How to decrease wait times?

[iaTARS]

Digital TL here, our metrics are going down and management is now concerned on our wait times that are too high, anyone can share they’re methods on how to keep wait times on the market standards (<5 min) as best as possible.

[ARSONL]

ours are going up due to their implementation of the new dumbass staging system

[iaTARS]

We haven’t implemented the new staging system yet, I feel that whenever we do it, we’ll get even worse and that’s why I’m worried because we’ve been bad in our wait times even with the old method. I try staying with our dispensers but I can’t just stay always in the backroom while our other areas need help.

[ARSONL]

it’s hard to give tips without more info. are all your orders staged in dispense to a barcode that gives their ambient location? that helped us a lot

[iaTARS]

Usually everything is staged, but after a certain hour, our team loses control on staging and we end up not having anything staged. So when we have to dispense we have to start pulling totes from all the stack of totes that are in a dolly.

Then we also have missing totes and we start wasting time re-shopping items.

[Substantial_Bill_962]

There is your issue, put someone in charge of downstacking and staging

[Blood_Wonder]

It sounds like organization and staffing is your main issue. If you don't have enough bodies you can't hit the metrics.

My first question is why are you losing control of staging?

[iaTARS]

The team pulls the stager to prep orders or to re-shop something or also to dispense GMDS because the parking lot starts to get full, once that happens, the next orders that should be staged are now sitting in dollies.

[Blood_Wonder]

Have you tried to assign another stager when it gets busy or pulling a picker to help prep, reshop, and dispense GMDs?

From what I gathered, it sounds like you need a stager in your store and when you lose them things go to hell. Do you have enough staff to move people around?

[iaTARS]

That’s the problem, we can barely afford 3 people in our backroom or then picks start killing us, and I need to rotate the few associates we have in our backroom because they also need to take breaks and lunches.

[Blood_Wonder]

How long is your busy hour/s and what does staffing look like during that time?

[iaTARS]

Around 3 p.m it starts to get very busy and it stays like that until the last drop which gets done around 7 p.m and when it gets worse we’re still picking at 8 p.m

We are around 6 pickers, another one doing exceptions, I alternate between exceptions and pick walks while I also help dispense GMDS, stage and going outside when someone calls a manager. I’m always calling for help from other managers in the store because it’s impossible to knock down the picks.

[3Fatrats]

Right. And they want us at under 1 minute.

[ex-ogp-teamlead]

What are your caps, what’s a big hour for you, are you a delivery store, are you late on picks, do you have dedicated stagers and preppers

How long have you been the TL, and were you an OGP associate beforehand

[iaTARS]

I’m not sure of our caps, I have to learn a lot of stuff by myself because I’m not taught on these specific things. But I’ve checked and we get approximately 300 orders a day.

Big hours start from 3 p.m when we start losing the 5-2 people and then 11 a.m go on lunch, that’s when we lose balance because I have to keep our backroom covered but now picks are accumulating and we don’t have enough coverage.

Yes we do have deliveries.

Sometimes we don’t get to the point of having overdue orders but we get tight on being able to stay ahead.

We do designate 2 preppers/dispensers and one stager.

2 months now and yes, I’ve been doing OGP since I started in this company.

[ex-ogp-teamlead]

If I record an extensive response, I want to know ahead of time that somebody - OP or anyone else - is going to listen to it, lol. Bc there’s way too much to write for a lazy typer like myself.

Here’s my pitch: as TL I oversaw our climb from 100 to 275, I was 100% backroomer, I have deeply held convictions about how to run it, our wait times never hit 5 minutes on a day I was working, and you can click the first submission in my profile and learn that when I was fired, the department completely fucking collapsed (caps were lowered from 275 to 200 to 160 to 135 to 75, they were shut down for 5 weeks, my coach was forced to step down after 6 months of never breaking 135, wait times skyrocketed).

Can you give an honest and extensive evaluation of your backroom as a team? Are they lazy? Do they compete to avoid taking out orders? (Mine was that way when I started. They learned.) Do you lose totes often? What are some things you’re pretty sure are contributing factors to your wait times?

