   Double truck: I have a few people run the important Active backstock.  I have two guys unload truck #2 onto sales floor.    I have 4 people break down KMP onto U boats on the back dock.  9 pallets of KMP are scattered from one end of the back room to the other because that is where daycrew decided to put them.   Single truck:  I have two guys unload the truck onto sales floor.  A few people running Active backstock, and others conditioning their aisles.  Oh wait, so and so is missing.  I guess they called in.  Forget running active backstock, that time needs to be used to cover the missing person. 

2:  Day crew might run Replenishment Fast Movers if they feel like it.    Slow Movers are ran once a week on a night that we don't have a delivery.  I always rush to change the bale.  I know while I am running my aisle, 4 of my workers will spend 30 minutes changing the baler while bsing.  2 hours wasted.  It only takes 15 minutes to do it safely.

3:  Our store actually has plenty of working manual pallet jacks and two power jacks.  KMP has never been aisle friendly.  The new grocery warehouse seems to be getting better at being aisle friendly.  We have always sorted KMP pallets onto Lcarts.  Grocery is a lot less sorting than a year ago.  And, a lot less mispicks.  Some aisles actually work faster if sorted onto U boats.  Some aisles easily work directly off of Pallets.  I let my crew decide what works best for them.  Everyone runs KMP first and then grabs their stuff from the grocery pallets. 

4:  After everything is stocked, Most of my crew will pick up and scan their own residual backstock.  I don't trust a few to count or change BOHs.  It must be separated per what CAO residual scan says after you press enter; Fast mover, Slow Mover or if blank, it goes on the Active backstock cart.

5:  Some night crew members condition as they stock and others condition at the end of the shift  This is an important part of the night.  The customer likes to see a full and neat store.  Very appeasing to the eye even tho an illusion.  Most Click list selectors have no idea how to condition.  Some try their best.  Others ignore it when there are no Night crew members watching them.  Store managers try their best to help us keep store conditioned but they get pulled 10 different ways at once.  Either on conference call, filing reports for this or that, employees calling in, angry customers, their angry bosses calling or the trash compactor is backed up.

 

 



-- Edited by Anonymouse1 on Monday 12th of March 2018 09:18:34 AM



-- Edited by Anonymouse1 on Monday 12th of March 2018 09:19:18 AM

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. . . how it usually ends up being done?

 

  • The baler looks like a cardboard volcano eruption.
  • The plastic-recycling box has about as much plastic on the floor as in the container.  The liner bag has been smashed down into the container.
  • Drug-GM and empty pallets are blocking the receiving bays.
  • Day crew did great at fetching carts and bagging groceries . . . since the Front End is deliberately understaffed in order to crush those almighty metrics!
  • Power gear is uncharged and left with forks up and/or pointed into walkways.
  • Vendor product or a cardboard bale is jammed into a fire exit.
  • Crap carts are abandoned in the back hall walkway.
  • Dairy, Meat, and Produce deliveries will show up any minute, and, you know, can you leave salmon sitting in an unrefrigerated backroom?
  • FAST alerts are going off . . . as co-managers go home.
  • The trash compactor is locked . . . as are the bays and doors.  Maybe we can find a key; maybe not.

 

That's what greets the night crew.

Which of those things can be left unaddressed?

Addressing those things is included in your 45- or 55-cases-per-hour "standard"?

If that didn't exactly address the question, sorry, but we need to hold the company accountable for putting us in this bind out of its own greed and intellectual dishonesty.

 



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kroagrr wrote:

. . . how it usually ends up being done?

 

  • The baler looks like a cardboard volcano eruption.
  • The plastic-recycling box has about as much plastic on the floor as in the container.  The liner bag has been smashed down into the container.
  • Drug-GM and empty pallets are blocking the receiving bays.
  • Day crew did great at fetching carts and bagging groceries . . . since the Front End is deliberately understaffed in order to crush those almighty metrics!
  • Power gear is uncharged and left with forks up and/or pointed into walkways.
  • Vendor product or a cardboard bale is jammed into a fire exit.
  • Crap carts are abandoned in the back hall walkway.
  • Dairy, Meat, and Produce deliveries will show up any minute, and, you know, can you leave salmon sitting in an unrefrigerated backroom?
  • FAST alerts are going off . . . as co-managers go home.
  • The trash compactor is locked . . . as are the bays and doors.  Maybe we can find a key; maybe not.

 

That's what greets the night crew.

Which of those things can be left unaddressed?

Addressing those things is included in your 45- or 55-cases-per-hour "standard"?

If that didn't exactly address the question, sorry, but we need to hold the company accountable for putting us in this bind out of its own greed and intellectual dishonesty.

 


 I am critical of day crew sometimes.  But, I know there must be an explanation for them leaving us a consistent mess.

The receiver leaves at 230.  He said vendors move pallets around in the back room to get to their stuff all the time.  Filling the water is the easiest job in the world.  Partial water pallets are left scattered around the back room.  We have a huge backroom.  Probably 4 x bigger than most stores.  There is space to drop pallets and they do not need to be moved until we are ready to work them.  There is even space for water pallets.

