# DC warehouse work



## potato (May 5, 2020)

In a DC, what all does someone who works in warehouse do?   May consider a transfer depending on what the daily jobs are like.

I currently work in packing (pack to stores) and while it’s ok, it’s pretty boring work. Also the pay is less than warehouse.


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## Luck (May 5, 2020)

potato said:


> In a DC, what all does someone who works in warehouse do?   May consider a transfer depending on what the daily jobs are like.
> 
> I currently work in packing (pack to stores) and while it’s ok, it’s pretty boring work. Also the pay is less than warehouse.


For the first 90 days or so you will be cartonnaire. Basically you will be stuck in an aisle grabbing boxes off of pallets and putting them into the carts. And it will be very high up. Think 40 feet in the air on a wobbly machine with no real edges to keep you in, only a harness. 
If you can do that (unless you are deathly afraid of heights, you can) then you are good. Everything else is related to operating equipment and moving pallets and carts around the DC. They also handle things like processing damages. But mainly using equipment. 
Warehouse is regarded as the easiest and most cushy of the departments. Just know that because of that, getting into B1 is near impossible at most DCs and even A1 can be a challenge. So your going to be stuck in B2/A2 for a long time.


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## FrankM0421 (May 5, 2020)

What Lurk said.  Working carton air harnessed to an order picker. I just finished my 90 days this month. Were required to get 185 per hour which can pretty much be you 30ft in the air slapping a sticker on a 6 pack cases of juice\cases of gatorade\boxes of laundry detergent and throwing it in a bent cart that's seen better days while swaying around in the air.  At first I would get home close my eyes in the shower and it would still feel like I'm swaying and others have said the same thing. You have to deal with people face picking which is basically them just pulling the easy to reach stuff and leaving you with having to reach the stuff further away. Once you master that you get to learn hand puts which is the exact opposite but you get to pick up loaded carts that someone else packed on the ground. Some of the people packing them suck and will put all the weight on one side or load them in such a way that it all falls over and gets mixed up the moment you lift the cart up and it slightly tilts. It sucks but you just keep pushing yourself so you can get cross trained on other equipment which just brings other problems you have to deal with. Just remember nothing is perfect it is what is it and work with it. Don't follow the same shitty work ethics a bunch of the shit workers do. Most of the people I work with in A2 have not been in WHS longer than a year. Every other week we get 2 new hires and it seems like every week one decides to leave only a couple were let go.  If you're making your numbers and have longer scan gaps because you like to chat with others for a bit it's no big deal because you are making numbers.  If you're only pulling 150 and want to stop and chat you'll get talked to.


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## Hardlinesmaster (May 5, 2020)

You can not transfer to another store until after 90 days. It’s hard work.


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## ManMythMachine (May 6, 2020)

potato said:


> In a DC, what all does someone who works in warehouse do?   May consider a transfer depending on what the daily jobs are like.
> 
> I currently work in packing (pack to stores) and while it’s ok, it’s pretty boring work. Also the pay is less than warehouse.


I think packers should just make the same as everyone else.  That way people could flex in and out of packing just like.... everything else.  The feeders feeding packers make more than the packers they're feeding.  Makes no sense.

Warehousing is a decent department with a good chance to learn many pieces of equipment if you can stand carton air long enough to get beyond it.

Is it carton air?  Or is it cart in air?  Same difference.

Just find ways to make even the most mundane tasks tolerable by challenging yourself to be better at it.  I try to make it a game of constant improvement.  Constant tweaks here and there to combat function fatigue.

A perfect example I found in carton air picking is facepicking then fixing.  

Example:  Two even layers of detergent and three odd boxes on top farthest away on the back side of the pallet.  I will always label and take the boxes closest to me to keep labeling and pulling in my power zone.  Then pull those three boxes down so it's not left as a facepick.  As opposed to attempting to label those three boxes far away from me or pull those three boxes across to me, rather than the easier way of pulling them down to me after labeling and pulling the ones closest to me in my power zone.  

It's simple things like this.  Or, you're about to run out of room in your cart and your next scan is three big boxes of Sterilite.  Still... scan them and fit one or two into your cart to completely fill it, then when you come back with a new cart you aren't starting it off with less space by stuffing those three big Sterilites all in one;  thereby turning big problems into small wins and small problems into big wins.

It's all game. Changing the function you're doing or changing the way you're doing the function is the best way (and beast way) to slay boredom.

You got this.


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## potato (May 6, 2020)

ManMythMachine said:


> I think packers should just make the same as everyone else. That way people could flex in and out of packing just like.... everything else. The feeders feeding packers make more than the packers they're feeding. Makes no sense.