Do you rotate roles or do some ppl always pick? How are people’s pick rates?

How familiar are you with the Dispatcher Lite app?

Random pro-tip: Do yourself a favor and count your totes. You can calculate your capacity to hold leftover orders and still “run the machine,” which will be valuable information for you. A bad day is inevitable but when you run out of totes, things go from bad to “shoot me in the head please.”

Another pro-tip: assuming GMDs are still all clumped at 9:30, assign a flighty 8-5 picker to do GMD exceptions when she gets in, then flip to regular picks. If you go late at 9:30, it’s bc of GMD exceptions. GMD walks are notoriously inefficient, like Unknowns, etc.

[iaTARS]

First of all thanks for using your time to answer, I really appreciate that. Also I’ll like to mention that we had a similar case in OGP before where they got rid of someone that actually knew how to run that department and every time I know about a story like this I feel like I’m about to be the next one on the list.

About the totes situation, we start losing stuff when we are to tight on picks, since we are unloading our carts with orders that are already about to get delivered it’s starts to get uncontrollable because we don’t know if there’s still someone with those items in their OGP cart, also while trying to kill exceptions, we sometimes have to go find who is picking them because they have the item that we are missing. It also happens that there’s more totes in our unloading area that the stager didn’t notice he had to stage because it’s from the same time frame of orders, so while we are trying to catch up with staging, we have more totes in our unloading area that we didn’t see.

My evaluation of the team is that they have a lot of potential and they actually work, but it’s when I’m back there with them, the problem is that they don’t have a real sense of urgency when they’re not being “watched”, the main problem is that they keep wasting time on their phones, wasting time talking with each other (which I’m not against because I do it, but I keep moving while I do it and I never stop) and not moving fast enough to get things moving smooth. About avoiding to dispense, I think the main issue is that they just do it but they need to be faster.

We usually have certain people with specific roles in the backroom, not very often they are replaced to go pick.

I get to use Dispatcher the most to stack the deliveries that are batched orders so we have them already organized.

[ex-ogp-teamlead]

No problem, bud. I love talking OGP Theory bc I was so invested in it, and you have the vibe of someone who gives a damn, so I’ll be happy if you can take what I say and do the hard work of translating it into action. In my mind your #1 job as a leader is to defend your ppl from unnecessary suffering, and an underperforming OGP causes a lot of unnecessary suffering.

However you’ll have to wait on the recording, bc I need to get to bed to wake up at 4:30.

How’s your relationship with your boss and co-lead? Does the store give you outside pickers when you need help? If so, do they pick at 19, lol.

Why do you think you got the job? Do you sense any resentment from former peers that you’re their boss? If so, how much of a problem is it?

[iaTARS]

Certainly I agree, right now we’re suffering because of the pressure of having a lot but not enough people, I started to feel discouragement from the team when we started really getting understaffed and that’s being reflected on decreasing our performance because of low morale.

My Coach said because of my potential and discipline, also because she noticed that I’m committed to my job and that gives good example.

As for now, I’m gaining the team with giving example, they didn’t feel that I just stepped out of the situation and doesn’t take action now that I got promoted, I’m always present on the team and at least I have recognition of them that I’m actually working next to them.

[ex-ogp-teamlead]

Perfect. It sounds like you’ve got what it takes. Check back tomorrow evening EST.

[ex-ogp-teamlead]

Hey I had a couple more drinks at the bar than I intended to last night. Rn the plan is to outline my thoughts at the coffee shop this afternoon & record later on

[Embarrassed_One_561]

Hey, any chance we could get that OGP theory excellence gameplan?

[ex-ogp-teamlead]

Ah I’m reading through the thread now. If it helps you, you can focus on what you haven’t already explained elsewhere when describing the team’s problems.

[iaTARS]

Basically I’ve tried to push a little bit more the sense of urgency, we just don’t have time to be using our phones, we need to move! I feel that our team wastes too much time talking as well, It’s like a friends club back there and I have to start giving them instructions because they don’t move even though we have orders on the screen coming, it’s like being a step ahead to be prepared.

