# Sweep pet peeves?



## Ringwraith917 (Sep 24, 2022)

I've recently taken on the role of receiver at a store level and have been loading the sweep trailer following my meager amount of training. I was wondering: What are the common mistakes that cause headaches for the DC on the return sweeps from stores.

Bales
Pallets
Plastic bags
Repack boxes
Salvage 
CRC
Misc:
_car seats
_metal recycling
_fixtures
_the new folding gray pallets


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## WHS (Sep 24, 2022)

Well considering most RDCs are no longer taking sweeps and are going to the new sortation centers?  Most feedback here is likely to to be irrelevant


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## YugTegrat (Sep 24, 2022)

WHS said:


> Well considering most RDCs are no longer taking sweeps and are going to the new sortation centers?  Most feedback here is likely to to be irrelevant


Did anything change store-side regarding sweeps then? If they’re going to sortation centers, can we load sweeps on every trailer or send back merchandise transfers outside of pay weeks?


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## InboundDCguy (Sep 24, 2022)

WHS said:


> Well considering most RDCs are no longer taking sweeps and are going to the new sortation centers?  Most feedback here is likely to to be irrelevant


You mean the stuff that would go on a sweep will be picked up on the sort center driver’s route? Or am I misunderstanding this? 
There isn’t a sort center near my DC atm so we’re still sweeps as normal.


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## BoxedIn (Sep 24, 2022)

InboundDCguy said:


> You mean the stuff that would go on a sweep will be picked up on the sort center driver’s route? Or am I misunderstanding this?
> There isn’t a sort center near my DC atm so we’re still sweeps as normal.


I heard that a 3rd party warehouse will start handling sweeps for my DC, I assume it will be loaded as backhaul like normal from the stores and the drivers will just take it to the other warehouse for processing before the trailer returns to us. 

I think we are installing some new inbound lines that will take up the dock space we use for sweeps or something. Time will tell I guess, only really piecing together rumors atm.


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## InboundDCguy (Sep 25, 2022)

Ringwraith917 said:


> I've recently taken on the role of receiver at a store level and have been loading the sweep trailer following my meager amount of training. I was wondering: What are the common mistakes that cause headaches for the DC on the return sweeps from stores.
> 
> Bales
> Pallets
> ...


This topic was covered a few years ago, I doubt anything’s changed much.








						Archived - Sweep Peaves and Preferencess
					

I don't have a problem loading a sweep, but I am wanting to know if at the DC you have a preference on how things are sent. I've only had one trailer feedback form, but it happened when I was on vacation.  What are your peaves? Do you prefer certain recyclables at the end of the trailer? Also I...




					www.thebreakroom.org
				







BoxedIn said:


> I heard that a 3rd party warehouse will start handling sweeps for my DC, I assume it will be loaded as backhaul like normal from the stores and the drivers will just take it to the other warehouse for processing before the trailer returns to us.
> 
> I think we are installing some new inbound lines that will take up the dock space we use for sweeps or something. Time will tell I guess, only really piecing together rumors atm.


I wonder if that’ll apply to everything or just the recycling aspect of sweeps. A 3rd party would still need to sort/return transfers and all of the stuff that the DCs reuse somehow.


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## Tacopie (Sep 25, 2022)

Ringwraith917 said:


> I've recently taken on the role of receiver at a store level and have been loading the sweep trailer following my meager amount of training. I was wondering: What are the common mistakes that cause headaches for the DC on the return sweeps from stores.
> 
> Bales
> Pallets
> ...


Hmmm, is ours the only store putting all the car seat in the trash? 9 times out of 10 it gets stuck.


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## Ringwraith917 (Sep 25, 2022)

Tacopie said:


> Hmmm, is ours the only store putting all the car seat in the trash? 9 times out of 10 it gets stuck.


You're supposed to have big white boxes with separate lids specifically for car seats. To send them back on the sweep. There was a communication on work bench about it last week reminding everyone to make sure they're not overflowing


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## vendordontmesswithme (Sep 25, 2022)

This was the lowest participation we had of car seats.  Only returned 4 boxes.  They're not that full.  Only 6 to 8 to a box because any more it's hard to secure the lid.  It's vert time consuming to bale the excess boxes.


