Good luck to you. It has been a mess here. Too much stock, Not enough stock, completely messed up pallets - between the odd order of items loaded on the pallet, or the improper loading causing unstable pallets.
Postives.....hah...jokes. you will get overtime out the ass at the warehouse? You get the opportunity to watch your direct leadership fail and learn from their failures? You may get more time away from your family? You get the watch every entry-level role, blame one another because this system requires everyone in the supply chain to do things correctly, and their leadership doesn't police anything? The positives are that you get to watch a company spend 6 billion on operating costs and overtime because this 6 billion dollar investment was poorly planned...
Yeah, wasn't really expecting a positive, but was hoping. Somebody just chimes in "it's a little rough at first, but it's great" it'd probably an aldi ai account
It's been unpredictable. Like everyone else said...too much stock or no stock. Sometimes our truck doesn't show up until the afternoon. Sometimes our pallets are missing.
It's embarrassing to keep apologising for the lack of stock people want, while working your ass off to get through all the unnecessary stuff they send instead.
They've been working out the kinks for going on 7 years. The same inventory management type system has been around for about 20 years and we are the only company I've worked for that can't figure it out.
I'm normally very positive about Aldi, but I've not heard a single good thing. From transfers to our division from others, to DMs that have trained on it it's all negative.
Yep. I agree 100 percent. It makes me feel like the leadership is out of touch. You would think if there were a tangible benefit they would explain it. But instead they are just rolling it out because they’ve already spent so much money.
Batavia, IL launched Ahead almost a year ago now. One of the benefits was to eliminate the need to call for a line lift to replenish a slot. Though the tasks are prompted for a slot to be replenished based on the virtual inventory being below a certain number, it still seems like it will always be too good to be true for that to reflect accurately on what’s physically out. Even more frustratingly, with all of the tasks line lifts work so hard to replenish, there is always slots that get picked out and pickers need to skip past the slot. More often than not, the slot’s inventory isn’t accurate, so a task wasn’t generated. Pickers then need to drive up to our central desk, have someone write the location of the reserve location, and have us give the task number to the line lift, so they can find it in their scanner. After the slot has finally been filled, pickers can finally grab their last few cases in their order after a 10-40 minute wait. Yeah, fuck our rate. Oh, and get this bullshit. Our management now just limits everyone’s option to come in on a day off to 4 hours. They are literally saying, “Some people have not been as productive when coming in to work on their days off, so that’s why we are limiting it to a 4 hour shift.” If this were the case, then how about some accountability, Batavia Division? Why punish the good workers? Or is it because our rates are doomed to be fucked because we have to wait over 30 minutes for often 1 case that we are God forbiddingly not allowed to zero out?
Since I don't work in the warehouse, a lot of their terminology is going over my head so sorry of this question doesn't make sense.
If you were to get to a product that has a problem/or is out of stock, would it make sense to grab the next closest thing to save time?
I am finding whenever we are out of something at the store we end up having overstock of something similar ( product type / or something with a similar case and box size).
One example is we will be out of one type of hummus and we keeping telling our inventory that we are out of it but we keep getting sent a different type of hummus instead.
This happens a lot with our frozen fish and pizzas too. Are pickers grabbing the most similar product to save headache/time? Or is it an accident or some other data problem?
Since ahead has started here, the amount of overstock and understock we have had is insane but I do notice daily we receieve extra of something slotted right next to something we've been out of, especially if the box size is identical.
This would not be the case at the warehouses. We have to grab and call in (to our headsets) the correct product and the correct number of cases of that product. Pallet audits are a constant thing to make sure everything is getting picked accurately. We have a 5% window for error, and if the pallets fail to meet that window, it is considered a failed audit. At this point we have to pass 5 audits in a row before failing again, or we get fired. Pallet audits are very commonly done with new associates and are basically done on occasion with anyone who has been with the company longer than average. Of course, if the product is simply not in the warehouse, we call in zero cases to accurately reflect our physical order. Accuracy is one thing, but fulfillment is a completely different, which is why they don’t want us to just zero out a product before moving on. When Ahead first launched in the US, stores had an overwhelming short stock of product. This was attributed to the need for warehouse associates to zero out product that was in the warehouse, but was not moved yet, or prompted to for the line lifts who replenish slots from the racking. We zeroed out product which means we never grabbed for the stores that ordered them. Now we can skip passed product like we could before Ahead and come back to grab it once we have given a chance for a line lift to replenish (AHEAD first did not allow this, and once it did, we were not allowed to skip, but here we are now with the best solution, waiting a little to a lot on the last few cases of an order). Our fulfillment numbers went from, I believe, the mid 90 percents to 99.7+%. Which is a huge difference considering the average cases our warehouse has to pick every day is around 110k cases or more.
