I've recently been brought in as an intern and have been tasked with finding an opportunity (problem) within my department and how to fix it/solve it/make it better what have you. Being new to the company, I am finding it hard to evaluate everything that goes on in the store because I know so little about the way things are ACCTUALLY done. I have spent a few weeks in a store learning from my department managers and have noticed that in every department... in every store... there is some issue with CAO, but no one really knows where the fallout happens. On paper, CAO works perfectly, but in reality something is missing. There are so many small instances that happen every single day that can throw it out of sync and the end result hurts the whole store.
Now, that being said, I dont know enough about our CAO system to even start searching for a solution. Hell Im not even sure what the problem is!
Bottom line; what are some issues we face using the current CAO system and how would you go about solving those issues so it can be more user friendly?
I am a night grocery manager. We are not using CAO Evolution yet. It is around the corner.
CAO is for a perfect situation every time. That includes warehouse sending correct product. And customers buying the exact same product every week on the same day. And cashiers scanning products individually instead of by price point. I will never win on cat food cans, dog food cans, Gatorade singles or Ice singles. My BOHs will never be accurate on those. The warehouse used to use labels and we could find the mispicks quickly. The labels ended making it more difficult. My Grocery coordinator sends my mispick list to the warehouse.
Forecasting is my main complaint. I get a grocery truck 6 days a week and KMP 4 days a week. CAO forecasts 3 days ahead for every order.
I want product to go from truck to shelf. I want as little backstock as possible. There is no time to double run everything. Of course my store manager wants the store full all the time. :) He asked me why key sale items were low yesterday. I could not give a clear answer. Kraft dressing was a subtle mis pick(missing from truck) last week that didn't reveal itself until Sunday nights order. Our Mondays are super busy so the shelves were empty looking. The shelf holding capacity is too small for some items. ALL detergent sets are small. We had ALL in 2 locations but the replenishment team didn't keep them full during the day. I let Quilted Northern run down because I am still trying to get rid of the Cottonelle from the previous sale. We had enough Quilted Northern to make it to Wednesday but the end cap looked light. My store manager wants everything to be full until the sale is over.... Many of the holes and low spots are OOS from the warehouse.
It would be nice to know how to turn forecasting off for slow movers. 1 day forecast is enough. I do use Decrease Order when needed.
My next Order is generated at 10:15pm. The Previous days order is received after midnight. All the BOHs I see on the computer screen as I am reviewing the order do not include the previous days sales. I have to scan with handheld if I want to see accurate BOH. The product description is not enough to identify a product by looking on the screen. Pack number helps. I am unable to edit order to 0. 1 is as low as I can go on the computer.
It would be nice if CAO auto sent list to warehouse every time a BOH was changed down by a case. And, then they check to make sure the correct product is in that slot.
I use every function on CAO I know to make ordering decisions. It will be interesting to adjust to Order Evolution.
I am a night grocery manager. We are not using CAO Evolution yet. It is around the corner.
CAO is for a perfect situation every time. That includes warehouse sending correct product. And customers buying the exact same product every week on the same day. And cashiers scanning products individually instead of by price point. I will never win on cat food cans, dog food cans, Gatorade singles or Ice singles. My BOHs will never be accurate on those. The warehouse used to use labels and we could find the mispicks quickly. The labels ended making it more difficult. My Grocery coordinator sends my mispick list to the warehouse.
Forecasting is my main complaint. I get a grocery truck 6 days a week and KMP 4 days a week. CAO forecasts 3 days ahead for every order.
I want product to go from truck to shelf. I want as little backstock as possible. There is no time to double run everything. Of course my store manager wants the store full all the time. :) He asked me why key sale items were low yesterday. I could not give a clear answer. Kraft dressing was a subtle mis pick(missing from truck) last week that didn't reveal itself until Sunday nights order. Our Mondays are super busy so the shelves were empty looking. The shelf holding capacity is too small for some items. ALL detergent sets are small. We had ALL in 2 locations but the replenishment team didn't keep them full during the day. I let Quilted Northern run down because I am still trying to get rid of the Cottonelle from the previous sale. We had enough Quilted Northern to make it to Wednesday but the end cap looked light. My store manager wants everything to be full until the sale is over.... Many of the holes and low spots are OOS from the warehouse.
