I got an e-mail from our coordinator last week. There's supposed to be training within the next month, but as with most things Kroger, that could easily be delayed.
What is the difference between the old CAO and "Evolution CAO"?
Details haven't been presented to us yet, but one thing mentioned is there should be a new algorithm for sale items. IE, it's supposed to track the last time a particular item was on sale for a particular price and factor that into CAO's predictive analysis instead of the current generic "x% increase".
I believe it's a fool proof way to work around the fools and lazy people who don't know the basics of CAO. And just like e-schedule and Qvision it will be a complete disaster
This is now called Order Evolution. It will look at sales data up to 3 years back to determine a forecast. It will "know" when items are going on sale and off sale and use information from the last time the item was on sale at the upcoming price to forecast for the sale and to cut down the order after the sale. It will also automatically set your MIN's based solely on sales so, yes, it will generate backstock but it is supposed to be "good", active backstock. Also if you manually change your MIN's it will change them back during its weekly refresh. As with all new Corporate programs i can make no claim that this information will still be reliable upon launch in March and I'm just hoping against hope that it doesn't turn out to be a complete disaster. This information is for the Cincy/Dayton area so yours may be different.
There are now options in the markdown section to assist with finding out of date product in the store and it is kind of awesome. You're going to be shocked at how many out of date grocery items are on your shelves. I mean years out of date. It's a very cool tool and should have been a part of cal since inception since all the info has been available from the start.
Delta is getting it period 5. So we're after the cincy release. Let us know how it goes. One of my main concerns is if the item is on display Order Evolution will have no way of knowing that. You're going to sell more of a product if it's more visible 9 times out of 10, so if last time you had X flavor on display, and now you don't(due to whatever reason) it will way over-order. They can claim that it's good backstock, which very well may be true in a lot of cases, however the more you have the more time it takes to sort through it and deal with it. They are not going to give you more time, so it'll just be increased work load.
Plus, let's be honest. People are not 100% predictable. I know a lot of times I've spotted micro-trends mid-week and bumped items up that CAO doesn't catch, and then noticed the micro-trend stop and take them off later which would have resulted in bad backstock. It's not going to catch these things.
I feel like on an overall basis it will be a positive change, but there will be a lot of stores negatively affected. Mainly the ones that do their job.
rumor is that this program has worked in trial runs so we will see. Every new thing they come out with always looks great on paper, but it's whether or not it factors in real world issues that someone with a desk job doesn't know anything about, that we'll find out if it's good or not.
My main concern are the bread orders. CAO almost always opens the order up at nearly double what we actually need. It tries to order 25 trays of sandwich bread when we only need 10-12. The concern about order revolution is that we might not be able to take some of the stuff off order like we can with CAO. I'm not really a fan of CAO, I'd rather just go out there and order what I need, but at least it is a safety net in case someone calls in--it will make the order for you (you'll just be stuck with the bs it thinks you need).
I'm not too familiar with ISO ordering so this will be another factor that determines whether I like this new thing or not.
our OE just went into effect so if anyone has questions about how it works in the real world (and not just how it works on paper) let me know. As of now we don't have full control over the options yet (the new menus haven't switched over so we're still in training mode) but our orders are now going off on their own (aside from any ISO ordering...which at this time cannot be completed on the RF handheld and must be done on the computer). Bread order which usually opens at double what we need opened higher still, but not insane the way CAO would've had it. Instead of 1 stack of sandwich bread, for instance, we'll be getting 2.5 stacks (!) but yeah, it's a great system[insert sarcasm]! For now it seems that this new process will require us to do A LOT of markdowns on perishable items. More to come...
Question I have is how are the minimums set? Could you give examples?
i'm not 100% on that just yet. I did the training but haven't fully experienced ordering and viewing mins and such. From what I've been told, they fluctuate based on movement from previous years' sales and whatnot. One thing somebody noticed was something that was going off sale had a min drop to 2, where it had been higher during the sale. The consensus is that the backstock area will be a mess for awhile until the shelves get packed and then it will back off once it has a decent supply in-store. There do seem to be conflicting views from some people on how this will work, but this whole thing has supposedly been tried before, so it will be interesting to see. I know that, like I said, the bread truck opened up fairly big, frozen food was similar, however the grocery trucks have been smaller than average (probably due to the current BOH's and because it's the slow time of the year). It's odd that departments at this point can be drastically different (one ordered low, while others ordered more) but time will tell if this will level off.
