Big Lots grew from Pic'n'Save
The first project was a new physical inventory system. At Pic'n'Save (PNS), every six months, the stores and the warehouses took a physical inventory. In those days, PNS valued its inventory as a large number of categories which contained subcategories by price points. For example, so many shoes at $5 per pair. The data entry was awkward and very slow. The old system restricted the data entry clerks in absurd ways. To correct a page required permission from the computer operator. Why would that be necessary and how would such a person know enough to approve any correction?
The new inventory system was based on new inventory tally sheets. Each sheet had three double columns of price and quantity. The new screens copied the format of the tally sheets; the screen fit well on the 24 line terminals of that era. The clerk could make adjustments until the clerk was satisfied. As the clerk keyed, the screen tallied quantities and total value. The total time for data entry dropped from six weeks of overtime to five days of regular time. The vice presidents were delighted because the financial reports could be completed a month faster than previously.
Shortly after the physical inventory went active, the vice president of the warehouse asked that my contract be terminated. He claimed that the documentation was too complicated for his clerks to understand. I was dismissed. Then it came to light that his own poor reading was his source his opinion, and further investigation revealed a false college degree. He was fired. I was called back to work on the warehouse bin system. During the same time period, my direct boss was let go for other misbehavior. The VP of Finance became my boss.
We copied a bin management module from a warehousing publication. The warehouse in Rancho Cucamonga was 1.6 million square feet with racks going above 60 feet. The overall effect was to double the number of pallets moved per shift. The module had three good features:
1) incoming inventory was staged according to its expected shipping dates.
2) travel by the fork lifts was interwoven. Multiple forklifts could be routed into the same aisle; the forklift with the deepest route would go first. The module also took the lift time into account. The bins were stacked above 60 feet; a lift could require a long time to travel up and down.
3) both the in-going and out-coming movements were charted. Often a forklift would carry one pallet into the aisle and carry a second pallet out of the aisle.
The last projects occurred at the headquarters in Carson. The VP of Finance wanted several changes to the payroll system. The first was to remove a similar intervention by the computer operator when a clerk wanted to alter a payroll sheet. We simply archived the old version of the sheet for several months and then deleted it. We next changed the tax tables to include effective dates. The system could then accept tax tables for future months while still processing current months. We finally generalized the payroll calculations to follow the same steps for each of the forty or so states.
We resolved cumulative round off errors by using a simple algorithm. Each payroll period, we calculated the current gross and added it to the year-to-date total, which we proportioned up to a full year. At that point, we calculated the taxes for such a year and then proportioned them back down to the current year-to-date. By subtracting the previously paid taxes from the year-to-date total, we got the current amount of tax. If there had been round off, it was absorbed by the current calculation. In essence, the round off never exceeded a penny. By rounding pay up and taxes down, the penny was in the employee's favor.
The new inventory system was based on new inventory tally sheets. Each sheet had three double columns of price and quantity. The new screens copied the format of the tally sheets; the screen fit well on the 24 line terminals of that era. The clerk could make adjustments until the clerk was satisfied. As the clerk keyed, the screen tallied quantities and total value. The total time for data entry dropped from six weeks of overtime to five days of regular time. The vice presidents were delighted because the financial reports could be completed a month faster than previously.
Shortly after the physical inventory went active, the vice president of the warehouse asked that my contract be terminated. He claimed that the documentation was too complicated for his clerks to understand. I was dismissed. Then it came to light that his own poor reading was his source his opinion, and further investigation revealed a false college degree. He was fired. I was called back to work on the warehouse bin system. During the same time period, my direct boss was let go for other misbehavior. The VP of Finance became my boss.
We copied a bin management module from a warehousing publication. The warehouse in Rancho Cucamonga was 1.6 million square feet with racks going above 60 feet. The overall effect was to double the number of pallets moved per shift. The module had three good features:
1) incoming inventory was staged according to its expected shipping dates.
2) travel by the fork lifts was interwoven. Multiple forklifts could be routed into the same aisle; the forklift with the deepest route would go first. The module also took the lift time into account. The bins were stacked above 60 feet; a lift could require a long time to travel up and down.
3) both the in-going and out-coming movements were charted. Often a forklift would carry one pallet into the aisle and carry a second pallet out of the aisle.
The last projects occurred at the headquarters in Carson. The VP of Finance wanted several changes to the payroll system. The first was to remove a similar intervention by the computer operator when a clerk wanted to alter a payroll sheet. We simply archived the old version of the sheet for several months and then deleted it. We next changed the tax tables to include effective dates. The system could then accept tax tables for future months while still processing current months. We finally generalized the payroll calculations to follow the same steps for each of the forty or so states.
We resolved cumulative round off errors by using a simple algorithm. Each payroll period, we calculated the current gross and added it to the year-to-date total, which we proportioned up to a full year. At that point, we calculated the taxes for such a year and then proportioned them back down to the current year-to-date. By subtracting the previously paid taxes from the year-to-date total, we got the current amount of tax. If there had been round off, it was absorbed by the current calculation. In essence, the round off never exceeded a penny. By rounding pay up and taxes down, the penny was in the employee's favor.