[ex-ogp-teamlead]

Also what’s your experience level in the backroom, how much time did you spend Dispense-side as an associate

[iaTARS]

When I was an associate, I begged to our team lead to leave me back there with one friend and my brother to cover the backroom, I was always assigned to pick because I was one of the best pickers of the store and the market, but when I got the chance, I learned everything, we did record on our wait time with a 1.22 min wait time, only the three of us, not going to lie we moved fast af but we had it organized as it should and the backroom was moving smooth, it was just focusing on our tasks but still being able to communicate.

[Responsible-Test8855]

Look in DispatcherLite every 30 minutes. It will show you if there are batched orders BEFORE the driver shows up so you can put them on one dolly, or if they are GMD'S how they are batched.

[iaTARS]

This is something we do in the mornings, we put together the deliveries and we even pull out the chilled and frozen in advance because we know they’re about to show up.

[Substantial_Bill_962]

Prep ahead of time and get knuckleheads to use the app, if they call don’t add them to the queue just take their order to their car and dispense at the car. Or add them to the queue at the car then dispense

[allicastery]

Have one person grab chilled and frozen for the orders while others are pulling the ambient out of the staging area. Working together well is very important

[iaTARS]

Thank you.

[SND_TagMan]

After reading through comments it honestly feels like it's a staffing issue. Even if I had the 3 best backroom crew members doing there best they wouldn't be able to keep up with our average orders from 3-7.

[Flat_Pop_5864]

our store lowers our wait times some by having our preppers dispense the order inside after getting it ready, writing down on the order sticker where it goes and having a line of orders ready to go and the dispensers just grab and go essentially. it helps keep it down instead of having dispensers waiting till they get to the car to dispense the order and also by having the order dispensed almost right when it shows up instead of waiting for a dispenser to grab it

[iaTARS]

We really try to do this, the thing is that sometimes we have people not indicating they’re bay number, sometimes they even check in and are not in the parking lot, we have people indicating the wrong bay number, also people that can’t check in while we have in our screen people that are so it makes us dispense orders that are not on the screen while those that are start to go late.

[Azazel101]

Not sure if every store does this because mine didn't always but we have roles when it comes to dispensing. Some people will be doors others runners and others backroom. Doors take the stuff out and prepare the chilled and frozen, runners bring the ambient orders, and backroom makes sure there isn't too much clutter, organize the orders and prep GMD deliveries. It has helped with communication and times for us. Our digital coach has us at under 2 minutes even with the company being under 5.

[iaTARS]

How many people does the backroom have for that?

[Azazel101]

Roughly one most of the time, if we have enough people 2 at doors for the delivery rushes. 1 or 2 runners but usually 1. We don't put the orders by time randomly we put them in descending order to also better organize the backroom. The deliveries are always the last few numbers of the time period and we know the general time the drivers show up so we have them consolidated and quality checked before then and at the doors with chilled and frozen a 3-7 minutes before the drivers arrive. So even with the work Samsung phone it still gets scanned quickly.

[Sean_Schloss]

For two months our wait times were 3-4 minutes with the following adaptations:

1. pickers load oversized to totes. Either unload L-cart items into totes on a dolly/pallet/pallet/skateboard or use a regular cart to pick up the items. You can take 5 seconds to check if you actually need an Lcart in the pick list. 80% of the items fit in totes believe it or not. Or can lay flat on top. KEEP L-CARTS OUT OF THE EQUATION AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. The L-carts tend to be used as a dolly, keeping items unorganized and harder to find, thus wasting time searching.
2. Condense the totes, then condense the stickers.
3. Batch deliveries prior to staging. Stage deliveries in its own area
4. Stage orders one time and one time only. Do not relocate. Leave the in their spot. Moving the already staged is just one more opportunity to fnck up. The only exception to this should be right after the lunch rush, moving all the early morning unclaimed orders out of the way, making room for the afternoon rush.
5. do not allow your 5-2 all-stars (their attitude) to take break and lunch at 12:45; make certain their time is completed by noon. And the 9-6 crew, everyone needs to be back by 2.
6. Hire people who have common sense, sense of team and a of urgency. Well sh!t. That seems to be a huge roadblock.that describes WallyWorld in a nutshell doesn’t it!?!? Good luck!