I think everyone's big question is about how this system will affect your level of backstock. IIRC, the ordering tries to build you up for a sale somewhat, then backs off near the end so you aren't stuck with a lot of the sale items after the sale has ended.
I'll continue to post updates as I learn things about OE
something I just remembered that you guys might find interesting is the lack of prompts for your residual backstock scans. In the past, if an order hadn't been received and you scanned a backstock item, it would give a popup saying "BOH is less than the Alloc., please verify that both are correct" (or something similar). Well now when you scan something in backstock mode, you use the up/down arrows to move from BOH to (something else) to ALLOC and change them (if necessary), hit enter, and you're done. The system doesn't second guess your changes. When you clear out it tells you that you changed X out of X items that were scanned. No option to print. It seems to really trust that you know what you're doing. You don't need to hit f2 and f5 to change and update anymore, just hit enter and move to the next item. I think the middle option (where I said "something else") shows if the item is on order, but I'm not positive. Things will be more memorable once I've seen them a few times. This is very new to me at this time.
I think we just switched over lastnight. I have New RF Menu & Screen packet.
Only problem is it doesn't explain what to use for order review. And I haven't had any training yet.
Packet says:
Option 2: Lows & Holes- This is a name change from Order Review.
Option 4: Order Review- This will be a name change to Daily Exceptions once OE is fully rolled out.
So, which one is used to do the order? What is the difference?
They sent out an e-mail about this to us this past week. I don't think it's directly tied to order evolution, and we're getting it before order evolution goes live. I could be wrong, I'll have to check it when I go back to work.
I think we just switched over lastnight. I have New RF Menu & Screen packet.
Only problem is it doesn't explain what to use for order review. And I haven't had any training yet.
Packet says:
Option 2: Lows & Holes- This is a name change from Order Review.
Option 4: Order Review- This will be a name change to Daily Exceptions once OE is fully rolled out.
So, which one is used to do the order? What is the difference?
They sent out an e-mail about this to us this past week. I don't think it's directly tied to order evolution, and we're getting it before order evolution goes live. I could be wrong, I'll have to check it when I go back to work.
I didn't get an email but did get a packet trying to explain the changes on the RF handheld. They don't appear to have changed on the computer screen ISP tho. I guess the change hasn't been completed yet. I used 4 to do the order and will keep using it until told otherwise.
Now to figure out how to print backstock reviews..:) I think I might have to go onto the computer to print them because when I filed out, it didn't give me an option to print.
2. Five co-managers, an associate manager, and a grocery manager, yet NO ONE can bother to put even the instruction packet into the hands of the folks who need it.
Maybe it's cool software, but this is a crappy company.
i'm going to have a blast when the bakery switches over to Order evolution (we do all our ordering on ISO)... i have NO IDEA how any of it works. :|
We've switched over but the bakery still orders on ISO. It's probably because you can't predict how much raw product (doughs, unbaked pies and cookies, undecorated cakes etc) you're going to need. It's not like grocery where you simply order the product and put it on the shelf. One thing it does do now is you don't have to put in your user ID number after scanning the first item. It does it automatically. It also uploads the order automatically without you having to go through ISP.
Yeah, we have that too now, i didn't know if that was the final step in the Order evolution process though for bakery. I like that it tells you how many items you are ordering in the gun now instead of having to go to the computer to upload it.
Yeah, we have that too now, i didn't know if that was the final step in the Order evolution process though for bakery. I like that it tells you how many items you are ordering in the gun now instead of having to go to the computer to upload it.
I hope it's the last step because I don't need some algorithm written by some computer geek who's never worked a day of his life in a Kroger store telling me when I need to order golden dinner rolls or white sheet cakes. I know how fast we go through product a lot better than some computer model does. I've heard several people at my store complain that they're receiving way too much product. I try to keep just enough product on hand to get us through to the next order with maybe just a little extra on a few things in case we get an order for something on short notice. I don't want it to be screwed up.
