Ours is awful. I wish I had a picture. Every slot is filled with not one, but at least two or three u-boats filled with overstock. The u-boats with the overstock go underneath the overhead shelving. The entire space under the shelves is filled up. So they had to start a second of u-boats, and then a third row turned sideways so they wouldn't block the aisle. Keep in mind this is just the grocery department. Drug/gm is in an entirely different section. What makes matters worse is the amount of out of stocks is higher than ever. I'm glad i don't work on the stock crew because every time I walk through the backroom I just shake my head and go oh my gosh.
Our backroom has always been one of the best, at least in terms of grocery. It's combined with Drug/GM, so their part is usually iffy. Their pallets sit on the top for many months on end. Earlier this year, they had to toss 6 pallets of halloween candy from the previous year. Sounds like you need a new grocery manager to me. :P
Receiving itself is pretty orderly/clean, but that's because we have a meticulous (and some consider to be downright mean) DSD Receiver, but I personally like the receiver and get along well with the person, and others would probably feel the same way if they weren't so lazy when it comes to putting stuff where it goes/cleaning up after themselves. Our DSD Receiver is in the right, it's others that are in the wrong, and they, along with the vendors, deserve the cussing out that they regularly get, lol.
The receiving hallway/grocery backroom hallway is a completely different story. It's always a disaster zone with product sitting up on the storage areas generally just sitting there for months and months. Overflowing, disorganized u-boats are a common sight, too. The hallway a lot of times has pallets of product sitting out, making maneuvering other pallets of product with pallet jacks or power jacks or straddle stacker a pain. People are lazy and don't pick up broken pieces of pallet or pallet wrap or other trash/debris and sometimes leave pallets standing up, leaning against walls. Drug/GM's area is at the opposite end of the hallway, but often spills over into grocery's area and in general, is also a discombobulated mess. Blame it on not having enough help/help that doesn't care. Our store manager is usually pretty displeased with grocery and Drug/GM's area and gets on the co-managers about it, but some of the co-managers are just as useless as a lot of the employees, and the grocery manager isn't nearly as efficient/straight-to-the-point as our DSD Receiver is, so that doesn't help either, and in fact, he's good at making conditions worse back there.
Well, I just became a night grocery manager. 4 Uboats fit under the racks between the supports nicely. If you are good and product is stacked narrowly, you can get 5 in the slot.
Ours doesn't look that bad yet but after tonights truck, it might. We have a wall of extra space that is filled with 5 L carts and 2 backstock pallets of products that were distro'd for sales after they already ended! Tomorrow night is backstock night(no truck) and there will be enough people scheduled to get everything ran and scanned for the week.
The goal is to run the backstock every night. Then, run and scan once a week. There are not enough people on my crew to run stock, condition and run backstock when I run the numbers thru the DDP. I have been trying to keep two aisles ran every couple of days. Also, CAO is overforecasting when ordering and brings in too much product thus creating unnecessary backstock. If I can stop unneeded products from coming in, then we might get it under control. I am still trying to figure out how to do that. If the order opens at 1300, I can remember about 100 items when I am walking the aisles.
I am in a different store and products move differently. My fellow associates are tolerating me so far and not purposely slowing down on me.
I would like to know how other night crews run KMP. Our KMP run times suck so far. Our Grocery run times rock even tho we spot more than we should be.
Well, I just became a night grocery manager. 4 Uboats fit under the racks between the supports nicely. If you are good and product is stacked narrowly, you can get 5 in the slot.
Ours doesn't look that bad yet but after tonights truck, it might. We have a wall of extra space that is filled with 5 L carts and 2 backstock pallets of products that were distro'd for sales after they already ended! Tomorrow night is backstock night(no truck) and there will be enough people scheduled to get everything ran and scanned for the week.
The goal is to run the backstock every night. Then, run and scan once a week. There are not enough people on my crew to run stock, condition and run backstock when I run the numbers thru the DDP. I have been trying to keep two aisles ran every couple of days. Also, CAO is overforecasting when ordering and brings in too much product thus creating unnecessary backstock. If I can stop unneeded products from coming in, then we might get it under control. I am still trying to figure out how to do that. If the order opens at 1300, I can remember about 100 items when I am walking the aisles.
I am in a different store and products move differently. My fellow associates are tolerating me so far and not purposely slowing down on me.
I would like to know how other night crews run KMP. Our KMP run times suck so far. Our Grocery run times rock even tho we spot more than we should be.