It would be nice to know how to turn forecasting off for slow movers. 1 day forecast is enough. I do use Decrease Order when needed.
My next Order is generated at 10:15pm. The Previous days order is received after midnight. All the BOHs I see on the computer screen as I am reviewing the order do not include the previous days sales. I have to scan with handheld if I want to see accurate BOH. The product description is not enough to identify a product by looking on the screen. Pack number helps. I am unable to edit order to 0. 1 is as low as I can go on the computer.
It would be nice if CAO auto sent list to warehouse every time a BOH was changed down by a case. And, then they check to make sure the correct product is in that slot.
I use every function on CAO I know to make ordering decisions. It will be interesting to adjust to Order Evolution.
That's not entirely true. Open up a second ISP, split your ISP windows on the computer, on the second ISP screen go into the handheld menu and you'll have the handheld menu on the PC (since the handheld is doing nothing more than emulating the software from the server). If you can type fast like I can, it's usually quicker to zero items out this way than by using the handheld.
That's not entirely true. Open up a second ISP, split your ISP windows on the computer, on the second ISP screen go into the handheld menu and you'll have the handheld menu on the PC (since the handheld is doing nothing more than emulating the software from the server). If you can type fast like I can, it's usually quicker to zero items out this way than by using the handheld.
Hmm, I might try that. I don't normally use CAO on the desktop like that. If I want to zero something out, I will just log into the handheld and zero it out there. 1200-1500 cases and only 4 hours to order tho. I would have a minute to deal with 5+ cases and no time to walk the store....
-- Edited by Anonymouse1 on Wednesday 23rd of May 2018 08:15:09 PM
You are 100% correct in saying this. That being said, if there are issues with the execution, is it possible to assume that those issues stem from an inefficient process? Could there be ways to make it more efficient or more accurate for example, that could result in a more productive execution process?
That's not entirely true. Open up a second ISP, split your ISP windows on the computer, on the second ISP screen go into the handheld menu and you'll have the handheld menu on the PC (since the handheld is doing nothing more than emulating the software from the server). If you can type fast like I can, it's usually quicker to zero items out this way than by using the handheld.
Hmm, I might try that. I don't normally use CAO on the desktop like that. If I want to zero something out, I will just log into the handheld and zero it out there. 1200-1500 cases and only 4 hours to order tho. I would have a minute to deal with 5+ cases and no time to walk the store....
-- Edited by Anonymouse1 on Wednesday 23rd of May 2018 08:15:09 PM
Four hours? Lucky. Hell, I do an entire DEPARTMENT ORDER in about 1-2 hours max. That's bread, dairy, frozen, grocery, nutrition, both grocery and peyton. I wish I had four hours to do all that. I run through our entire store doing lows/holes and ordering at the same time (using two menus) in about 30-45 minutes, then go upstairs and verify and make sure the sales items were hit. Beginning of the week I write down key sales items and ISO those based on what I see in the store. But I'm also keeping notes throughout the night as I'm moving around and when I come in so I can keep a store walk down to a brief period of time. Dairy guy is good at ordering so I'm usually just viewing over his and making sure he has enough sales items, but we don't have a nutrition clerk and our frozen clerk doesn't know how to order properly, and the bread is the same way. Maybe I'm just in an oddball situation but in an eight hour shift a few times I week I end up doing multiple orders, unloading 2-3 trucks, usually loading salvage onto one said truck, stocking several pallets, overseeing stockers, dealing with customers from 10-1, scanning residuals, AND checking/conditioning all endcaps/saddlebags/black baskets in the store.