You’re so right!  My Fitbit tells me I walk an average of about 11 miles in a 12 hour shift or about 22,000 steps.   It’s a different kind of physical activity (walking) than any other job (lifting, etc) in the DC but still physical nonetheless.

Thanks to everyone for the replies.


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## InboundDCguy (May 6, 2020)

ManMythMachine said:


> Is it carton air?  Or is it cart in air?  Same difference.


I always thought it was carton AER... 
Just knowing that forcing something to a store is sometimes called “AERing it out”, that was my assumption.


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## FrankM0421 (May 7, 2020)

We get this sheet at the start of our shift so we know where to start and who's doing what.


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## ManMythMachine (May 7, 2020)

We have a start up sheet too in Warehousing.  I think Inbound just looks at a screen but they don't get a physical sheet.  We might be the only department to get a physical sheet.  We had a transfer from another DC and they said they never got a sheet in Warehousing so I guess it's up to the OM what they want to do.

I think it helps because it shows where people are & the picking sequences.  Ours also has which aisles go with which areas, like CR03 is 320 to 330 so new hires aren't lost because we don't have big signs stating this.


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## potato (May 7, 2020)

I don’t know what most (all) of those acronyms even mean on that warehouse sheet.

When can you put in for a job transfer (to be queued up for an opening)?  Do you have to wait for your 90 days to be up to do it or do you have to wait for your first 6 months?

In Workday there’s a link to DC job change preference but it doesn’t seem to load for me.


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## BoxedIn (May 7, 2020)

potato said:


> I don’t know what most (all) of those acronyms even mean on that warehouse sheet.
> 
> When can you put in for a job transfer (to be queued up for an opening)?  Do you have to wait for your 90 days to be up to do it or do you have to wait for your first 6 months?
> 
> In Workday there’s a link to DC job change preference but it doesn’t seem to load for me.



You can only change departments every 6 months, no limit on changing shifts but staying in the same department. So if you recently started you will have to wait until you hit the 6 month mark. Also you can't be on certain types of corrective action.


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## FrankM0421 (May 8, 2020)

potato said:


> I don’t know what most (all) of those acronyms even mean on that warehouse sheet.
> 
> When can you put in for a job transfer (to be queued up for an opening)?  Do you have to wait for your 90 days to be up to do it or do you have to wait for your first 6 months?
> 
> In Workday there’s a link to DC job change preference but it doesn’t seem to load for me.



Neither do I for the most part and if I do I don't exactly know what the job is doing.

RP.  Rack puts.  Putting pallets on the steel so carton air can pull from them.
FPP.  Full pallet pulls. Pulling full pallets that get sent to depal?
Depal.  Depalatalize.  Putting the Carton air pulls and full pallet pulls on the conveyors that get send to the truck loaders.
Bulk.  Idk. Is that where the triple pallet rider people put the shit in your way for the rack puts to eventually put up?  They usually call the triple pallet rider people GPM though.
NCN. Non con.  Non conveyable.  Idk what happens with non con.
Pipo.  Poop in poop out?
Hand puts.  Instead of pulling items you're filling the waterfall sections\breakpack section with "extra small" boxes when some aren't "extra small". Break pack side likes to leave their garbage behind and keep their racks a mess.  Just last week found a box of xbox games and the sticker was from 2018...


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## BoxedIn (May 8, 2020)

FrankM0421 said:


> Neither do I for the most part and if I do I don't exactly know what the job is doing.
> 
> RP.  Rack puts.  Putting pallets on the steel so carton air can pull from them.
> FPP.  Full pallet pulls. Pulling full pallets that get sent to depal?
> ...



FPP isn't always full pallets, labels go FPP if all the cartons on a pallet drop so it empties out the location, can be one box carton air didn't pull, or 100.

Bulk are the floor locations that have 5+ pallets stacked up, put and pulled with a forklift.

Non-con gets hand sorted by outbound TMs in the shipping wing since it can't go on the conveyor system.

PIPO is product in product out, full pallets of certain types of freight that we leave the shrink wrap on and never break down, like bottled water/cat litter/paper towels/toilet paper.


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## ManMythMachine (May 13, 2020)

The sheet looks mixed to me as far as "IB plan/Staffing" goes because our Outbound Department would handle NonCon sorting and DePal.... not our Inbound Department.  

I believe our handputs aren't 100/hr for full prod anymore but more like 90.  I think they dropped it last year.  First time I ever saw prod drop.  That's a win.  And our Rack Puts are 54 now instead of 50.  I think 50 is high enough. Especially when you are chasing them all over the building.  AND YOU ARE!