ELMS doesn't give hours to run backstock every night, it gives hours to cherry pick needed backstock daily, and run it once a week for review(and honestly not even enough for that, our DDP gives roughly 10 hours a WEEK for backstock, it takes more than that on the once a week scan). I hate it, but that's the way they see fit. Since you are new there, I would get to work on adjusting your minimums so that CAO overforecasting won't hit you so hard. There will always have to be adjustments, but you want to keep them to a minimum. They are really coming down on % of change and +1/-1 changes as it's not best practices. Peyton times always suck because breaking down the truck is a necessity, and most often spotting is also necessary, both of which ELMS doesn't give any or appropriate hours for.
-- Edited by DeltaGrocery on Sunday 20th of September 2015 04:47:47 PM
Well, I just became a night grocery manager. 4 Uboats fit under the racks between the supports nicely. If you are good and product is stacked narrowly, you can get 5 in the slot.
Ours doesn't look that bad yet but after tonights truck, it might. We have a wall of extra space that is filled with 5 L carts and 2 backstock pallets of products that were distro'd for sales after they already ended! Tomorrow night is backstock night(no truck) and there will be enough people scheduled to get everything ran and scanned for the week.
The goal is to run the backstock every night. Then, run and scan once a week. There are not enough people on my crew to run stock, condition and run backstock when I run the numbers thru the DDP. I have been trying to keep two aisles ran every couple of days. Also, CAO is overforecasting when ordering and brings in too much product thus creating unnecessary backstock. If I can stop unneeded products from coming in, then we might get it under control. I am still trying to figure out how to do that. If the order opens at 1300, I can remember about 100 items when I am walking the aisles.
I am in a different store and products move differently. My fellow associates are tolerating me so far and not purposely slowing down on me.
I would like to know how other night crews run KMP. Our KMP run times suck so far. Our Grocery run times rock even tho we spot more than we should be.
ELMS doesn't give hours to run backstock every night, it gives hours to cherry pick needed backstock daily, and run it once a week for review(and honestly not even enough for that, our DDP gives roughly 10 hours a WEEK for backstock, it takes more than that on the once a week scan). I hate it, but that's the way they see fit. Since you are new there, I would get to work on adjusting your minimums so that CAO overforecasting won't hit you so hard. There will always have to be adjustments, but you want to keep them to a minimum. They are really coming down on % of change and +1/-1 changes as it's not best practices. Peyton times always suck because breaking down the truck is a necessity, and most often spotting is also necessary, both of which ELMS doesn't give any or appropriate hours for.
-- Edited by DeltaGrocery on Sunday 20th of September 2015 04:47:47 PM
Could you explain that sentence please?
I have been at the store a week. I am finding entire shippers/distros "delivered" a month ago are missing. No one bothered to changed the BOH, just ordered a case to get a few on the shelf. I am fixing a lot of BOHs that I am almost certain are not in the building.
Well, I just became a night grocery manager. 4 Uboats fit under the racks between the supports nicely. If you are good and product is stacked narrowly, you can get 5 in the slot.
Ours doesn't look that bad yet but after tonights truck, it might. We have a wall of extra space that is filled with 5 L carts and 2 backstock pallets of products that were distro'd for sales after they already ended! Tomorrow night is backstock night(no truck) and there will be enough people scheduled to get everything ran and scanned for the week.
The goal is to run the backstock every night. Then, run and scan once a week. There are not enough people on my crew to run stock, condition and run backstock when I run the numbers thru the DDP. I have been trying to keep two aisles ran every couple of days. Also, CAO is overforecasting when ordering and brings in too much product thus creating unnecessary backstock. If I can stop unneeded products from coming in, then we might get it under control. I am still trying to figure out how to do that. If the order opens at 1300, I can remember about 100 items when I am walking the aisles.
I am in a different store and products move differently. My fellow associates are tolerating me so far and not purposely slowing down on me.
I would like to know how other night crews run KMP. Our KMP run times suck so far. Our Grocery run times rock even tho we spot more than we should be.
ELMS doesn't give hours to run backstock every night, it gives hours to cherry pick needed backstock daily, and run it once a week for review(and honestly not even enough for that, our DDP gives roughly 10 hours a WEEK for backstock, it takes more than that on the once a week scan). I hate it, but that's the way they see fit. Since you are new there, I would get to work on adjusting your minimums so that CAO overforecasting won't hit you so hard. There will always have to be adjustments, but you want to keep them to a minimum. They are really coming down on % of change and +1/-1 changes as it's not best practices. Peyton times always suck because breaking down the truck is a necessity, and most often spotting is also necessary, both of which ELMS doesn't give any or appropriate hours for.