I get along well with the Day Grocery manager.  Occasionally, I will let him know my gripes and he lets me know his.  We both try to address them with our crews.  It goes in one ear and out the other with most of my crew.  I think he has the same problem.  My crew complains that we are being given more and more to do leaving less for daycrew to do.  "What do they do during the day?" is what I am often asked.

I assume they are helping the front end, running blue totes, checking outdates and other technical tasks, helping customers or doing tasks to make store managers happy.  No one can stand around and avoid work every day.  Can they?

My back-up came in one night and found two of the closing grocery clerks giving each other lifts to the ceiling on the straddle stacker.  Another clerk came in during the day and found a couple of guys chatting with the cute frozen clerk.  I have trained a few of my guys to sweep out trailer when it is empty.  At least get the large crap in the garbage can.  Many times we will leave with the salvage trailer spotless and return that night to find someone swept the debris off the ramp into the trailer.  Is it that hard to find a dust pan and put the debris in the trash can that is 10 feet away....  geez.

It is accountability and team work from every employee in every department and managers at the store that makes this machine work with or without hours.

Corporate number crunchers doing a reality check would be nice too.  Everything takes time.  Every time they roll out a new program for how grocery spends time, important time consuming tasks get omitted.  I have seen 4 programs rolled out to track time.  1/3 of the time from the first program has been lost in the transition to the 4th.  Those tasks are vital to getting everything else done.



-- Edited by Anonymouse1 on Monday 12th of March 2018 03:23:33 PM

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kroagrr wrote:

. . . how it usually ends up being done?

 

  • The baler looks like a cardboard volcano eruption.
  • The plastic-recycling box has about as much plastic on the floor as in the container.  The liner bag has been smashed down into the container.
  • Drug-GM and empty pallets are blocking the receiving bays.
  • Day crew did great at fetching carts and bagging groceries . . . since the Front End is deliberately understaffed in order to crush those almighty metrics!
  • Power gear is uncharged and left with forks up and/or pointed into walkways.
  • Vendor product or a cardboard bale is jammed into a fire exit.
  • Crap carts are abandoned in the back hall walkway.
  • Dairy, Meat, and Produce deliveries will show up any minute, and, you know, can you leave salmon sitting in an unrefrigerated backroom?
  • FAST alerts are going off . . . as co-managers go home.
  • The trash compactor is locked . . . as are the bays and doors.  Maybe we can find a key; maybe not.

 

That's what greets the night crew.

Which of those things can be left unaddressed?

Addressing those things is included in your 45- or 55-cases-per-hour "standard"?

If that didn't exactly address the question, sorry, but we need to hold the company accountable for putting us in this bind out of its own greed and intellectual dishonesty.

 


 Night Manager here. None of those things can be left unaddressed. You should be able to do all of them, and you're speaking to someone who regularly runs a crew of 2-6 people (including myself) and edits orders for the entire Grocery Department along with a slew of other tasks.

1. Baler takes like 5 minutes to change. Do it after you walk to the backroom at the beginning of the night.

2. Put plastic on completed bale, put in new bag: 3-5 minutes max

3. Takes a few seconds to lift empty pallets and throw them in the pile, or to move pallets with merchandise elsewhere

4. We don't have a day crew, so yea, that is nightly for us

5. Power gear is usually charged but it takes 10-15 seconds to check power and plug them in quickly if absolutely needed, but I have unloaded entire perishable trucks (filled to the door) with a hand jack before.

6. Move that crap out of the way. Again, a few seconds.

7. Same here, and my suggestion is to take them out on the floor and run them. The longer they sit in the back, the more likelihood of damages/out of stocks happening. Nip the problem before it becomes 10-20 unsorted carts of crap.

8. I unload just about every perishable truck that comes into our store. You should be able to knock out this entire process within 30-60 minutes, or shorter if you can spare a guy to run pallets from receiving to their coolers (which I never do because again, it doesn't take a long time to just unload the truck)

9. When I clock in, I go upstairs, get a handheld, and go on Citrix. Check emails, FAST alerts, and pull the 75 reports and look at adjustments. Every. Single. Night. This entire process takes 10-15 minutes. Truck waiting? Make them wait if someone else can't handle it.

10. I have the key to the backdoor and bays. Other departments leave trash in the back? It gets put right outside for someone else to deal with the next morning. If for some reason the trash compactor is locked up and I can't access it, oh well, no trash going in there tonight.

As far as nightly goals:

1. Run active cart for employee's assigned aisle(s)

2. Scan residuals (not that they always do it)

3. Run truck

4. Condition as you run truck and touch up when you're done

5. Move to second assigned aisle if applicable

Peyton/KMP truck? I break those down myself while the stockers run backstock. I can break down a 4-5 pallet peyton truck in 1-2 hours max. And take the merchandise out to the stockers, so they can start on the truck. It's a simple routine.



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