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## Luck (May 14, 2020)

ManMythMachine said:


> The sheet looks mixed to me as far as "IB plan/Staffing" goes because our Outbound Department would handle NonCon sorting and DePal.... not our Inbound Department.
> 
> I believe our handputs aren't 100/hr for full prod anymore but more like 90.  I think they dropped it last year.  First time I ever saw prod drop.  That's a win.  And our Rack Puts are 54 now instead of 50.  I think 50 is high enough. Especially when you are chasing them all over the building.  AND YOU ARE!


Assuming it isnt something indicating team members flexing to OB (happening quote a lot right now). I know there were rumors about testing if IB could take over Depal at one point. Never happened at my DC but they might be testing it. 
That doesnt explain the NC sort though. It could mean the guys unloading non con trailers. But they are list 400 dock and that's what that is at my DC and seeing it also reference PIPO leads me to beleive it is a constant between DCs. So I dont know.


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## InboundDCguy (May 14, 2020)

Luck said:


> Assuming it isnt something indicating team members flexing to OB (happening quote a lot right now). I know there were rumors about testing if IB could take over Depal at one point. Never happened at my DC but they might be testing it.


At my DC, inbound is not allowed to send flow to depal since auto was shut down. They figure if it has to be manually thrown anyway, inbound TMs may as well do it.


> That doesnt explain the NC sort though. It could mean the guys unloading non con trailers. But they are list 400 dock and that's what that is at my DC and seeing it also reference PIPO leads me to beleive it is a constant between DCs. So I dont know.


Probably just the amount of non-con flow ib is planning on receiving that shift. It looks like it’s an all encompassing form for the building, not necessarily meant as an assignment sheet, just happens to have that info for warehousing so they use it for that.


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## whsDCII (May 14, 2020)

Think of it as "staffing and inbound plan" instead of "inbound staffing." Inbound dock plan, number of noncon sorters, number of people in depal... affects how many GPMers we need and where they will be busy. It doesn't mean inbound is sorting the noncon.


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## Luck (May 14, 2020)

InboundDCguy said:


> At my DC, inbound is not allowed to send flow to depal since auto was shut down. They figure if it has to be manually thrown anyway, inbound TMs may as well do it.
> 
> Probably just the amount of non-con flow ib is planning on receiving that shift. It looks like it’s an all encompassing form for the building, not necessarily meant as an assignment sheet, just happens to have that info for warehousing so they use it for that.


IB handles everything flow? I'm not a huge Depal guy but last I heard ours is still sending some our way. I think it has to do with the location of the trailer being unloaded. Which naturally meant they avoid using the docks that would cause them to have to throw it themselves.


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## InboundDCguy (May 14, 2020)

Luck said:


> IB handles everything flow? I'm not a huge Depal guy but last I heard ours is still sending some our way. I think it has to do with the location of the trailer being unloaded. Which naturally meant they avoid using the docks that would cause them to have to throw it themselves.


Yeah, with the exception of conveyable flow that gets rec’d on the non-con dock or if the sorter is down and we have nowhere to throw it. Otherwise they don’t care if you’re 20 doors away from a line, you’re supposed to bring it there and throw it yourself.
So all depal has to deal with is warehousing freight.


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## Dcnewb4now (May 16, 2020)

InboundDCguy said:


> Yeah, with the exception of conveyable flow that gets rec’d on the non-con dock or if the sorter is down and we have nowhere to throw it. Otherwise they don’t care if you’re 20 doors away from a line, you’re supposed to bring it there and throw it yourself.
> So all depal has to deal with is warehousing freight.


At our dc it Varys day by day if flow needs to be thrown. If ob has a big day, we throw everything. If they have a lighter day, we only throw the fast flow doors.


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## ManMythMachine (May 21, 2020)

When I was in Inbound, if the depal backlog was high, we had to throw our own stuff even if it meant taking it to the cart line. But then I've heard no more than so many throwers on the cart line and now I see everything pouched, even pallets sitting in fast flow so I guess it all comes down to what people attempt to get away with? 



How do you all feel about IBTs?  We had a time of not using them but now the equipment speeds have been turned down so it takes forever to run stuff, especially when someone decides to unload a whole trailer of bicycles in fast flow at the opposite end of the building from where they need to go.... for the win.


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## BoxedIn (May 22, 2020)

At my building the non con GPMer unloads IBTs, I don't mind doing it, much easier for me to unload a couple each day then for the ART GPMer to have to haul it all to the other side of the building. It was annoying for a while when we were not allowed to take PRTs into trailers, but now that we can again they are easy enough to unload as long as IB doesn't put a bad pallet build on there or super slick items.

I know in my department a lot of the newer machines have been sped back up from TMs figuring out how to do it, not sure if its the same in other departments here lol.


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## Hal (May 22, 2020)

That sheet is mostly just to help out the GPMers and tuggers to know where there focus areas are going to be for the night. We use to have them, but we got away from them a couple years ago.