-- Edited by DeltaGrocery on Sunday 20th of September 2015 04:47:47 PM
Could you explain that sentence please?
I have been at the store a week. I am finding entire shippers/distros "delivered" a month ago are missing. No one bothered to changed the BOH, just ordered a case to get a few on the shelf. I am fixing a lot of BOHs that I am almost certain are not in the building.
Sure, basically Kroger wants us to let CAO do what it does, without interfering too much. Basically the only things you should be regularly changing on your order are sale & display items. Regular items that are not on sale/part of a special should -in theory- adhere to averages, so there should be no need to either add 1 case or remove 1 case from an order. Basically, if you find yourself adding or subtracting one case, Kroger says you should be adjusting your minimum so that CAO can catch it. This would be true in a perfect world where averages are all that matter, but sometimes you want to say, pack out an area for whatever reason, or you have some unusual movement on the item in the past weeks that CAO is picking up on, but you know from experience that it is not a trend, but an anomaly so you'll take it off.
A good habit to get into regarding shippers/distros is to always print out your distribution sheet a couple of weeks ahead of time, and mark off everything you get in, as you get it in, so you know. One other problem you may encounter are distributions of product that contain multiple flavors, sometimes for example, it is supposed to have 6 cases of chocolate, 6 cases of vanilla, and 6 cases of strawberry in a shipper, it may actually contain 6 chocolate, 6 vanilla, and 6 cookies & cream or something. So, you'll have to adjust your balances accordingly. That is pretty rare though.
Cao is a tool. Most people just let it do its thing but the key is constant maintenance on it. If you don't stay on top of it things can get out of control very quickly and that's why a lot of back rooms are a debacle. It all kind of boils down to whether or not your grocery manager knows wth they are doing or not and how lazy or driven they are to do a good job. Unfortunately Kroger had some pretty piss poor grocery managers. They got some good ones too though. :)
Sure, basically Kroger wants us to let CAO do what it does, without interfering too much. Basically the only things you should be regularly changing on your order are sale & display items. Regular items that are not on sale/part of a special should -in theory- adhere to averages, so there should be no need to either add 1 case or remove 1 case from an order. Basically, if you find yourself adding or subtracting one case, Kroger says you should be adjusting your minimum so that CAO can catch it. This would be true in a perfect world where averages are all that matter, but sometimes you want to say, pack out an area for whatever reason, or you have some unusual movement on the item in the past weeks that CAO is picking up on, but you know from experience that it is not a trend, but an anomaly so you'll take it off.
A good habit to get into regarding shippers/distros is to always print out your distribution sheet a couple of weeks ahead of time, and mark off everything you get in, as you get it in, so you know. One other problem you may encounter are distributions of product that contain multiple flavors, sometimes for example, it is supposed to have 6 cases of chocolate, 6 cases of vanilla, and 6 cases of strawberry in a shipper, it may actually contain 6 chocolate, 6 vanilla, and 6 cookies & cream or something. So, you'll have to adjust your balances accordingly. That is pretty rare though.
This is what my day grocery manager from previous store was suggesting. Funny thing is, I was doing it for his KMP products because he kept running out of certain things. I even had some soups set up to always have a case on backstock because they sold out before his next order many times. He would have to wait 2 trucks to get it filled again I had been practicing on changing mins on the 01 truck to slow down backstock. I will keep practicing...
Cao is a tool. Most people just let it do its thing but the key is constant maintenance on it. If you don't stay on top of it things can get out of control very quickly and that's why a lot of back rooms are a debacle. It all kind of boils down to whether or not your grocery manager knows wth they are doing or not and how lazy or driven they are to do a good job. Unfortunately Kroger had some pretty piss poor grocery managers. They got some good ones too though. :)
Yep, and the tool can't work without proper information (BOH, MIN, ALLOCATION). However, the rumor from some friends in higher places, is that they have a 5 year plan to completely automate ordering outside of special requests. I believe that's why they are pushing so hard for us to make as few changes as possible, to get a true grasp on how accurate the system in its' current form is.
I'm training at a bigger store right now, and I am in awe. Grocery and Drug/GM have their own sections. All of GM's backstock fits into the cage, they have rows and rows of U-boats, and their own space to break down truck. It makes me wanna cry. My store is tiny in comparison and we don't have room for anything. Our backroom is a mess, and we're luck to get a U-boat. (Usually we just have the brown wheels, and there's never enough between departments.)
We make it work, somehow, but I dread the days when we get company because we have a bunch of stuff stored where it's not supposed to be and have to figure out what to do with it. We literally do not have room, more often than not.