Yeah, we have that too now, i didn't know if that was the final step in the Order evolution process though for bakery. I like that it tells you how many items you are ordering in the gun now instead of having to go to the computer to upload it.
I hope it's the last step because I don't need some algorithm written by some computer geek who's never worked a day of his life in a Kroger store telling me when I need to order golden dinner rolls or white sheet cakes. I know how fast we go through product a lot better than some computer model does. I've heard several people at my store complain that they're receiving way too much product. I try to keep just enough product on hand to get us through to the next order with maybe just a little extra on a few things in case we get an order for something on short notice. I don't want it to be screwed up.
A lot of computer geeks that work for Kroger have likely, at one point in time, worked for a grocery store at least once in their life. It's a common job. And if you think you know the algorithm better than the computer, then tell that to the software developers so that they know what to fix. A problem won't be fixed if it is invisible!!!
Yeah, we have that too now, i didn't know if that was the final step in the Order evolution process though for bakery. I like that it tells you how many items you are ordering in the gun now instead of having to go to the computer to upload it.
I hope it's the last step because I don't need some algorithm written by some computer geek who's never worked a day of his life in a Kroger store telling me when I need to order golden dinner rolls or white sheet cakes. I know how fast we go through product a lot better than some computer model does. I've heard several people at my store complain that they're receiving way too much product. I try to keep just enough product on hand to get us through to the next order with maybe just a little extra on a few things in case we get an order for something on short notice. I don't want it to be screwed up.
A lot of computer geeks that work for Kroger have likely, at one point in time, worked for a grocery store at least once in their life. It's a common job. And if you think you know the algorithm better than the computer, then tell that to the software developers so that they know what to fix. A problem won't be fixed if it is invisible!!!
There is no algorithm. It's just experience and common sense. I've been doing it for over 25 years. Anyway, the algorithm has to be written by a human and if they don't have any real world experience, it's not going to be accurate or even close. I keep saying just because you sell x amount of a particular product on a particular day of the week for 4 weeks in a row doesn't mean you're going to sell x amount on that day in week 5.
Just like everyone said this is a disaster. We have items we sell 60 a week with the min set at 2 and items we sell 2 a month with a min of 15. Another disaster of a program that sure sounded like a good idea.
We have this in our store now, been doing it for about 6 months. In my experience, it orders too much, as in stuff you don't need, and you have to take a lot of stuff off your order or you are playing stocking catchup all the time. Of course you are understaffed in the grocery department, overstaffed in the meat department and drug/GM department, so the backroom is always a disaster. Grocery manager has to stock all night so he doesn't have time to adjust the order like he needs to. We have people transferring out of the grocery department left and right, part timers that work for 2 weeks and then quit, grocery manager wanting to transfer out, nobody wanting to step up into his place, yet nothing changes as far as the store staffing. We haven't had a head night stock clerk for about 3 weeks. I asked one of the co-managers when we were going to get a head night stock clerk and his answer was "I don't know." The have part timers who run the store from whenever the co-managers want to go home till when the grocery manager comes in at 10 pm, that do not even get paid to do it. Our store does a million a week, no head night stock clerk, a grocery manager that wants to step down and get out of the store, part timers running the store for 3 hours a day, and a night stock crew of 5 people. Is this the norm now? This is the Delta region by the way.
At QFC 808 They through out Order Evolution. Management pressure all of grocery to order all holes, and order lots of items without looking at rate of sale. (for example Kroger barbeque sauce we sell 4 a month. 8 cases got ordered for Memorial weekend = about a years worth) 0 out items that are in more then one location. Backstock is loaded with months of product. Inventory is going to be a nightmare. ISO order everything that is already on order and open order. DPC gets ordered before cao orders ( So you get double product)..
The point of CAO Order Evolution was to lower backstock . Adjust allocations and minimums to work smarter not harder. ISO should only be used to order for ad ends or bulk foods.