For our building, we have a manual dock and an ART dock. Anything that comes from an art dock, whether it's main or side doors is thrown up by IB either on their lines or on the depal cart line. The reason being that anything that comes from an ART door set that goes through the mezz Outbound DOES NOT get credit for it. In the past IB sometimes would try to pull a fast one, and if they were receiving full pallets or carts of flow on the ARTs they would sometimes sneak it in with our freight. It didn't stop until one day someone checked because depal missed their plan by 50% and someone started checking label headers and realized that depal had just thrown up most of IB's conveyable plan.

Anything that's received on the manual dock however, can be thrown by depal. So that stuff is generally already built on pallets or will be built on pallets that's brought over by GPMers Outbound DOES receive credit for throwing it. 

We also have a separate non-con dock that's out in the shipping wing for receiving non-con. IBTs are currently unloaded by IB Problem Area. Mostly because we were receiving so many poorly built IBTs that PA was already spending half the night fixing and damaging it out.

Also small correction, PIPO stands for pallet in/pallet out. Freight stays on the pallet from the time it enters the building until the time it exits the building.


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## ManMythMachine (May 26, 2020)

BoxedIn said:


> At my building the non con GPMer unloads IBTs, I don't mind doing it, much easier for me to unload a couple each day then for the ART GPMer to have to haul it all to the other side of the building. It was annoying for a while when we were not allowed to take PRTs into trailers, but now that we can again they are easy enough to unload as long as IB doesn't put a bad pallet build on there or super slick items.
> 
> I know in my department a lot of the newer machines have been sped back up from TMs figuring out how to do it, not sure if its the same in other departments here lol.


I might have to google turning up crown equipment since sometimes when I'm tugging now I see people walking slowly and pass me as I drive in "rabbit" mode.  Makes me cry.


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## FrankM0421 (May 28, 2020)

ManMythMachine said:


> I might have to google turning up crown equipment since sometimes when I'm tugging now I see people walking slowly and pass me as I drive in "rabbit" mode.  Makes me cry.



All of our stuff is yale. I've checked the settings on the SP's when slow but they're all set to 6.4mph  I had one that would only get up to 4.7mph and probably only 1mph if the wheel wasn't straight. That was a slow night.  Seems like these things only get maintenance when something breaks.


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## ManMythMachine (Jun 2, 2020)

FrankM0421 said:


> All of our stuff is yale. I've checked the settings on the SP's when slow but they're all set to 6.4mph  I had one that would only get up to 4.7mph and probably only 1mph if the wheel wasn't straight. That was a slow night.  Seems like these things only get maintenance when something breaks.


I feel sorry for you.  We had some Yale stuff as a test run but the cables & chains on the order pickers looked more exposed, the triples seemed like they would run you into an aisle post because the turning control was not tight nor smooth, and the reach trucks were slow and clunky.  I lift up my foot on the Crown RR during rack puts for plugging but the Yale didn't plug.  It just dead stopped and kicked like a mule.  I also noticed when the forks reach their highest point it would suddenly stop violently and rain stuff down off the pallet but some of the crowns did this too so there might be a setting to fix this.  We had some Yales for a while but thank goodness they're all gone now.  I've worked with sit down Yale forklifts and they are a decent machine but these stand ups seemed inferior to Crown equivalents.

I figured spot corp had a company wide contract with Crown but since you have Yales, I guess each DC can make their own decisions.  Interesting.


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## BoxedIn (Jun 2, 2020)

Yeah, we had a couple of Yales for a while at my building. I never used one of the RRs, the SP was ok though I prefer the crown SP controls, the PRT would slide a bit if you turned too fast, and the foot pedals were super sensitive so you couldn't shift your weight around much without it stopping.

I heard we sent all the Yale stuff to one DC so we didn't have mixed brands, glad it wasn't my building =P

Now we have gotten pretty much all new crown equipment. Though we have tons of extra SPs and RRs always sitting around, IB is always short on RCs still it seems.


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## Dcnewb4now (Jun 2, 2020)

BoxedIn said:


> Yeah, we had a couple of Yales for a while at my building. I never used one of the RRs, the SP was ok though I prefer the crown SP controls, the PRT would slide a bit if you turned too fast, and the foot pedals were super sensitive so you couldn't shift your weight around much without it stopping.
> 
> I heard we sent all the Yale stuff to one DC so we didn't have mixed brands, glad it wasn't my building =P
> 
> Now we have gotten pretty much all new crown equipment. Though we have tons of extra SPs and RRs always sitting around, IB is always short on RCs still it seems.


Check non con. Our ib non con team has 7 down there consistently.

we had a few Yale pieces to try for a fall season or something. The rc’s were tanks. Huge in comparison to the new version crown rc’s.
I know that the South Carolina dc/sfrdc have yale equipment.


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