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## WHS (Sep 25, 2022)

Ringwraith917 said:


> You're supposed to have big white boxes with separate lids specifically for car seats. To send them back on the sweep. There was a communication on work bench about it last week reminding everyone to make sure they're not overflowing


They’re called GAYLORDS


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## seasonaldude (Sep 25, 2022)

vendordontmesswithme said:


> This was the lowest participation we had of car seats.  Only returned 4 boxes.  They're not that full.  Only 6 to 8 to a box because any more it's hard to secure the lid.  It's vert time consuming to bale the excess boxes.



Why would you bale them? We keep them for heavy salvage weeks. We sent at least 4 back this week of just shoes that went salvage.


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## InboundDCguy (Sep 25, 2022)

seasonaldude said:


> Why would you bale them? We keep them for heavy salvage weeks. We sent at least 4 back this week of just shoes that went salvage.


I loved stores that do that! So much easier to move!


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## vendordontmesswithme (Sep 26, 2022)

seasonaldude said:


> Why would you bale them? We keep them for heavy salvage weeks. We sent at least 4 back this week of just shoes that went salvage.
> [/QUOTE
> The shoes were just tossed in there??


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## seasonaldude (Sep 26, 2022)

The shoes were just tossed in there??

Yeah. They were salvaged out in the system first, then tossed into the gaylord. Beats tossing them in dozens of sterlite boxes.


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## dcguy86 (Sep 28, 2022)

The last time I did sweeps, it was really crappy pallet rebuilds. I had a salvage truck where all the pallets were falling over and as soon as I could pull the pallet out just a few feet I had to rebuild it and shrink wrap it. Also, not tying off plastic bags was a big temper raiser for me.


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## LiftHeavy (Oct 1, 2022)

I also heard the intent is eventually a privately contracted company will handle sweeps and RDC will be phasing them out.


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## Luck (Oct 1, 2022)

LiftHeavy said:


> I also heard the intent is eventually a privately contracted company will handle sweeps and RDC will be phasing them out.


I have heard the exact opposite. DC is swimming in salvage now because they got rid of the third party vendor that was handling it to reduce costs.


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## WHS (Oct 1, 2022)

Luck said:


> I have heard the exact opposite. DC is swimming in salvage now because they got rid of the third party vendor that was handling it to reduce costs.


Well that would explain why we can’t get rid of salvage right now


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## YugTegrat (Oct 1, 2022)

Since it’s on the subject of sweeps, are bales still taken off pallets and loaded in their own trailer at the DC? I’ve always wondered why stores aren’t allowed to put bales on CHEP pallets when you guys take them off the pallets anyway.


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## Luck (Oct 2, 2022)

YugTegrat said:


> Since it’s on the subject of sweeps, are bales still taken off pallets and loaded in their own trailer at the DC? I’ve always wondered why stores aren’t allowed to put bales on CHEP pallets when you guys take them off the pallets anyway.


Yes we do. Cant go on CHEP for that exact reason, harder to take them off.


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## YugTegrat (Oct 2, 2022)

Didn’t expect that, to be honest. They always break the regular wooden pallets that we drop them on, but never the CHEP ones.


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## InboundDCguy (Oct 2, 2022)

Luck said:


> Yes we do. Cant go on CHEP for that exact reason, harder to take them off.


I always found it significantly easier to take them off of a chep pallet. I thought the reasoning was because they don’t belong to Target.


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## YugTegrat (Oct 2, 2022)

InboundDCguy said:


> I always found it significantly easier to take them off of a chep pallet. I thought the reasoning was because they don’t belong to Target.


I've heard the same reasoning here, I was just confused as to why it mattered store-side if the DC was taking the bales off the CHEP pallets anyway. What's the difference if it comes on a stack or underneath a bale? It gets back to where it's going either way.

For us at stores, It's significantly easier to move bales around on CHEP pallets than it is to move them around on broken wooden pallets.


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## InboundDCguy (Oct 2, 2022)

YugTegrat said:


> I've heard the same reasoning here, I was just confused as to why it mattered store-side if the DC was taking the bales off the CHEP pallets anyway. What's the difference if it comes on a stack or underneath a bale? It gets back to where it's going either way.
> 
> For us at stores, It's significantly easier to move bales around on CHEP pallets than it is to move them around on broken wooden pallets.