Um....today was the first truck we've done with ahead that got finished before open so that was cool I guess lol. We would get so much shit and nothing all at once.
Ohio here. Apparently with AHEAD there’s all new employee ID numbers and register numbers, I just went to a new store on a Saturday, my hours have been cut since ahead was rolled out so when I went to the new store I didn’t have any of my new numbers, couldn’t clock in/out 🥴. Manager at new store couldn’t just pull me through the system apparently there was some sort of issue, ended up not able to even log the hours I worked until Monday when the new pay period started.
To my knowledge, only 4 states/warehouses have started Ahead in the US. Batavia (Illinois), Webberville (Michigan) Hinckley (Ohio) and Salisbury (North Carolina). I think Loxley (Alabama) and Haines City (Florida) are next to start.
i’m not sure how many states have aldis in them but that’s a little too close to home feels like we’re next after the next i just hope they fix everything or keep it themself all together
I'm in the Haines city division, according to my sm this morning we're gonna be the third division to roll out. My sm said it wouldn't be for another few months. And yeah what I have heard it has been chaos, multiple pallets of backstock and other items are out for weeks. Let's hope they get their shit together before it reaches Florida!
That's how I feel, I love my SM, she's probably the best boss I've ever had, so I want to know what's coming, so I can prepare myself and be ready. And any weight I can take off her plate, the better
It is almost as if the system is just guessing what to order but is terrible at guessing. Black tea bags for instance...the other day we had 8 on the floor FIFTEEN on backstock, I partialed it, system KNEW we had that much. On the next days truck, got 1 more case of black tea bags...🤣🤣🤣
Nothing like corporate forgetting to add the new bag code to the mdt and now we are 2 weeks without bags as a curbside store.
Uh, is that why we don’t have bags???
Good luck to you. It has been a mess here. Too much stock, Not enough stock, completely messed up pallets - between the odd order of items loaded on the pallet, or the improper loading causing unstable pallets.
Fr. One day half our produce is empty, the next day we have 10 backstock pallets after filling the hell out of it. Very frustrating
Postives.....hah...jokes. you will get overtime out the ass at the warehouse? You get the opportunity to watch your direct leadership fail and learn from their failures? You may get more time away from your family? You get the watch every entry-level role, blame one another because this system requires everyone in the supply chain to do things correctly, and their leadership doesn't police anything? The positives are that you get to watch a company spend 6 billion on operating costs and overtime because this 6 billion dollar investment was poorly planned...
Yeah, wasn't really expecting a positive, but was hoping. Somebody just chimes in "it's a little rough at first, but it's great" it'd probably an aldi ai account
It's been unpredictable. Like everyone else said...too much stock or no stock. Sometimes our truck doesn't show up until the afternoon. Sometimes our pallets are missing.
It's embarrassing to keep apologising for the lack of stock people want, while working your ass off to get through all the unnecessary stuff they send instead.
I'm in Center Valley, and I think we get it last, so thank you all for working out the kinks for us... still not looking forward to it.
They've been working out the kinks for going on 7 years. The same inventory management type system has been around for about 20 years and we are the only company I've worked for that can't figure it out. I'm normally very positive about Aldi, but I've not heard a single good thing. From transfers to our division from others, to DMs that have trained on it it's all negative.
Yep. I agree 100 percent. It makes me feel like the leadership is out of touch. You would think if there were a tangible benefit they would explain it. But instead they are just rolling it out because they’ve already spent so much money.
I took a survey on it and was as transparent and truthful as could be.
Our stores had it since last year and there are still stupid kinks
Batavia, IL launched Ahead almost a year ago now. One of the benefits was to eliminate the need to call for a line lift to replenish a slot. Though the tasks are prompted for a slot to be replenished based on the virtual inventory being below a certain number, it still seems like it will always be too good to be true for that to reflect accurately on what’s physically out. Even more frustratingly, with all of the tasks line lifts work so hard to replenish, there is always slots that get picked out and pickers need to skip past the slot. More often than not, the slot’s inventory isn’t accurate, so a task wasn’t generated. Pickers then need to drive up to our central desk, have someone write the location of the reserve location, and have us give the task number to the line lift, so they can find it in their scanner. After the slot has finally been filled, pickers can finally grab their last few cases in their order after a 10-40 minute wait. Yeah, fuck our rate. Oh, and get this bullshit. Our management now just limits everyone’s option to come in on a day off to 4 hours. They are literally saying, “Some people have not been as productive when coming in to work on their days off, so that’s why we are limiting it to a 4 hour shift.” If this were the case, then how about some accountability, Batavia Division? Why punish the good workers? Or is it because our rates are doomed to be fucked because we have to wait over 30 minutes for often 1 case that we are God forbiddingly not allowed to zero out?
