Target Corporation Case Study

Inside the Target Corporation there are many processes taking place every day. In this paper I will focus on the task of replenishment.
The task of replenishment begins with the distribution center loading the truck. The distribution center does not load the truck in any particular order. All the products that are marked to go to that specific retail location get loaded into the truck. From here to truck heads to the retail location where team members unload the truck box by box. No boxes are put on a pallet or shrink wrapped together. So the team members unload the boxes and on each box there is a label that states the section of the store the items go to. For example a box might say A(1) 2-3-4, this means that it goes into section A, aisle
The critical-to-quality characteristic in the define step is availability to the consumers and customer service. When consumers go to a retail location especially Target they want items to be in stock and receive great customer service. Everything in this process effects stock outs and customer service. There is time wasted in this process, which is wasted employee capital. It takes 20-30 team members from 4am-8am to unload the truck and stock the sales floor, this depends on the size of the truck, which depends on the sales volume of the store. The team members in the backroom however will spend about 4 hours more scanning in all the items that did not fit on the sales floor. This process could be improved by having the distribution center organize the truck before delivery. For example they could load the truck by section of the store, section A in the back of the truck, section B in front of that, etc. This would save time at the retail level. The team members would only have to unload the truck onto pallets, not separate as they go. Another improvement that could be made is to develop a system that knows how many units of an item need to go out onto the sales floor. This would improve the scanning of safety stock because the team that stocks on the sales floor will not be bringing back more items that did not fit on the shelves. This would save employee
The Target process should achieve the unloading of the delivery truck and the stocking of merchandise in the most efficient and effective way possible to ensure the limited number of stock outs and exceptional customer service. The critical process is the loading of the truck at the distribution center and the stocking items on the sales floor at the retail locations. The following process map is of the current