CAP has go to be be the dumbest and biggest waste of time they've come up with for the bakery department. I barely had time to get my stuff done as it was. It's suppose to magically tell us exactly what we need to bake each day. Well, it doesn't work at all. First of all, we don't bake every day and it doesn't take that into account. Second, the way it computes what you need to bake is flawed. When you scan an item with the RF unit it looks at what you baked on that particular day for the last 4 weeks and uses that to compute how many of that item you need to bake. You can't do it that way. Just because you sold 6 pkgs of something for the last 3 Fridays in a row doesn't necessarily mean you're going to sell 3 the next Friday. You have to do it on a day by day basis. Some of the numbers are just plain wrong, and yes we have set the mins for each item. For example, we have the min for Twin French set at 6 loaves. One Saturday I broke out 10 loaves of Twin French for Sunday's bake because it sells well and we weren't baking on Monday. We already had 4 loaves leftover from Saturday's bake. We ran out before 5:00 that Sunday. The CAP report said we only needed to bake 3 loaves on Sunday and 1 loaf on Monday. It also keeps telling us we need to bake 80+ loaves of Italian bread even though when we bake only 60 we still end up marking some of it down. It also keeps telling us to bake 7 packages of schnecken when we never bake more than 4. There are plenty of other examples.
Scanning the stuff is a pain. If you try to just scan the item and then scan the next and continue like that, you end up with a blank page when you print the report (which we never use anyway). You have to scan the item, hit F2, and then hit F5 for each item scanned. F2 allows you to change the amount it suggests and F5 saves it. They say you're suppose to change the numbers if you think you need more or if you get an order and need to make more. What's the point in changing it? Do they really think I'm too stupid to remember to break out 4 extra packages of dinner rolls that somebody ordered? It takes me a good 15 minutes to scan everything and run the report. That's 15 minutes that could be put to better use. What I don't get is if we already have the mins for each item put into the machine and they have the sales and loss reports, why can't they just have the computer print out the report automatically?
I'm dreading the day they make us do this crap here. I'm already dreading this hot bread thing on Monday.
Here, I just count up everything on sheets. We only do about 20 loaves of Italian bread, and 3 mini Italians. We don't exactly have a small store because it's a small town. We don't need a machine to tell us how many items we have out on the shelves and how much needs to be baked to put us to that amount :/
i was talking to my produce manager about some computer screen they installed in their prep room. he told me that his store is a pilot program store for some crap like that. its going to do all the ordering. i think he has to scan out individually all the crap he culls. sounds like a nightmare.
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I am no longer part of the oppressed, evil workforce of Kroger! Can you say "Hallelujah"
The computer can't 'learn' if you aren't teaching it. You can be bothered. This is a classic case of garbage in/garbage out. You might "know" what you need to bake based on experience but would everyone on your crew? That's where the computer comes in to assist. Maybe it works, maye it's worthless but if you won't feed it the data it needs, how do you give it a fair assessment?
Now, honestly, if they don't also tie in with sales data from the FE it's all a waste of time because what matters most is what you sell.
My store bakes donuts every morning but sells maybe one box a week. It's ridiculous.
The computer can't 'learn' if you aren't teaching it. You can be bothered. This is a classic case of garbage in/garbage out. You might "know" what you need to bake based on experience but would everyone on your crew? That's where the computer comes in to assist. Maybe it works, maye it's worthless but if you won't feed it the data it needs, how do you give it a fair assessment?
Now, honestly, if they don't also tie in with sales data from the FE it's all a waste of time because what matters most is what you sell.
My store bakes donuts every morning but sells maybe one box a week. It's ridiculous.
Hey the last two days in a row I worked we sold all 6 boxes of donuts! I was like, holy crap! :D
Seriously though, how is using a computer program easier than writing on a piece of paper? :P
The computer can't 'learn' if you aren't teaching it. You can be bothered. This is a classic case of garbage in/garbage out. You might "know" what you need to bake based on experience but would everyone on your crew?
Ninety-nine percent of the time I'm the one who decides what we need to bake and I'm also the one who breaks it out. I even do it for the other baker a day ahead of time if i'm going to be off the next day. The other baker only does it when I go on vacation or if I'm off two days in a row. Nobody else in the department fools with it. The point is if it's such a great tool, we shouldn't have to teach it how to do its job. If I have a shortage or a surplus of a certain item, I don't need a machine to tell me that I need to adjust how many of that item we need to bake the next day.
I still don't get why in like every other store, people say the baker does the breakout and yet for me, I'm working nights and doing breakout for the person who bakes in the morning, which to me makes more sense anyway.
I still don't get why in like every other store, people say the baker does the breakout and yet for me, I'm working nights and doing breakout for the person who bakes in the morning, which to me makes more sense anyway.
Maybe it's based on how many people you have working in the department and what their actual duties are. I work at one of the top stores in sales in the division and yet the most people that are scheduled to work in a single day is five.
Person one: Bread baker. Also helps bake pies, cookies, etc.
Person two: Cake decorator.
Person three: Bread bagger. Also does the breakout and brings up orders.
Person four: A four or six hour person to bake and package pies, cookies, etc.
Person five: Second cake decorator. Also puts out pre-made stuff and does the cleanup.