I’d guess it’s because of the potential of damaging them. The way people are told to take them off of the pallets is, for lack of a better word, dumb. You constantly break shit. Some sweeps TMs figured out a better way, so now everyone in my building does that, but most buildings probably do it the “brand” way.
The only thing I ever criticized in sweeps as far as pallets was if stores sent things on FDC or small format pallets that were going to another company. That actually costs Target $, sending a bale on a chep pallet doesn’t, imo.


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## YugTegrat (Oct 2, 2022)

InboundDCguy said:


> I’d guess it’s because of the potential of damaging them. The way people are told to take them off of the pallets is, for lack of a better word, dumb. You constantly break shit. Some sweeps TMs figured out a better way, so now everyone in my building does that, but most buildings probably do it the “brand” way.
> The only thing I ever criticized in sweeps as far as pallets was if stores sent things on FDC or small format pallets that were going to another company. That actually costs Target $, sending a bale on a chep pallet doesn’t, imo.


It's a well-known rule for stores (that I've been to) to only ever send things back on the regular wooden pallets. That's salvage, CRC, metal recycling, gaylords with hangers or car seats, etc... It applied to bales too, but my store would still put bales on CHEP pallets because wooden ones would constantly break under the weight of them falling onto the pallet. I asked why forever ago, and I guess there's something on Workbench about how bales are taken off pallets and loaded into a separate trailer as tight as possible, so even though we weren't supposed to use CHEP pallets for bales, we kinda felt it was justified since the bales were just going to be taken off at the DC anyway.

How do you guys even get them off the pallets? I figured you had a forklift with rotating forks and just kinda dumped it, then used the forks to move it around. I had to pick one up off a plastic pallet once and barely managed by ramming the forks of our stacker into the bale and lifting it up.

The only times I remember FDC or other such pallets being sent back were when someone who didn't know any better brought something off the salesfloor (since we couldn't have wooden pallets on the salesfloor, only plastic) and loaded it on the sweep without our receiver knowing. Same for when things don't have the proper labels, car seat bins don't have lids, compost bins aren't properly bagged and zip-tied, etc... It's always because someone who didn't know any better tried to help out.


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## InboundDCguy (Oct 2, 2022)

There are sets of bollards that we’re supposed to put the bale next to so it won’t slide. Then we’re supposed to wedge the forks in between the bale and the pallet to lift the bale off of the pallet and put it on the bale trailer.
It’s easier to just dump it in front of the bale trailer and deal with it on the floor though.


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## Luck (Oct 3, 2022)

InboundDCguy said:


> I always found it significantly easier to take them off of a chep pallet. I thought the reasoning was because they don’t belong to Target.


I pulled a RWTM and just guessed 😁 maybe the risk of damage to CHEP pallets is correct.


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## Ringwraith917 (Oct 4, 2022)

So a salvage pallet built on a Chep pallet would be significantly more of a headache? This is the kind of content I was looking for thanks for your insights


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## Luck (Oct 5, 2022)

Not gonna lie, checking the sweeps dock today I saw basically every cardboard bale on a CHEP lol. Might as well do it if its easier all around for everyone.


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## InboundDCguy (Oct 6, 2022)

Ringwraith917 said:


> So a salvage pallet built on a Chep pallet would be significantly more of a headache? This is the kind of content I was looking for thanks for your insights


If a store sends something on a chep pallet, the DC isn’t going to rebuild it on a brown pallet, so it’s no different on our level. (Maybe there’s a DC that does, definitely not mine though)
The only reason process says “send everything on brown pallets” is money. We pay rent for every chep pallet that we get in until we return it to chep, so if we send it somewhere else, we’ll be paying rent for it until the end of time. (I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but the basic idea is there)


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## MrT (Oct 6, 2022)

13 years+ at Target and all I've ever done is use chep unless I couldn't.  Was told everything on brown which I do except bales.
I'm curious about merch sweeps because they used to be very particular about them before but I've noticed some questionable merch sweeps sent back from my store before and haven't gotten them back in a long time.  I do my best to do it properly when I can but it just seems to be how much can we get away with each and every time.


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## Luck (Oct 13, 2022)

Luck said:


> I have heard the exact opposite. DC is swimming in salvage now because they got rid of the third party vendor that was handling it to reduce costs.


I stand partially corrected, they got rid of that vendor to make way for the third party buildings that are fully taking over all reverse logistics processes for RDCs.


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