I have spent a few weeks in a store learning from my department managers and have noticed that in every department... in every store...
You learned about "every store" from being in one store?
You are a travelling "intern"?
Regarding "using" [d]Evolution, is there a choice? It is already running in the background, at least in Dallas. Krogrr's HAL 9000 is already killing us in incremental ways, for example, raising minimums the department head just set to a correct level and reactivating items that are not in the set. That generates backstock and rage.
I have spent a few weeks in a store learning from my department managers and have noticed that in every department... in every store...
You learned about "every store" from being in one store?
You are a travelling "intern"?
Regarding "using" [d]Evolution, is there a choice? It is already running in the background, at least in Dallas. Krogrr's HAL 9000 is already killing us in incremental ways, for example, raising minimums the department head just set to a correct level and reactivating items that are not in the set. That generates backstock and rage.
HAL goes by "Auto Act".
I don't have to deal with that yet but I'd imagine just increase BOH by the minimum increase? That way even though your minimum is higher, the computer thinks you have more in stock than you actually do so it'll order at the same time. We do this when we do mass markdowns (so CAO doesn't reorder) or when we have sales (especially flash sales) on items that otherwise don't sell well. Takes CAO out of it entirely. Same with reactivated items; identify them, jack the BOH up, and then mark the case(s) down.
Biggest issue with CAO is maintenance. In meat, my department, anything gays labeled wrong? CAO ****s up. Printer jams, have to scan a product to mark down twice? Cao ****s up. Warehouse sends you ground beef from a different supplier than normal? Cao doesn't recognize the teplacement and ads it to your balance. The reality is without regular intensive maintenance and careful reviewing of your bills, you won't stay accurate. Small things slip through, and you don't notice a problem until either A. The shelf is empty for a day or two and you look into it, or B. You realize you just got 16 cases of something you had plenty on hand off because the balance got thrown off. Even E40s from other stores can knock you off balance.
The sad truth is multiple people handle this product. One guy does the order, another does mark downs, while a third is ruining back stock and breaking down skids. Then your closets are scanning out damaged items and running the rest of the live truck... 4 to 6 people with their hands on a process that can mess up CAO, small errors can snowball quick.
There isn't enough time in the day to catch a problem 100% of the time before it snowballs or causes a multi-day OOS, regardless of what elms tells you.
At least every 2 weeks you gotta take the time to verify BOHs and check min day supply and take that hour or two set back or things will get ****y.
Its funny because I used to care about the issues in order evolution. Its weird thinking theres even stores that dont have it yet. I think Im going on 2 years. It sucks, dont get me wrong. But now I work with too many idiots who dont even understand that backstock needs worked so that theres room on the backstock so that we can put the backstock from new trucks with the backstock.
Crazy.
But oddly enough, as time has gone by I rather like Residual. Its simple, theyve added the necessary info we were missing already, and it makes scanning in backstock pretty simple.
If youre really asking if the process of order evolution is the issue, Id say no. Scan backstock. Check holes. Order bulk. Heres some weird things we found. The issues come in with how the process is done and how the whole thing is built around the system being able to make a perfect order on its own.
its not.
ever.
e v e r
Not being able to set mins leading to random and unpredictable crazy over ordering of one specific item, mispicks, distros, mispicked distros, understaffing, resets messing up allocations, kroger not following through with the necessary hours to make this system run as designed, planned distributions not being correct, item history and order history disappearing too soon, holidays, weather, school seasons, amusement parks or nearby large scale entertainment being open or closed, random sports events, weekends.
all of this takes an eye, knowledge, and editing time that is not allowed. Which means a lot of cutting corners and a lot of bad orders and a lot of pointing fingers at who is to blame.
I wish I could go to breakfast one day with all the other night leaders and just have an epic bitch session with them and figure out some actual answers to problems were all having.
-- Edited by GreyKnitHat on Sunday 27th of May 2018 07:50:13 AM