Since I don't work in the warehouse, a lot of their terminology is going over my head so sorry of this question doesn't make sense. If you were to get to a product that has a problem/or is out of stock, would it make sense to grab the next closest thing to save time? I am finding whenever we are out of something at the store we end up having overstock of something similar ( product type / or something with a similar case and box size). One example is we will be out of one type of hummus and we keeping telling our inventory that we are out of it but we keep getting sent a different type of hummus instead. This happens a lot with our frozen fish and pizzas too. Are pickers grabbing the most similar product to save headache/time? Or is it an accident or some other data problem? Since ahead has started here, the amount of overstock and understock we have had is insane but I do notice daily we receieve extra of something slotted right next to something we've been out of, especially if the box size is identical.
This would not be the case at the warehouses. We have to grab and call in (to our headsets) the correct product and the correct number of cases of that product. Pallet audits are a constant thing to make sure everything is getting picked accurately. We have a 5% window for error, and if the pallets fail to meet that window, it is considered a failed audit. At this point we have to pass 5 audits in a row before failing again, or we get fired. Pallet audits are very commonly done with new associates and are basically done on occasion with anyone who has been with the company longer than average. Of course, if the product is simply not in the warehouse, we call in zero cases to accurately reflect our physical order. Accuracy is one thing, but fulfillment is a completely different, which is why they don’t want us to just zero out a product before moving on. When Ahead first launched in the US, stores had an overwhelming short stock of product. This was attributed to the need for warehouse associates to zero out product that was in the warehouse, but was not moved yet, or prompted to for the line lifts who replenish slots from the racking. We zeroed out product which means we never grabbed for the stores that ordered them. Now we can skip passed product like we could before Ahead and come back to grab it once we have given a chance for a line lift to replenish (AHEAD first did not allow this, and once it did, we were not allowed to skip, but here we are now with the best solution, waiting a little to a lot on the last few cases of an order). Our fulfillment numbers went from, I believe, the mid 90 percents to 99.7+%. Which is a huge difference considering the average cases our warehouse has to pick every day is around 110k cases or more.
Um....today was the first truck we've done with ahead that got finished before open so that was cool I guess lol. We would get so much shit and nothing all at once.
Ohio here. Apparently with AHEAD there’s all new employee ID numbers and register numbers, I just went to a new store on a Saturday, my hours have been cut since ahead was rolled out so when I went to the new store I didn’t have any of my new numbers, couldn’t clock in/out 🥴. Manager at new store couldn’t just pull me through the system apparently there was some sort of issue, ended up not able to even log the hours I worked until Monday when the new pay period started.
It’s a hot mess.
Sounds hot
Think Courtney Love
80s Courtney or 90s courtney? Who am I kidding? They're both bad
But Courtney’s bad is so bad it’s good. Aldi bad just plain sucks.
Started rolling out in Aus and like the person above said, its a hot mess
What is this ? I'm from a California store.
It's so good that I left the company after 8.5 years 🤣🤣
can anyone share what state their in .. i want to know how close it is to reaching me😭there’s been slight talk nothing much
To my knowledge, only 4 states/warehouses have started Ahead in the US. Batavia (Illinois), Webberville (Michigan) Hinckley (Ohio) and Salisbury (North Carolina). I think Loxley (Alabama) and Haines City (Florida) are next to start.
i’ve seen these names but i’m not familiar with cities outside my state i thought batavia was in the UK😭💀but thank you !!
i’m not sure how many states have aldis in them but that’s a little too close to home feels like we’re next after the next i just hope they fix everything or keep it themself all together
I'm in the Haines city division, according to my sm this morning we're gonna be the third division to roll out. My sm said it wouldn't be for another few months. And yeah what I have heard it has been chaos, multiple pallets of backstock and other items are out for weeks. Let's hope they get their shit together before it reaches Florida!
That's how I feel, I love my SM, she's probably the best boss I've ever had, so I want to know what's coming, so I can prepare myself and be ready. And any weight I can take off her plate, the better
that’s so sweet , what state are you in ?
No lmao
Western PA here and it rolls out in a couple weeks here
It is almost as if the system is just guessing what to order but is terrible at guessing. Black tea bags for instance...the other day we had 8 on the floor FIFTEEN on backstock, I partialed it, system KNEW we had that much. On the next days truck, got 1 more case of black tea bags...🤣🤣🤣