SLT Operational & Budget Planning – Bi-Weekly Wednesday Meeting

Current weekly rhythm deemed too tight; agreement to move SLT meeting to every other Wednesday
- No meeting next week; resume the following Wednesday
- New agenda to be circulated before the next session
Parallel “Inventory Meeting” is handling many detailed topics; need to clarify what still belongs in SLT to avoid duplication

Open-Enrollment
- Deadline: Wednesday (this week)
- Daily completion report will be sent to Charlie; end-of-day status update promised
401(k) Enhancement
- New partnership with Greystone Consulting
- Services offered to employees (all free):
- Budget coaching
- Credit-card debt counseling
- Full personal financial planning
- Early feedback: strong employee interest; Joe attended the presentation but has not enrolled yet

Charlie still owns removal of “cargo salt” from the priority list—has not completed it yet
Persistent challenges with pizza boxes logistics; remains on “to-fix” list
Warehouse clean-up / picking issues may require outsourcing; test another internal round first, then decide

Orlando Brand Pickup
- Brand does not fit on regular route trucks due to bulkheads
- Proposal: run $53'$ trailers and buy full truck-loads for efficiency
- Route drivers leave Cleveland with $400!\text{–}!600$ cases; need <1 hr load time at pickup to stay within HOS limits
EZO / Backhaul Frequency
- Charlie requests clear rate calculators and automatic admin-fee credits for every special pickup
- If next trial fails, outsourcing likely
Returned Load Example
- Margin on one load $\approx 6\%\text{–}6.25\%$
- $125$ cases returned— unclear if shipment remained profitable
Trailer Utilization
- Dropping empty trailers ties up equipment; affects labor cost and equipment reduction targets

Acumatica Contract-Module
- Status: In Whitney’s queue; unlikely to activate in $2024$
- Revisit during 2026 budget cycle
Pepper vs. Oro E-Commerce
- Oro flaw: catalog shows inflated pricing which deters purchase
- Pepper dynamically applies pricing rules from Acumatica; expected to grow “onesie-twosie” case volume
- Pepper honors restricted-item rules; relies on properly configured master data

Dave & Whitney will start next-year budgeting NOW (not Nov/Dec as last year)
Each leader must prepare:
- What worked / what failed YTD
- Wish-list items and staffing adds
- GL-code structure changes (e.g., Charlie wants to collapse many small “parking-lot” buckets)
Learning year: goal is to link every cost back to a department for accountability

Core principle: “Budget = Accountability + Predictability”
Pain points
- Transportation charged for tasks initiated by Merchandising/Sales (early pickups, late receives) without credit offset
- Quality-of-life: overtime & late departures (team out as late as 18:00–19:00)
- Bonus metrics ignore density gains (now > $40$ cases/hr vs $38$ last year)
Proposed solution
- Every special move gets a reason-code & $cost calculator (e.g.,$ \$200 $per off-route)</li> <li>Example:$ 12 \times \$200 = \$2400 debit to requesting department
- Need monthly report buckets: OR (off-route), OC (override credit), ship-vehicle, RDP backhaul, etc.

Joe’s team can assign reason codes on POs & time-clock tasks
BFC/HR Butler already have overtime task codes; must ensure they map to reporting
Whitney: Without data “all I hear is noise” → each complaint must list
- What happened
- Whose decision it was
- Hours, cost, and impact
Long-term goal: real-time dashboards of freight, labor, credits

Frustration over returns >24 h (produce empties, bad seals) getting automatic credit $9!–!11$ days later
Existing SOPs distributed by email; enforcement inconsistent
Need centralized repository & onboarding path so new hires know guardrails
Customer-minimum / delivery frequency
- Official minimum $\$1000$ order, but many exemptions
- Some customers order every 2–3 weeks, fragmenting routes
- Jeff adding “delivery-relation” field in Acumatica to pair small stops with large neighbors for reporting accuracy

Data-loggers placed outside boxes (set 1) and inside boxes (set 2)
- Monitors acclimated in cooler $\rightarrow$ packed Saturday $\rightarrow$ delivered; temps held near $40^{\circ}\text{F}$
- Conducted during hottest two weeks of year; variability low
Outcomes
- Dramatic drop in produce credits (only 1 credit last 2 weeks)
- Supports marketing push to raise produce penetration & case volume
Next steps
- Package results for next Friday’s sales meeting (talking points: packaging, Pro-Act partnership, cold-block success)

Sonic: cases down YTD; overall company case count down $60{,}000$ but street business up, compensating
Goal: push more paper, disposables, chemicals, produce cases through system, not just margin

Current IT help-desk software renewed for one more year; intent to migrate to open-source tool afterward (save )
Until then: each department keeps SOPs on Microsoft Teams; licensing limits broad access to KB

Transportation department finally fully staffed; now focusing on team-building
Industry benchmark: food-service driver retention \approx 50\%; RDP hopes new hires stick

Late truck today will delay inbound & outbound; Kenny requests new payroll task code to track true cost
Recent oddities at Cassano’s:
- Key didn’t work at franchise location; driver encountered sleeping man inside store
- GPS mis-sequenced stop order; invoices rescanned
Upcoming PFG cross-dock load; likely one truck with all “end codes” pre-set; pickup like last time
Blends program created extra Shepherdsville shuttle runs; Charlie questions why decision made without cross-functional approval
Parking-lot, jump-start, and equipment issues trending down; may delete detailed GL buckets next year

Transparency & communication: leaders must share rationale before imposing costs on other teams
Data-driven accountability vs. anecdotal complaints
Work-life balance for hourly staff
Continuous improvement over “thirty years of crap” requires patience but firm metrics

Whitney
- Start one-on-one budget meetings with each leader
- Build proof-of-concept structure for cross-charging transportation costs
Charlie
- Remove “cargo salt” from priority list
- Draft blueprint of new cost-allocation buckets (backhaul, off-route, etc.)
Joe
- Add PO reason-codes & payroll task-codes; design monthly report format
Jeff (absent but assigned)
- Re-issue customer minimum / frequency SOP, enter delivery-relation pairs in Acumatica
Chelsea & Kenny
- Track extra hours & labor when inbound loads arrive late; send data to Whitney
HR / Payroll
- Ensure new overtime task codes appear on register for reporting
Chaz
- Finalize updated org charts for all teams
Everyone
- Prepare 2026 budget wish-list & required changes to GL layout before next bi-weekly meeting