That's the maximum. In many cases there are only three people. One person does the baking, the breakout, and brings up the orders. Another person is the decorator and puts out pre-made stuff. The third person does the bagging and packages pies, cookies, etc.
Some stores also do a lot more bread than others. At my store the dough alone even on a small bake takes up 17-20 trays. That's not panning it out. That's just taking it out of the box and throwing it on a plastic tray. Panned out it takes up a minimum of 7 channel carts. This doesn't include the par-baked breads. Our proofer can only hold 2 carts at a time, as does our oven. This is the way I do it.
cart one: dinner rolls and sandwich buns
carts two: Italian bread and White Mountain bread. I proof it all on one cart but when I bake it I split it up on to two carts.
carts three and four: Sweet Italian and sweet goods (Danish etc.)
cart five: hard rolls, variety rolls, Twin French, focaccia, sub buns, etc.
i was talking to my produce manager about some computer screen they installed in their prep room. he told me that his store is a pilot program store for some crap like that. its going to do all the ordering. i think he has to scan out individually all the crap he culls. sounds like a nightmare.
Are you kidding me? So basically CAO computer ordering....for produce? That's going to be the biggest disaster ever. It makes sense for, bags of shrimp in the freezer, or boxes of cereal, at least to some degree. Since you're ordering the same products, they have a long shelf life, and if you keep the numbers right you usually end up with a new box to stock when you reached minimum, and before you're out of stock. Produce is the exact opposite! I can't really think how it'd even work!
(Computer Screen)
RUSSET POTATOES = 500 lbs MIN
CAO Sales Report : 430 lbs
Recorded Culls : 10 lbs
Assumed Shelf Quantity : 60lbs
CAO Order : 440 lbs
So would someone have to estimate the levels of every product on display before they write an order? That's kinda what you do obviously, but not in that fashion. Of course everyone griped when CAO took over ordering of UPC'd products but I really cant see how this would work. Another example of the "Main Office" knowing what you need (without ever setting foot in the store) compared to the people actually there. I bet they are just getting tired of one store stocking Raddicio lets say, and another not. Who cares if it sells really well at store #1, and not at all at store #2. Manager at store #2 says well screw raddicio then. Kroger says NO WAY! What if a customer visiting from out of state wants Raddicio and their local store sells it! They come to Kroger for Raddicio!! You have to have it!!! That was the rationale I always heard for having no ability to special order products for customers, or to
If this whole setup is "successful" and they start rolling it out, Kroger will be the worst grocery store ever. Their obsession with every store being exactly the same is insane.
I still don't get why in like every other store, people say the baker does the breakout and yet for me, I'm working nights and doing breakout for the person who bakes in the morning, which to me makes more sense anyway.
Maybe it's based on how many people you have working in the department and what their actual duties are. I work at one of the top stores in sales in the division and yet the most people that are scheduled to work in a single day is five.
Person one: Bread baker. Also helps bake pies, cookies, etc.
Person two: Cake decorator.
Person three: Bread bagger. Also does the breakout and brings up orders.
Person four: A four or six hour person to bake and package pies, cookies, etc.
Person five: Second cake decorator. Also puts out pre-made stuff and does the cleanup.
That's the maximum. In many cases there are only three people. One person does the baking, the breakout, and brings up the orders. Another person is the decorator and puts out pre-made stuff. The third person does the bagging and packages pies, cookies, etc.
Some stores also do a lot more bread than others. At my store the dough alone even on a small bake takes up 17-20 trays. That's not panning it out. That's just taking it out of the box and throwing it on a plastic tray. Panned out it takes up a minimum of 7 channel carts. This doesn't include the par-baked breads. Our proofer can only hold 2 carts at a time, as does our oven. This is the way I do it.
cart one: dinner rolls and sandwich buns
carts two: Italian bread and White Mountain bread. I proof it all on one cart but when I bake it I split it up on to two carts.
carts three and four: Sweet Italian and sweet goods (Danish etc.)
cart five: hard rolls, variety rolls, Twin French, focaccia, sub buns, etc.
cart six: rye bread.
LOL.... we only have 6 (soon to be 5) people in our whole bakery. Your store must be huge. We only have
Person 1 - baker
Person 2 - cake decorator or person who puts out items on tables/ cold case, etc
Person 3 - Might do markdowns/cookies/cake for 2's/etc
Person 4 - Breakout, truck, closing
And on non truck days we might only have 3 scheduled for the whole day.
Depends, if the baker has time she'll do it, if not the second person, who works 8-4, will do it.
And a whole cart of rye bread? We only have 2 round ryes and 2 round pumpernickels out at a time. :P
-- Edited by 4hourrush on Saturday 2nd of March 2013 04:46:09 PM
Well, it's not a whole cart. It just won't fit on the other cart We usually do 4 loaves of seeded rye, 4 loaves marble rye, and 4 loaves of pumpernickel. Then there's also the pre-made 2# rounds that come in on the frozen order.
At our store there's no way the baker would have time to bag all the bread. I'm pretty fast and well organized and it's a minimum of 6 hours from the time I arrive till the time I'm pulling the last cart of bread out of the oven. It takes just as long for someone to bag it all and put it out. With the time I have left I do the breakout and bring up the frozen order if possible. If not, someone in the deli has to bring it up. I have to allow myself an absolute minimum of an hour and 15 minutes to do the breakout.