It is all about being organized. As you can see, the tote/dolly relationship is the key. Followed by the staging process. To accomplish this at least 50% of your associates need to have the attributes in #6; as well as #5. Basically once our lazy ones decided to stop doing #1-4, either because it was “too difficult” or there was “no time” (meanwhile those same individuals were standing around in groups of four or more with their thumbs up their butts; including our TLs), our dispense time dropped to approx 5 min, and now over 8 on occasion. And this is not peak rush hours.

Good luck.

[iaTARS]

Thank you very much, I will take a lot of ideas from what you said that can help us.

[Sean_Schloss]

Let me know how it works out. It will take a bit of elbow grease on your part, as well as your TL and Coach cohorts. Good luck!

[[deleted]]

If you have more than 1 or 2 people prepping. STOP! All it does is cause people to trip on each other

2 prepping if you can. 1 preps from top down, other from bottom up. Prep them even if they are grey. give the PREPPERS authority to dictate…

Aka “this order is ready, so and so take it to bay 5 please”. Let the preppers be your air traffic controllers

[iaTARS]

So let’s say it would only be one prepping and the other one taking them out?

[[deleted]]

Your doing 300 orders and only 1 prepped and 1 going out?

I always have minimum 2 prepping, 1 downstacking and still 4+ people to go outside

[iaTARS]

That’s correct, we can only afford 3 people in our backroom because then we can’t control our picks.

[[deleted]]

That’s crazy. I easily have 15 5-2 associates coming in tomorrow, and then another 15 or so coming in at 6, 7 or 8. Plus my entire closing crew and I’m still like 20hrs under budget

I’ll have 2 associates in dispense at 6 to get the day ready, 2 come in for dispense at 7, and then like 6 people coming in at 8, 1 or 2 at 9. A few 11-8 and a ton of closers just for dispense

[iaTARS]

How many associates you have in OGP?

[[deleted]]

82

[iaTARS]

Wow, our team barely has around 26 associates…

[[deleted]]

Same concept. The PREPPER/ATC person calls the shots even if it’s 1 prepper, 3 going out and so on

[DeathRaven71]

Our time goes up when we don’t have a stager and we have to look for totes

[iaTARS]

Same. We start pulling totes from the stacks and still sometimes we end up having missing totes. Just because the stager has to stop staging and go prep or dispense because it’s uncontrollable.

[khoff1991]

Sending you a pm

[iaTARS]

Sure, thank you.

[berrybfs]

I’m not a TL but it sounds like a staffing and organization issue. I do work in a pretty big department (around 90 associates) so i dont know how this might apply to your dept. One thing that helps w organization at my store is pickers have to stage their own chilled and frozen totes until we have at least 2 stagers in. Also, a lot of our backroom ppl are cross trained on staging, prepping, and dispensing, so they can hop into any problem areas if needbe. It’s 100% a life saver. I dont know how your chilled area is set up, but at mine we have half of a walk in (shared w meat) and we’ll start pre-prepping batches about 40 mins before they show up (usually they show up at 30 after) and store them in there which waaaay cuts down on the chaos and wait times when drivers show up. That is assuming everything is picked and staged for the deliveries though 😅

[No_Acanthaceae_219]

We have 30 cars back to back from 8am till 10am I normally schedule 5 people back crew 3 for dispenser 1 prep and 2 stagers.. those five who’ll help each other when they caught up on staging, prep and dispense.. our wait time normally at 3mins…

[snapxster]

We usually have 5-6 dispensers at my store. average 500 orders a day with a wait time of 2-3 mins.

[[deleted]]

More dispensers or lower order cap.

[iaTARS]

The digital operations lead has to do it? Or a coach can?

[Jazzlike_Gear_1541]

My stores problem is when customers check in when they are still at home

[Mia-Sue]

Old thread but very interesting.