I was wondering how long should it take one person to break down 14+ skids in produce? I like to add the backroom/cooler is a bit clustered with product. Thanks for your time.
Depends on how high each pallet is loaded, and what it consists of. In general, an average of from 8 to 10 hours. And that is IF the person is in great shape, muscular, and needs no assistance from others, such as in stacking pallets.
The "unloading truck" position is very hard, physically demanding, and time consuming........ and ESPECIALLY time-consuming if it is done PROPERLY. meaning, everything properly rotated, USE FIRST stickers applied, boxes dated, etc. The less room you have in the cooler and the larger the order, the harder it is to do a good job. The truck person is under-appreciated (at my store) and I suspect that is the rule at most stores.
14 pallets? How many pieces? How many pallets is vague. But most pallets are 50 pieces, so a 14 pallet truck, not including bananas and pallets of single product, is 700 pieces. That is fairly high for one truck guy.
Total stack time depends on the size of the truck. Most trucks, on average across all typical Kroger stores, are 400-500 pieces on any given day unless it is a 2 day truck. 2 day trucks are usually double, so 800-900 pieces. I am going to use a 500 piece truck for this example:
Unloading and bringing all the pallets to the Produce stockroom and cooler: One hour, maybe 15 or 30 minutes more depending on wait times while unloading the actual truck itself. Produce comes on perishable truck which has Dairy, Meat, and typically Frozen too.
Stacking and rotating the product takes anywhere from 2 hours to 6 hours. Expect 6 hours if you are stacking a 900 pieces truck yourself. But that is pretty rare and I've only seen it once.
The bananas and having to come back and date and sticker everything is what makes stacking trucks a bit frustrating and monotonous. You can stack a whole 500 piece truck yourself then once you're tired and finish, you need to take all the 30 bananas AT LEAST out to the sales floor and uncap one by one. That is back breaking. Then having to go back again and date everything you just put up.
Also, if your cooler and stock room aren't empty, you are actually putting up a larger truck than what the bills say as you have to rotate stuff. So a 400 piece truck can easily turn into 550 pieces.
Anonymous wrote:
Depends on how high each pallet is loaded, and what it consists of. In general, an average of from 8 to 10 hours. And that is IF the person is in great shape, muscular, and needs no assistance from others, such as in stacking pallets.
The "unloading truck" position is very hard, physically demanding, and time consuming........ and ESPECIALLY time-consuming if it is done PROPERLY. meaning, everything properly rotated, USE FIRST stickers applied, boxes dated, etc. The less room you have in the cooler and the larger the order, the harder it is to do a good job. The truck person is under-appreciated (at my store) and I suspect that is the rule at most stores.
8 to 10 hours? That is crazy. Unless the truck is running late and the truck guy comes in at the same time everyday, it should never take 10 hours unless he is putting up a 1,000 piece truck himself. Putting the truck up "properly", such as rotating and dating is doing the truck period. Dating and especially rotating is not "optional". Dating, I can understand, but not rotating? Are you deliberately trying to kill your freshness?
Also isn't a very demanding job, I've seen guys of all shapes and ages putting up trucks. It just takes conditioning.
The expectation here is that an average (probably 500 piece) truck be broken down in 4 hours by 1 person or 3 hours by 2 (including dating and rotating in an extremely cramped and overstocked cooler). This doesn't incoude bananas.
Produce gets called by for queuing constantly some days. The goal is rarely met. We also end up with a fair amking of 700 piecers.
The speed in which you break produce trucks is almost entirely dependent on your produce manager. If they do good orders, average 500 piece trucks should take two or three hours uninterrupted (rarely happens). Fast movers/ad items should always remain on pallets (hello to you $0.99 pineapples). If you got a bad produce manager, with bad inventory and orders, and you end up having to rotate a crap load of product, you may be there awhile.
The speed in which you break produce trucks is almost entirely dependent on your produce manager. If they do good orders, average 500 piece trucks should take two or three hours uninterrupted (rarely happens). Fast movers/ad items should always remain on pallets (hello to you $0.99 pineapples). If you got a bad produce manager, with bad inventory and orders, and you end up having to rotate a crap load of product, you may be there awhile.
You're right...An average 500 piece truck...About 2-3 hours, depending...I happen to be one of those guys...Unstacking the truck is what gives me the energy for those 10-12 bins of watermelons! And we go through product FAST! Making sure the cooler looks good (coded, dated, used first stickers applied, etc.) makes it much easier for the rest of the department to do their jobs and find what they need...Disorganization hurts them...AND YOU...in the process!
A good tip...Plan ahead...Have all necessary carts and supplies ready before the truck comes in, if possible...My first priority in the morning! Also, it doesn't hurt to keep a good marker or two on you at all times!
